Controls from within, more commonly referred to as self-control, are fundamental skills that children and youth need to display every day in innumerable interactions in order to function well in society. The children and youth who get referred to child and youth care (CYC) programs usually lack adequate self-control skills, creating difficulty for themselves and others. Yet these same youth regularly exhibit high self-control skills when they need to have influence over adults to manoeuvre out of difficulty, to deal with danger, to avoid punishment, or to create a desired personal result. Redl and Wineman demonstrated the need for sophisticated, complex approaches to working with children described as "children who hate." A key intervention is the immersion of these children into a therapeutic milieu, a thoughtfully constructed environment promoting healthy growth and remediation. This article examines the developmental stuckness of these youth and the use of a therapeutic milieu to foster socially useful self-control and motivation to function in a cooperative way.