I didn't even start on how many errors regarding riding and farm work are in there, that felt superfluous. Neither that DD of fucking course is a subset of BDSM/kink and as such again of fucking course needs consenting adults.
I'm just completely flabbergasted at how many people do not notice or consider it not noteworthy that someone gets described being brainwashed and sexually assaulted by therapists, and that that is at least not as it should be. I mean, never mind those who fetishise such stuff, I have no problem with that, but just at least this small tidbit, that ought to be worthwhile stating, no?
I never read it because I am not particularly look for BDSM stories except when I want porn (then I go to Nifty). But now I wonder why people who 5* this don't see what you see. Because this definitely gets LOTS of high stars rating
It happens often, in genre BDSM as well. One reason may be that I'm an active BDSM top, a sadist, who always already has one foot in prison for what she does. I read any kind of book through those glasses, meaning I always look for whether or not people deal with each other consensually. I can disregard a lack of consent where the setting allows for it (e.g. fantasy, scify, historicals, etc.) or where the non-con is dealt with in the plot (good example is Roberts' The Dark Duet series), or lastly where the abuse is the theme (happens in Leather+Lace and also in AJ Rose's Power Exchange series, well-done in both). And I need the authorial voice to stay neutral, to not subscribe to rape/abuse culture.
So it's not rare I have a very different take. Here I believe that people just cease to think because the "lurve" is so cute, cuddly and plushy between the participants. They just don't stop to place the whole thing within normal parameters (which is something I always do. I have a hard time suspending disbelief as well). Being European I get angry about authors doing that, because unlike American readers and writers I do believe that the written word influences how we think about a lot of things. If such abuse which still is a major bane of society gets painted harmless, then I don't think that's perfectly fine to do. Which is why some of my reviews can be scathing on that point--hoping that at least a few will read and crank up their thinking gears.
Ah, a "BDSM" book. Quotations around that because you and I know that's not BDSM...but it gets sold that way. And unfortunately a lot of people don't know or care about the difference. This is one of the reasons why I don't usually read BDSM, since it seems to be a crapshoot as to whether its going to be something like this or actual kink (and if it's actual kink whether it's going to be written well or not). I just prefer to avoid it these days.
Shifter stuff has a similar problem, a lot of it can be pretty rape-y, when it isn't being insta-love.
I'm kind of curious how the farm is written now though. An eventing stable in Wyoming?? I'm sure they exist, but it's not very common... this is a state that has a cowboy riding a bucking bronco as the state symbol.
holy shit I couldn't help myself, I'm reading bits and pieces of it and it's hilarious. Like, "We don't have coffee too many of our clients are caffeine dependent". Those guys would dead, dead, dead, murdered by caffeine-starved employees the first time they show up a 5 am and no coffee in sight. I'm pretty sure that counts as justifiable homicide in Wyoming. Cowboys run on cigarettes and coffee in my experience.
They don't want to retrain his gayness, they want to brainwash him to be a better CEO. I hear this all ties in into former abuse happening to prior therapists and men working on that farm, in the later books (which I'm not going to read).
One of the main problems I have with this whole thing is that DD is presented as some sort of sure-fire "cure" (and there it is practically the same as all those gay cure camps where electroshocks are used instead of beatings). That people actually get more out of this than simple sexual pleasure. That's also where I read reviews and do double-takes, when people write how "Dale is helped (through DD)". This is wrong on so many levels.
I have a working theory on this--readers ability to gloss over HUGE worrying issues of abuse as 'mere entertainment' or justifiably required to bring MC into/back into some sooper speshel fold or family.
It has to do with individual perception to the world, how we only see that which our lives to date have 'allowed' or programmed us to see. It's why dictators/haters/abusers are able to work in and infiltrate what seem to be ordinary well functioning societies, how good people become bigots or mindless sheep for the latest crappy deal for some minority (pick anyone of the many groups persecuted for not being part of 'acceptable' society).
We only see or focus on what we are told to see. If you are told its a 'lovely sweet romance and the couple are soooo cute and it's just AMAZING'...for a percentage of the population who are cued to do and think as they are told, that's exactly what they see and all the horrifying realities become part of the background noise that gets them where they want to go--HEA.
It's part of the deial culture we live in. We are cued to squee and bounce about our latest gadgets/clothes/whatever and completely ignore the true price paid to make it by slave workers in appalling conditions in other countries. It's a means to an end we like that is easily swept aside because we WANT the designer hand finished jeans or the pack of kids t-shirts from Walmart that's less than a cheap bottle of plonk.
I think you are spot on, Casey. Most readers see what others have seen or they are told to see. For example Character A "acts" like a total fuckwit (from someone else's POV), but because character B and character C praise them (a tell), the reader accepts that summation. This is different from unreliable narrators who are super tough on themselves or self-deprecating. I blame TV aka Virtual Valium which is full of opinions but they never present the facts so we can make up our own mind. Analytical thinking has gone by the board.
You sure have a point. A lot of the reviewers, and even people I chatted with about this series, do not at all see the abuse and the brainwashing. All they see is how fluffy and cute icky Dale-baby is once he functions as a properly dd'ed brat boy.
There are even those IN the lifestyle who defend this and state it's consensual "because Dale needs it". That is something which seriously floors me. As per the whole set up of this story, what Dale needs is professional therapy, preferably started off in a hospital where his hallucinations, faintings and flashbacks can be addressed, and then a few months off under regular /professional/ therapy. That's what he needs.
This is about FCR, right? I can't tell you how many people have rec'd it to me and want me to read it. I don't like D/s and BDSM stories, yet still they all think I would love it, they say it is so good and sweet and not really anything but discipline..one person told me about the stones the MC had to carry and thought it was great. After that I was sure I didn't want to read it.
"Discipline" is "sexual/erotic spanking". It is a subset of BDSM, though many DD aficionados try to hide that connection (especially those Christian guys who spank their wives because "God says so").
It /is/ a sexual paraphilia, a quite common one by the way, like just about any other kink. I have nothing at all against spanking or spanking or DD stories. What makes me livid are stories which clearly depict non-consensual DD (or BDSM), and it is written so that the readers never truly notice that it's rape and non-con. FCR has loads of readers who clearly, very very clearly don't get that the main character never agreed to what takes place.
Just read the fresh comments under my review. It is so bad I could cry.
It sounded non-con to me just from the (glowing) description of the story, I didn't see how they thought it either, I haven't read it, but like I said it was praised to me and I heard enough to think it was all happening against the MCs will. Are those comments on your GR review?
Yes, that's in a nutshell what I keep going on about! I personally (like Emma) LIKE such fantasies. No one can accuse me of sitting on some moral high horse (though of course some do and don't understand at all!), I like the very same thing. I just dislike being considered a fool. Or having basic ethics compromised.
A friend of mine called FCR "cocaine". Word for word: "Its a 'cocaine' book really.. I know its bad, but its addicitve all the same.. " and she didn't realise about it being "bad" until I pointed out that Dale was being coerced and abused.
What gets in the way of everything then is the assumption that words don't matter...
please please please have him calling his lawyer and suing the pants off everyone involved and then retiring in the Bahamas with the money he won in the suit.
OMG... I have to admit to being quite taken by this series. Even so, something niggled me as I was reading the 2nd book and I mention this on my GR review. The whole *family* idea started feeling cultish. So I see the creepiness and inappropriateness (and accept that the cowboy setting as stupidly unrealistic) and yet I will probably still read the last story because I want to see what happens.
But this seems to be happening on such a large scale. It reminds me of the whole 50 Shades debacle. Seemingly intelligent and reasoning women suddenly lose all ability to distinguish between abuse and smexxy smut. It's like a fog descends and the neural networking is somehow redirected into the wrong parts of the brain. Definitely a heavy dose of denial for the sake of being fashionable.
I think it's because stuff like bodice-rippers are no longer fashionable. Long gone is the contemporary in which the powerful CEO can just grab his secretary and rape her until she falls in love. That sort of thing isn't acceptable anymore. But put a layer of something 'else' in there (BDSM in this case, but I've seen it a lot in shifter and vampire stuff as well) and suddenly it becomes okay again. It's basically a modern version of a bodice-ripper. Take away the BDSM element and I'd like to think most of those reviewers would cry murder (I'm an optimistic kind of person)
the only good thing about this book is that the lack of actual Western in it inspired me to get off my ass and make some real chili. Hmmm chili...
I actually like reading rape fantasies. I know why they exist and why some women like them. And as long as everyone is upfront about what it is, I'm quite fine by it.
By which I mean: a neutral authorial voice distanced enough so the author doesn't come across buying into rape culture, a storyline which doesn't take advantage of something or people in real life. That's where I state that BDSM is absolutely and definitely no good place for rape fantasies or bodice rippers to come to roost! Especially not indiscriminately.
BDSMers already are fighting back to the wall against the law and prosecution in real life. There are still judges and juries who consider us complete barbaric perverts who beat up our partners and do unspeakable things to them. There are no equality rights for us, there never will be, because that's impossible. Can you imagine what happens if jury members somewhere are hooked on such books? Or if the judges at some court have read them? And end up thinking "s/he probably needed it"?
It needn't even be so dramatic. It entirely suffices for instance if someone who safeguards a friend or acquaintance who's out to play privately has her or his judgement distorted through reading too many of those books. It's absolutely not as if that hasn't and doesn't happen.
I think the paranormal ones have lulled them into a false sense of what is right and what is wrong. Writers and readers prefer that genre bcause you can dispense with the condoms, have insta love, mine-mine-mine and can ignore the day to day factors that gay people have to face in the real world.
Something which quite disturbs me about stories like FCR is that while you can count on women to be critical of contemporary M/F romance written like that, or at least in far greater numbers, it appears to be just fine and quite acceptable when such things happen to men.
I think one possibility for my personal so hefty reactions to this is because I'm geared to mainly think about the safety of males within the frame of BDSM, being someone who mainly plays with male partners.
But that parallels with a lot of ways writers can get away with depicting men badly, but should they use the same terms with a woman they're crucified.
I think what ever happens, it doesn't hurt to have contrasting views and debate. As long as people think before commenting and don't just regurgitate what someone else has said. Or as some of those commentors on your review do, project their own lives onto the story and ignore all the bits that don't fit. It's almost as if they take your criticisms as being against them and their decisions about their lifestyle instead of thinking about Dale as a real person.
That's the story of my life ;) I usually (and that means as good as always) discuss the book and the book only, as it relates to real life or as it relates to itself. I never do ad hominem commentary, certainly not while discussing a book. But these days people take everything personally. Even if you dislike a book, and they liked it, if you diss it, it of course is belittling or aggressing them, not the bloody book. O.o
Interestingly also that the main supporters of the story are subs. I think people who are inherently Doms are more likely to come to their own conclusion. I wonder if that's why there are so many sheep like readers out there who follow the herd. They like being "told" what to do and think. You, as a Dom, would have "treated" Dale totally differently. They don't get that.
I just had a look at "The Trap". I don't even need to read it. It disqualifies as BDSM right at the start where he kidnaps his love-interest. Everything after that is criminal, and it couldn't be remedied even by that guy agreeing to it under the duress he is subjected to.
It's a no-brainer. Already the premise clarifies this is criminal abuse. Now, had this been handled as just that, THEN this might have been an interesting read. But there are so many idiotic BDSM-wannabe-novels out there, which are simply bodice rippers and rape!fic in disguise, that I would tumble into an early grave if I read every one of them.
"Mind Control Made Easy, or How to Become a Cult Leader" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DGKJrgfHcw It's not a perfect one-to-one comparison, but I can see a lot of similarities between what Dale goes through (especially the separation from society and the love-bombing) and that.
They did that to my older brother last summer, creating team spirit or whatever. He sprung a herniated disc, badly pulled his back, needed an operation and was on sick leave for half a year. Another of the blokes broke his leg in several places and still isn't back to work. The rest of them had minor afflictions... broken fingers, asthma attacks, diarrhea, migraines, sunburn, bad charley horses, that sort of thing. Almost the whole group was on sick leave right after that course. ;)
Ah. Definitely not my book then. Not with a conscientiousness rating as high as mine. Oh wait. that's what I need to do. Stop trying to meet deadlines. Then I can look back on my life in old age and see that I have achieved nothing. Whereas at the moment, I gain lots of satisfaction from aiming high and succeeding. The OZmmMeet wouldn't have got off the ground if I hadn't tried to accomplish things. Why didn't they teach him coping mechanisms to have goals, reach them sanely and safely? That's what OB was all about for me. You can reach these goals if you practice (train before going on the course, break in the shoes, go for the morning runs) it's expecting to reach these heights or being expected to reach these goals with no preparation or support that causes burn out/failure/injuries. Not the tasks themselves.
Steel it depends on what is in his basic nature or personality. I believe these are as much genetically determined as our hair colour and height. Some people are just naturally goal oriented. Some aren't. Some are stubborn. Some are patient. I believe in knowing who you are and being able to be who you want to be, not what you are expected to be. Sure you can temper these underlying traits if they are physically or mentally harmful to you, but we are all different and should be allowed to be. That's what growing up is all about. Finding out who WE are.
So does he get encourged to take on positive goals at any stage and shown how he can reach them? Are there ever any goals he sets himself? What does he end up doing at the ranch?
So far it's a lot of make-work at the ranch, like moving rocks, and he gets punished if he works too fast. Admittedly I haven't read past chapter 3. The thing that bothers me is that the whole thing is dictated from above and he's treated like a child. Which wouldn't be a problem if he had decided that he wanted to try DD during a sabbatical and found the ranch on his own or something like that, but his company literally forced him to go and he wasn't properly informed about how he was going to be treated. There's no point in which he sits down with anyone (his company, the tops) and talks about his expectations, wants and needs, it's just assumed that what other people want for him is more important. I mean, there's an adult making a fully-informed decision to be treated like a child as part of a kink or lifestyle, and then there's actually treating an adult like a child who is unable to make his own decisions. Those are two completely different things, but a lot of people seem to be confused about it.
The question then is does the end justify the means and if given a choice would he have gone? That's the quandary. At any stage was he given the option to leave once he had "tasted" what their methods consisted of? This aspect is so easily solved writing wise if he had commented at any stage before he went about people going on Yoga retreats with all the fasting etc and said that wasn't for him but admitting to someone that he needed some sort of intervention but wasn't sure what.
The sex with therapist is another issue altogether. People often develop intense emotional connections with people who reach something inside them and teach them. The question is, how much would have happened anyway. If I'd been writing it, t would have been the therapist doubting the nature of this connection and insisting they go to neutral territory for a while (after the cure) and see whether the connection/feelings are still there. A similar setup occurred in Z.A.Maxfield's "Al Stirred Up" forget the aspect of how the initial "therapy" started, the situation was recognised and dealt with. Should there never be any connection between two people in that relationship? Herein lies the issue with boss/employee, teacher/student, priest/confessor.
These things happen in real life Stories which show ways that setup can develop ethically and morally are interesting.
Controversial "methods" for breaking through barriers have been used for yonks. Sometimes it is the untried and unexpected that works simply because the patient doesn't have any preconceptions/expectations attached.
Wrapping it up as DD is the problem.
And that's why this is a book I won't pick up. It's too easy to get caught up in a story and forget this very aspect. Abuse changes people, it changes their reactions, their choices, their ability to make reasoned decisions. To say he's happy 'in the end' is to ignore the distinct possibility that he is only happy because they have altered how he identifies with himself and those around him. Again, if a person realises they are on the wrong path and seeks this out for themselves I'm happy to go along with the ride and see where it takes them. When they are shipped off without any knowledge that they are about to be reprogrammed into something/someone else...that's Administration style mind fucking. Again, if the story is about the tradegy or non-con experience of such treatment it has a lot of potential, but when it is packaged as a HEA with lots of squeeing 'it was soooo what he needed poor little love'...uh, no. Not for me.
"The question then is does the end justify the means and if given a choice would he have gone?"
What Kate and Casey say! There is almost no justification for the end justifying the means in such a scenario. Especially with the whole underlying sexual and sinister stuff. I know of only one I could ever accept, which is shown in the movie "Ticket to Heaven" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_to_Heaven ) --the deprogramming of someone who has been programmed by a sect.
I have an old school friend who consciously chose the cult road. He was a junkie, a wreck and just about one needle away from death. Unable to do anything meaningful with his life, without work, killing his family in pieces. He himself chose to become a Jehova's Witness to get himself on the straight and narrow again. While I really dislike that sect for so many reasons, they did wonders for him. Within a year he not only was off drugs, he had received some basic training on a job they provided for him, was working, earning money, had moved into his own rooms, looked 200% healthier, and was happy with himself for the first time. That he also donated like 60% of his income to these guys. ah well.
They picked a bunch of middle-aged desk jockeys whose main sport is opening a bottle of beer on Sunday afternoon or walking the dog, and plunked them in the cold and wet open, marched them cross country for days. A sure-fire road to disaster if you ask me. They'd have needed half a year of steady physical activity to even consider this.
I totally agree but I do think there is a place for physically removing people from whatever is harming them, especially when they will not admit or see that what they are doing is harmful. It is very easy to live in denial. Anorexics do it all the time. We have no qualms about taking a child away from fire.
Yeah, I know he is not a child, but if his actions were TRULY HARMING HIM then perhaps some degree of intervention with or without his consent is needed.
But if this is done then they should take time out once they've broken through the barrier and stopped him spiralling out of control. Then work with him. Work out what is geting through and what isn't. Perhaps he could build a dry wall with the stones.
Waiting until he is dependent on them is just replacing one obsession/crutch with another. Neither is "strong" no matter what they say.
He is suffering from stockholm syndrome from day one. And he is in absolutely no mental state to have his mind fucked with like that.
Yes, we do it with anorexic (children), but you remember that there were now at least 3-4 adult models who died looking like concentration camp survivors and even their families were unable to do a thing?
More important, there is established treatment and therapy out there for what Dale suffers from. Supported by the medical profession methods, various kinds of therapies, and none of them involve kidnapping, unwilling patients, patients sexually molested or physically abused. So instead of sending Dale to that ranch it would have been easy enough to set him up with a professional, good therapist. It's not as if he wasn't basically willing to do "something" about his workaholism. That's how they tricked him there in the first place.
I'm just completely flabbergasted at how many people do not notice or consider it not noteworthy that someone gets described being brainwashed and sexually assaulted by therapists, and that that is at least not as it should be. I mean, never mind those who fetishise such stuff, I have no problem with that, but just at least this small tidbit, that ought to be worthwhile stating, no?
So it's not rare I have a very different take. Here I believe that people just cease to think because the "lurve" is so cute, cuddly and plushy between the participants. They just don't stop to place the whole thing within normal parameters (which is something I always do. I have a hard time suspending disbelief as well). Being European I get angry about authors doing that, because unlike American readers and writers I do believe that the written word influences how we think about a lot of things. If such abuse which still is a major bane of society gets painted harmless, then I don't think that's perfectly fine to do. Which is why some of my reviews can be scathing on that point--hoping that at least a few will read and crank up their thinking gears.
Shifter stuff has a similar problem, a lot of it can be pretty rape-y, when it isn't being insta-love.
One of the main problems I have with this whole thing is that DD is presented as some sort of sure-fire "cure" (and there it is practically the same as all those gay cure camps where electroshocks are used instead of beatings). That people actually get more out of this than simple sexual pleasure. That's also where I read reviews and do double-takes, when people write how "Dale is helped (through DD)". This is wrong on so many levels.
It has to do with individual perception to the world, how we only see that which our lives to date have 'allowed' or programmed us to see. It's why dictators/haters/abusers are able to work in and infiltrate what seem to be ordinary well functioning societies, how good people become bigots or mindless sheep for the latest crappy deal for some minority (pick anyone of the many groups persecuted for not being part of 'acceptable' society).
We only see or focus on what we are told to see. If you are told its a 'lovely sweet romance and the couple are soooo cute and it's just AMAZING'...for a percentage of the population who are cued to do and think as they are told, that's exactly what they see and all the horrifying realities become part of the background noise that gets them where they want to go--HEA.
It's part of the deial culture we live in. We are cued to squee and bounce about our latest gadgets/clothes/whatever and completely ignore the true price paid to make it by slave workers in appalling conditions in other countries. It's a means to an end we like that is easily swept aside because we WANT the designer hand finished jeans or the pack of kids t-shirts from Walmart that's less than a cheap bottle of plonk.
It's just my theory.
There are even those IN the lifestyle who defend this and state it's consensual "because Dale needs it". That is something which seriously floors me. As per the whole set up of this story, what Dale needs is professional therapy, preferably started off in a hospital where his hallucinations, faintings and flashbacks can be addressed, and then a few months off under regular /professional/ therapy. That's what he needs.
It /is/ a sexual paraphilia, a quite common one by the way, like just about any other kink. I have nothing at all against spanking or spanking or DD stories. What makes me livid are stories which clearly depict non-consensual DD (or BDSM), and it is written so that the readers never truly notice that it's rape and non-con. FCR has loads of readers who clearly, very very clearly don't get that the main character never agreed to what takes place.
Just read the fresh comments under my review. It is so bad I could cry.
What gets in the way of everything then is the assumption that words don't matter...
the only good thing about this book is that the lack of actual Western in it inspired me to get off my ass and make some real chili. Hmmm chili...
By which I mean: a neutral authorial voice distanced enough so the author doesn't come across buying into rape culture, a storyline which doesn't take advantage of something or people in real life. That's where I state that BDSM is absolutely and definitely no good place for rape fantasies or bodice rippers to come to roost! Especially not indiscriminately.
BDSMers already are fighting back to the wall against the law and prosecution in real life. There are still judges and juries who consider us complete barbaric perverts who beat up our partners and do unspeakable things to them. There are no equality rights for us, there never will be, because that's impossible. Can you imagine what happens if jury members somewhere are hooked on such books? Or if the judges at some court have read them? And end up thinking "s/he probably needed it"?
It needn't even be so dramatic. It entirely suffices for instance if someone who safeguards a friend or acquaintance who's out to play privately has her or his judgement distorted through reading too many of those books. It's absolutely not as if that hasn't and doesn't happen.
Chili. Hot damn. ;)
I think one possibility for my personal so hefty reactions to this is because I'm geared to mainly think about the safety of males within the frame of BDSM, being someone who mainly plays with male partners.
I think what ever happens, it doesn't hurt to have contrasting views and debate. As long as people think before commenting and don't just regurgitate what someone else has said. Or as some of those commentors on your review do, project their own lives onto the story and ignore all the bits that don't fit. It's almost as if they take your criticisms as being against them and their decisions about their lifestyle instead of thinking about Dale as a real person.
The sex with therapist is another issue altogether. People often develop intense emotional connections with people who reach something inside them and teach them. The question is, how much would have happened anyway. If I'd been writing it, t would have been the therapist doubting the nature of this connection and insisting they go to neutral territory for a while (after the cure) and see whether the connection/feelings are still there. A similar setup occurred in Z.A.Maxfield's "Al Stirred Up" forget the aspect of how the initial "therapy" started, the situation was recognised and dealt with. Should there never be any connection between two people in that relationship? Herein lies the issue with boss/employee, teacher/student, priest/confessor.
These things happen in real life Stories which show ways that setup can develop ethically and morally are interesting.
Controversial "methods" for breaking through barriers have been used for yonks. Sometimes it is the untried and unexpected that works simply because the patient doesn't have any preconceptions/expectations attached.
Wrapping it up as DD is the problem.
What Kate and Casey say! There is almost no justification for the end justifying the means in such a scenario. Especially with the whole underlying sexual and sinister stuff. I know of only one I could ever accept, which is shown in the movie "Ticket to Heaven" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_to_Heaven ) --the deprogramming of someone who has been programmed by a sect.
I have an old school friend who consciously chose the cult road. He was a junkie, a wreck and just about one needle away from death. Unable to do anything meaningful with his life, without work, killing his family in pieces. He himself chose to become a Jehova's Witness to get himself on the straight and narrow again. While I really dislike that sect for so many reasons, they did wonders for him. Within a year he not only was off drugs, he had received some basic training on a job they provided for him, was working, earning money, had moved into his own rooms, looked 200% healthier, and was happy with himself for the first time. That he also donated like 60% of his income to these guys. ah well.
Yeah, I know he is not a child, but if his actions were TRULY HARMING HIM then perhaps some degree of intervention with or without his consent is needed.
But if this is done then they should take time out once they've broken through the barrier and stopped him spiralling out of control. Then work with him. Work out what is geting through and what isn't. Perhaps he could build a dry wall with the stones.
Waiting until he is dependent on them is just replacing one obsession/crutch with another. Neither is "strong" no matter what they say.
Yes, we do it with anorexic (children), but you remember that there were now at least 3-4 adult models who died looking like concentration camp survivors and even their families were unable to do a thing?
More important, there is established treatment and therapy out there for what Dale suffers from. Supported by the medical profession methods, various kinds of therapies, and none of them involve kidnapping, unwilling patients, patients sexually molested or physically abused. So instead of sending Dale to that ranch it would have been easy enough to set him up with a professional, good therapist. It's not as if he wasn't basically willing to do "something" about his workaholism. That's how they tricked him there in the first place.