I am the father of a former teacher at Hyde. She taught Drama at one of the campuses for a year after college graduation. She had a high honors degree in Religion and Drama from a top-rated northeastern university, but no training in psychological counseling. She was also a dorm parent at Hyde, a role she had extensive experience with during her college years.
My wife attended a weekend session of intensive discussions among students and their parents with our daughter, at her request. The school asked that the younger teachers (if not all) participate in these sessions at least once, not as leaders but as participants. My wife heard the parents in their group reveal severe emotional and other difficulties in their own lives that perhaps had inevitably contributed to difficulties in their child's. But she was untrained and inexperienced in that field also, so did not know.
My wife had had a very happy life compared to the other parents and children. Nonetheless, she felt considerable pressure from the session leaders to 'reveal' or 'open up' and describe hidden events that perhaps 'damaged' her in her past, and thus presumably herself, our family dynamics, our children and other relationships. Much to her credit, she explained that her life experience had been quite trouble free: she loved her parents, her circumstances, had never used drugs, abused alcohol or suffered mentally. She has always enjoyed a healthy mind and body, exercises daily and doesn't even drink coffee. But she did find that the session leaders somehow felt challenged or frustrated to have her in the session and perhaps (we're speculating) undermining the process somehow. At the least she felt that they acted as though obligated to press her to 'emote' more. She told them, or it may have been only one leader, that she had little to contribute along those lines would participate as she was able, but was not going to exaggerate or fabricate her past.
Perhaps that pressure is understandable given a reluctance by the confused and more deeply troubled to deal with tough issues, but my only experience with mental health professionals is that they take their cues from the client/patient, allowing and assisting them to develop a sense of themselves at their own speed in a very safe environment.
Could there be a conflict of interest for the session leaders in that their performance was rated on certain criteria related to results in these sessions? We don't know.
She did not feel any disappointment regarding her 'lack of participation' from the other parents and students. One parent even told her that she wished she (my wife) were her own mother.
Ultimately, it was apparent how students and parents can come away from Hyde with any number of responses, something I'm sure Hyde is aware of.
As far as visiting the school again or having anything to do with it after leaving is concerned, many people pass through situations (schools, churches, places of business, living arrangements) and once they have moved on or discontinued their involvement do not return or invest themselves in them afterwards regardless of their experience. I don't believe that says much either in a positive or negative way in itself.
