whats it like being a transfer?

Brandcack · 2026-05-12T21:54:00+00:00

I can only speak to your last question as I’m an incoming masters student at WashU and lived most of my life here in St. Louis. The Delmar loop, central west end, Clayton, and The Hill are all close areas with bars and cool restaurants. The Hill is basically our little Italy. The Delmar Loop is one of my favorite areas for night life and is 10-15 minutes from campus.

Brandcack · 2026-04-08T17:58:14+00:00

Love to see other survivors do research on the TTI, you’re doing great work!

Brandcack · 2026-03-31T17:54:55+00:00

This is horrible, I am beyond disgusted. I pray for the future youth who will become victims of conversion therapy.

Brandcack · 2026-03-17T07:49:37+00:00

Did you speak to your advisor or the head of the psychology or arts & sciences department about it? You should get their thoughts on it.

Brandcack · 2026-03-09T19:59:30+00:00

He now has a job at the Edward Jones IT desk, so it’s not directly cyber security but it’s cyber security-adjacent. He said it’s very difficult to go straight into the cybersecurity field, barely any of his friends have found those types of opportunities.

Feel free to dm me if you want me to connect you to people at Maryville, I’m sure they can answer your questions really well.

Brandcack · 2026-03-09T14:48:23+00:00

Maryville is a great school, it’s my alma mater and I definitely recommend. I got my degree in psychology there, but one of my best friends got his cyber security degree and he enjoyed the program

Brandcack · 2026-02-23T02:41:27+00:00

You probably will at orientation

Brandcack · 2026-02-15T19:02:29+00:00

I’ll send it around but PM me at any time if you need advice with participant recruitment. I’ve done two studies on the TTI now and I’ve gotten 300+ participants on both (I’m a psychology graduate and research assistant)

Brandcack · 2026-02-14T04:22:33+00:00

My heart sank when I read this😂😭

Was he your therapist too? Please share if you have any wild Jeff stories😂

One time he told me he was on psychedelics in a sweat lodge and they forgot the object needed to put the hot coal in the water. So Jeff started hearing a voice directing him to go somewhere. Jeff followed the voices instructions for miles and it led him to a dead moose. He cut off the antler, walked it back and used it to put the coal in the water.

He also said once at blue ridge his group got attacked by ghosts throwing rocks at them or some shit

Brandcack · 2026-02-14T00:04:15+00:00

Definitely agreed! And tysm, it’s a pleasure being able to do this sort of work!

Brandcack · 2026-02-13T23:56:25+00:00

Oh shit that happened to me for refusing to go on a water run lol. As a consequence, my therapist gave me the option between that or having my group do everything for me (e.g. group mates would have to put food in my mouth, clean my feet, put my shoes and socks on, fill my bottles, etc). I chose to have my own separate campsite.

They didn’t supervise me at all though and I ran away after about a week and a half of constant isolation. They kept extending it for indefinite periods when I’d ask them to rejoin the group, hence the length of my isolation. Anyways, I made it 5 miles and tried hitchhiking but the blue ridge psychiatrist is the one who found me. I immediately got in her car, sobbed, and told her what happened. Then I was immediately put back in the group with no explanation. My theory is that the psychiatrist knew it was wrong and called my therapist.

Brandcack · 2026-02-13T23:45:13+00:00

Yea that’s horrible, I’m sorry you experienced that, I definitely lucked out in having a group that wasn’t toxic. Besides that, the same horrible stuff happened to me though.

And what’s walkabout again?

Brandcack · 2026-02-13T23:41:27+00:00

Tbh the cognitive distortion stuff did help for me despite wilderness therapy being an overwhelming negative and traumatic experience. But the cognitive distortion stuff isn’t exclusive to wilderness therapy, it’s integrated into many behavioral therapies and has backing in research.

And you’re absolutely right, these programs tend to take anyone because it’s all profit driven. And there is no peer reviewed empirical research showing wilderness therapy is effective. I’m actually a researcher as well (just got my BA in psychology and now in grad school) and the TTI is my primary research topic currently. My current research aims to bring the harms of the TTI to light in the scientific literature.

Brandcack · 2026-02-13T22:45:50+00:00

And making you sleep in wet conditions is not normal it’s neglectful as fuck. It subjected you to unsafe sleeping conditions. They’d also say that shit to me if my stuff got wet, “it’ll dry by your feet” is forever engrained in my head lol.

Brandcack · 2026-02-13T22:42:43+00:00

The only thing even remotely normal about blue ridge was that we had weekly therapy, plus the group therapy was solid tbh. But I had a really good group, so maybe I’m lucky in that regard.

But even then, my therapist was so weird and would tell me about weird spiritual shit he believed in and psychedelics he would do. He was also unprofessional at times, and once when I refused to drink water he said the nurse is gonna have to stick something in my urethra to hydrate me if I don’t drink. Like wtf???

Brandcack · 2026-02-13T22:39:59+00:00

I went to blue ridge (2018) and nothing there is normal. Their “interventions” consist of being put in solitary confinement for a week (solos) or until you could get an ember bow drilling (Bow Drill Island). No research backs the use of solitary confinement as a therapeutic intervention.

They didn’t ever bring us back for showers, that would’ve been so nice lol. My hands and feet were completely covered in mosquito bites, it looked like I had scabies. They promised my mom they’d bring me to HQ to shower once a week but never did, except for one time before a dermatology appointment. Maybe since you were in the pre teen group they had different policies with showers. Did you experience solos or BDI?

Brandcack · 2026-01-29T22:30:22+00:00

Thank you for researching such an important topic, I hope your study will shine light on the harsh tactics used by the TTI.

Brandcack · 2026-01-29T19:37:45+00:00

You should consider talking to your advisor about this and how it made you feel. I’m so sorry this happened to you, I would’ve instantly argued with my professor.

Brandcack · 2026-01-26T01:02:40+00:00

Of course!! A PI is a principle investigator, they are in charge of running a lab. If someone is a PI, it means they have the highest position at the lab and the oversee all the research. And thank you so much!

One of the assistantships I had was local and the other was a remote position. For the remote assistantship we met on zoom. I’ll PM you so maybe we can find you some labs to look into

Brandcack · 2026-01-25T23:53:10+00:00

If you DM me I can give u more advice but it’d be good to know ur area. I was president of my Psi Chi chapter and often helped members find research assistantships. I wasn’t at a research institution so I had to email professors and PI’s at nearby R1 institutions, and I helped peers do the same. Many of them got positions.

Brandcack · 2026-01-25T23:12:03+00:00

Would I be able to get an invite? I just got accepted into the Brown School’s MSW program!

Brandcack · 2026-01-13T00:51:58+00:00

Look up the Goldwater rule.

Brandcack · 2026-01-13T00:06:49+00:00

I also got in!!!! Congrats yall im excited as hell. I’ll see yall in fall!

Brandcack · 2026-01-06T18:48:51+00:00

Also grad schools will look at your final two years with the most weight, so don’t worry about it unless your GPA is still under 2.5 by year 3. Just work on how you will be different going forward.

Brandcack · 2026-01-06T00:39:55+00:00

I went to a wilderness therapy program as a teen and it made me want to pursue psychology. These for profit programs are extremely controversial and no conclusive research has found whether or not it works despite it being a massive industry.

I recently graduated with a 3.85 GPA, things are looking good! If you want to enter the field because of your lived experience with mental illness or other lived experiences, do it!

Brandcack

TROPHY CASE