Compassionate Confrontation Psychotherapy: Working with Gifted but Self-Destructive Adolescents in a Therapeutic Boarding School

Until bright, creative, and alienated adolescents learn to make reasonable decisions, they will not engage in proactive, constructive, and creative change. Grounded in principles of reality therapy and choice theory, compassionate confrontation psychotherapy (CCP) stresses the concepts of conscious choice and acceptance of responsibility for one's actions. CCP provides a unique therapeutic experience to induce change. Viewed from this pragmatic and humanistic perspective, the overuse of psychiatric diagnoses and psychopharmacologic treatments inadvertently relieve gifted adolescents from accepting accountability for their choices. Evidence of the success of CCP can be found in the high percentage of alumni of the John Dewey Academy who are admitted to and complete their educations at leading colleges and graduate schools. Further evidence is provided by their academic performances at those institutions of higher learning.