Why Are You at Hyde?

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Hyde Schools

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Anonymous:
Mom and dad discovered some pot in my possession, and after beatings, groundings, and various other abusings, they hit on the idea of sending me to boarding school. They kept banging the gong of my so-called "drug problem" to justify their increasingly abusive overreaction. Things being totally unbearable at home, I left for boarding school all too willingly. First stop was Wayland Academy, which expelled me after a semester on suspicion of marijuana use, but agreed to readmit me the following year! I completed the second semester of my freshman year at Lake Forest Academy and returned the following year to Wayland. At the end of my second year I was informed that I would not be readmitted to Wayland, on grounds of another unsubstantiated charge of marijuana use. I felt unwelcome at home, and so I accepted a friend's invitation to stay with him and his family in Aspen, Colorado, for the summer. Meanwhile, mom and dad had discovered Hyde, a weird cult-like school that applied coercive behavior modification techniques, where I spent my junior and senior years. After four years of incompetent, stupid, and downright criminal treatment at the hands of a band of truly nutty adults, I graduated from high school in 1977.

Later I discovered that my father had smoked hash in Amsterdam.

Mike

Anonymous:

--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---Mom and dad discovered some pot in my possession, and after beatings, groundings, and various other abusings, they hit on the idea of sending me to boarding school. They kept banging the gong of my so-called "drug problem" to justify their increasingly abusive overreaction. Things being totally unbearable at home, I left for boarding school all too willingly. First stop was Wayland Academy, which expelled me after a semester on suspicion of marijuana use, but agreed to readmit me the following year! I completed the second semester of my freshman year at Lake Forest Academy and returned the following year to Wayland. At the end of my second year I was informed that I would not be readmitted to Wayland, on grounds of another unsubstantiated charge of marijuana use. I felt unwelcome at home, and so I accepted a friend's invitation to stay with him and his family in Aspen, Colorado, for the summer. Meanwhile, mom and dad had discovered Hyde, a weird cult-like school that applied coercive behavior modification techniques, where I spent my junior and senior years. After four years of incompetent, stupid, and downright criminal treatment at the hands of a band of truly nutty adults, I graduated from high school in 1977.

Later I discovered that my father had smoked hash in Amsterdam.

Mike
--- End quote ---

What sort of "cult-like" and "coercive behavior modification techniques" did you encounter at Hyde? It would be interesting to compare your experience with what's going on at Hyde currently. I continue to learn about cult-like and coercive behavior modification techniques at Hyde. Have things changed over all these years, or not?

Anonymous:

--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---Mom and dad discovered some pot in my possession, and after beatings, groundings, and various other abusings, they hit on the idea of sending me to boarding school. They kept banging the gong of my so-called "drug problem" to justify their increasingly abusive overreaction. Things being totally unbearable at home, I left for boarding school all too willingly. First stop was Wayland Academy, which expelled me after a semester on suspicion of marijuana use, but agreed to readmit me the following year! I completed the second semester of my freshman year at Lake Forest Academy and returned the following year to Wayland. At the end of my second year I was informed that I would not be readmitted to Wayland, on grounds of another unsubstantiated charge of marijuana use. I felt unwelcome at home, and so I accepted a friend's invitation to stay with him and his family in Aspen, Colorado, for the summer. Meanwhile, mom and dad had discovered Hyde, a weird cult-like school that applied coercive behavior modification techniques, where I spent my junior and senior years. After four years of incompetent, stupid, and downright criminal treatment at the hands of a band of truly nutty adults, I graduated from high school in 1977.

Later I discovered that my father had smoked hash in Amsterdam.

Mike
--- End quote ---

What sort of "cult-like" and "coercive behavior modification techniques" did you encounter at Hyde? It would be interesting to compare your experience with what's going on at Hyde currently. I continue to learn about cult-like and coercive behavior modification techniques at Hyde. Have things changed over all these years, or not?
--- End quote ---

I encountered coercive behavior modification techniques in Hyde seminars. These seminars were only designed to make us "invest" in the process. Once we spill our guts, we've made another investment, we've lost a few more little secrets that define us as individuals, we've handed our identity over to the group, and taken another little step toward becoming Hyde groupies. The more we share, the more committed to Hyde we are. I believe that's the rationale behind it. All of Hyde's activities, without exception, are based on that sort of group dynamic, even the academics.

From Hyde's point of view, it is imperative that we not have an identity that is not part of the group. It is imperative that we tear down the barriers between the ego and the group. Then our behavior can be modified as a group, as Hyde sees fit.

The purpose of the seminars is not therapeutic, it's coercive. If Hyde seminars were really intended to be therapeutic, they would help us with our underlying problems. Now, I came to Hyde with some family problems so repressed that I did not even know they were there. These were "ticking time bombs," which eventually did go off, to devastating effect. Hyde seminars didn't --- couldn't --- help me with these sorts of problems, of which I was unaware.

Therapeutic or coercive? Hyde's facilitators are not sensitive and competent psychologists. They are from the Inquisition.

Hyde's coercive behavior modification techniques cannot but fail to do harm, particularly to students. Their ability to think critically and independently is inhibited at a period in their development when it needs most to be exercised. Precisely at the age when they have to make their most important choices --- college, major, marriage, career --- it dawns on many of them that they have been unfitted to do so. I know of one Hyde graduate who relapsed into self-destructive behavior following graduation day when the artificial Hyde decision-making apparatus --- the "scaffolding" --- was removed. Did Hyde disavow responsibility for her, saying that she simply failed to internalize Hyde values? How cynical if so! Is it any surprise that a student denied an opportunity to think and decide for herself for five years should fail in an independent setting? At least Hyde dedicated a memorial stone to her.

I say that Hyde is a cult because students, parents, administration, faculty, and board of governors are under one man's dominion.

Mike

Anonymous:

--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---Mom and dad discovered some pot in my possession, and after beatings, groundings, and various other abusings, they hit on the idea of sending me to boarding school. They kept banging the gong of my so-called "drug problem" to justify their increasingly abusive overreaction. Things being totally unbearable at home, I left for boarding school all too willingly. First stop was Wayland Academy, which expelled me after a semester on suspicion of marijuana use, but agreed to readmit me the following year! I completed the second semester of my freshman year at Lake Forest Academy and returned the following year to Wayland. At the end of my second year I was informed that I would not be readmitted to Wayland, on grounds of another unsubstantiated charge of marijuana use. I felt unwelcome at home, and so I accepted a friend's invitation to stay with him and his family in Aspen, Colorado, for the summer. Meanwhile, mom and dad had discovered Hyde, a weird cult-like school that applied coercive behavior modification techniques, where I spent my junior and senior years. After four years of incompetent, stupid, and downright criminal treatment at the hands of a band of truly nutty adults, I graduated from high school in 1977.

Later I discovered that my father had smoked hash in Amsterdam.

Mike
--- End quote ---

What sort of "cult-like" and "coercive behavior modification techniques" did you encounter at Hyde? It would be interesting to compare your experience with what's going on at Hyde currently. I continue to learn about cult-like and coercive behavior modification techniques at Hyde. Have things changed over all these years, or not?
--- End quote ---

I encountered coercive behavior modification techniques in Hyde seminars. These seminars were only designed to make us "invest" in the process. Once we spill our guts, we've made another investment, we've lost a few more little secrets that define us as individuals, we've handed our identity over to the group, and taken another little step toward becoming Hyde groupies. The more we share, the more committed to Hyde we are. I believe that's the rationale behind it. All of Hyde's activities, without exception, are based on that sort of group dynamic, even the academics.

From Hyde's point of view, it is imperative that we not have an identity that is not part of the group. It is imperative that we tear down the barriers between the ego and the group. Then our behavior can be modified as a group, as Hyde sees fit.

The purpose of the seminars is not therapeutic, it's coercive. If Hyde seminars were really intended to be therapeutic, they would help us with our underlying problems. Now, I came to Hyde with some family problems so repressed that I did not even know they were there. These were "ticking time bombs," which eventually did go off, to devastating effect. Hyde seminars didn't --- couldn't --- help me with these sorts of problems, of which I was unaware.

Therapeutic or coercive? Hyde's facilitators are not sensitive and competent psychologists. They are from the Inquisition.

Hyde's coercive behavior modification techniques cannot but fail to do harm, particularly to students. Their ability to think critically and independently is inhibited at a period in their development when it needs most to be exercised. Precisely at the age when they have to make their most important choices --- college, major, marriage, career --- it dawns on many of them that they have been unfitted to do so. I know of one Hyde graduate who relapsed into self-destructive behavior following graduation day when the artificial Hyde decision-making apparatus --- the "scaffolding" --- was removed. Did Hyde disavow responsibility for her, saying that she simply failed to internalize Hyde values? How cynical if so! Is it any surprise that a student denied an opportunity to think and decide for herself for five years should fail in an independent setting? At least Hyde dedicated a memorial stone to her.

I say that Hyde is a cult because students, parents, administration, faculty, and board of governors are under one man's dominion.

Mike
--- End quote ---

I'm curious to know when you were at Hyde. Which campus?

I was there just a couple of years ago and your description seems very current. I was astonished by the group pressure tactics and the seminars where there was a clear expectation that people would spill their guts. It's fine with me to have group discussions where people feel comfortable talking about their issues and challenges. But there was something terribly coercive about the Hyde environment. What was especially troubling was seeing how many group members dissolved and "lost it" during seminars and how unable the incompetent, untrained staff were to clean up the mess.

I feel badly that I even attended those emotional gang rapes, not that I had much choice. I did my best not to pile on and go after group members. But I feel dirty just having been a witness to those shameful events. Not everyone in the seminars left scarred, of course, and some may have found the process useful. But, good heavens, I've lost count of the number of scorched souls who walked away from seminars in a state of despair, shock, or worse.

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