is it? that's typical you think?

Yes. The troubled teen industry is abusive, period. These are not evidence based programs, they are torture centers following a made up therapy invented by cultists. That's literally what "troubled teen program" means in the USA. If you look at the link OP posted, this particular case was a "wilderness school" in Utah - that's not at all ambiguous or possibly legitimate. His parents paid for him to be abused as a child.