Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Hyde Schools
Advice to Parents Considering Hyde School
HydeFan:
My personal opinion is that I have always thought Hyde should have a closer working relationship with the psychological community and that a least some of the students needed more professional 1-1 help.
In addition to help, what the pros are doing outside the gates should be integrated into the schools approach to the students inside the gates (and with the parents as well).
But the truth is that I actually don't know the details of Hyde's historical or current use of the psychological community.
Annecdotally, however, I think this is an age old problem that goes back to Joe's relationship (antipathy?) with the psychological community.
Anonymous:
It's true -- one of the most common complaints about Hyde is that the school tends to ignore students' mental health issues. Hyde's philosophy is that every misbehavior and struggle is an "attitude" problem or "character" problem. I agree that attitude and character are vitally important. But, there's absolutely no question that many Hyde students have difficulty coping with real, honest-to-goodness psychiatric issues. It's appalling to me, and to many other parents, that Hyde is not willing to acknowledge these issues in a sincere way. The fact that they don't employ bona fide mental health professionals (licensed psychologists, clinical social workers, counselors), when so many of their students deal with these issues, is incredible to me. We've decided to move on to another school for this reason. We had no idea this was Hyde's approach when we signed on, and we had no idea how pervasive these mental health issues are at Hyde. The word needs to get out so that other parents and educational consultants aren't misled, particularly when families beat a path to Hyde's door in the midst of a student's and family's crisis.
Families also need to know how Hyde demands that everyone share their "dirty laundry" and very personal family details in seminars. Those who run Hyde seem to think this approach is enlightened. Yes, it may be useful to some, but for many it's horribly destructive, particularly when the seminar leaders aren't trained to deal with a crisis that emerges in the middle of a seminar (screaming battles, suicide threats, intense self-disclosure).
At times (not always) Hyde administrators also provide students and families with phenomenally poor role models with regard to self-disclosure and personal boundaries. Hundreds of people sit in an auditorium and listen to intimate details from the headmaster about how one of his sons (a Hyde graduate) got tossed out of college for misconduct; the headmaster's periodic marital struggles; the school's founder's marital conflicts and family struggles with alcoholism, etc. The list goes on. I fully believe group therapy and sharing with others can be useful. But is it really appropriate for the school's headmaster and founder to broadcast to the world all of these intimate details? Aren't there more constructive ways to encourage parents and students to acknowledge their personal struggles, model APPROPRIATE self-disclosure, and so on?
Hyde claims to be preoccupied with ethics and integrity. I'd like to hear Hyde administrators' answers to these questions: Did the founder ask his wife for her consent to broadcast to thousands of people all the details about her alcoholism and their marital problems? Did the Hyde headmaster ask his son for his consent before he broadcast intimate details about his behavior and misconduct? What kind of ethics is Hyde teaching? What kind of role modeling is this? Isn't it important to expose Hyde's hypocrisy?
Anonymous:
Joe's wife Blanche passed away years ago. I'm sure she'd agree that their struggle could help others.
Duncan's son I'm sure was told that his father would be sharing the family struggle.
I guess there are a lot of people, like you, that keep the family "secrets" tucked neatly away in a closet, until either the family disintegrates or the problem gets so big it's forced into the public eye.
Anonymous:
Alcoholism and marital problems were minor compared to what my famly and young son were exposed to. Had I known this in advance I would have never brought my other young son to the school for "Family Weekend." What he heard was totally inappropriate and shocking. I sincerely do not understand how Hyde can think it is therapuetic for a 13 year old to sit in a group and hear about attempted suicides, threats to kill a parent, yelling and screaming between parent and student, intimidation tactics to get each participant to come up with more intimate details of their lives! There needs to be some kind of disclaimer or disclosure written to warn these parents! It truly is shocking what is exposed in these seminars!
Anonymous:
--- Quote ---On 2005-10-12 08:16:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Joe's wife Blanche passed away years ago. I'm sure she'd agree that their struggle could help others.
Duncan's son I'm sure was told that his father would be sharing the family struggle.
I guess there are a lot of people, like you, that keep the family "secrets" tucked neatly away in a closet, until either the family disintegrates or the problem gets so big it's forced into the public eye.
"
--- End quote ---
Your assumption is way off base. In fact, I strongly believe that families should NOT tuck away their personal issues and struggles. It can be enormously helpful to share those issues with others, particularly in settings that are carefully facilitated and supervised to ensure that the material is handled properly. As my comments indicate, my main concern -- and I'm far from alone in this -- is that Hyde insists on exposure to groups of strangers, in seminars and sometimes in large public forums, and virtually no one at the school has formal training in the management of such remarkably sensitive material. The consequences aren't always tragic or destructive, but sometimes they are. This may not concern you, but it certainly concerns me and many, many other Hyde critics.
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