Don't send your child to Hyde!!!

[Liebchen]

I don't know where to begin.  So happy our son is out of that place!!  The arrogance, verbal abuse, poor supervision, and the most dysfunctional cast of characters that athey call a staff.  If your child has a mental health issue, substance abuse issue, learning disability, or just low self esteem, they will not improve here.  The campus is rife with drugs - prescription and otherwise and some students are prone to violent outbursts.   They idea of discipline is forced labor and humiliation through meetings with faculty where they verbally abuse, embarass, and degrade students.  The FLC meetings are a joke, not to mention they expect you to go to parent group meetings in your area.  They aren't concerned with the fact that you have other children, a job, or other important commitments.  My parent group leader devulged very personal graphic issues of her strained marriage in our first meeting!!  Its a cult atmospher and the staff does not take criticism well at all.  This idea of accountability does not apply to them.  These children are suffering at the hands of grossly underqualified "teachers".  Most are Hyde grads themselves who have no real world experience.  They go to college and come right back home.  Students' issues go untreated because they are told they are just lazy and need to work hard to overcome them.  There is no qualified pschiatric care anywhere on campus.  At FLC' meetings, arrogant unfeeling facilitators humilate you and tell you that you are not sharing enough.  Not having much to share I made the mistake of asking if I should make something up to satisfy them.  FLC's are not younger sibling friendly.  The things that some poor families have gone through are not for your 12 year old's ears.  They sell you a wonderful happy "we can fix your child" story when you're at your lowest point.  So desperate you'll sign that contract and next thing you know you are out $45k for nothing!!  No refunds my friends.  Once you've signed on the dotted line, that's it whether your child is there 9 days or 9 months.  Once you've signed the caring supportive staff that just finished selling you a load, will then proceed to verbally abuse you as well and tell you that you've done a poor job of raising your child.  Then there are the scandals on campus that they are quite adept at sweeping under the carpet.  A male teacher using pot and allegedly having inappropriate contact with female students, a teacher's loaning out a summer home where an under age drinking party occurred, and a student selling his dad's oxycodone!!  Yes, the very few painful months we were involved in that place felt like a lifetime, what a hellish period in our lives!!  I could go on forever with more stories but I'm sure you get my point that its not a safe, nuturing place for your troubled teen to sort out their issues!!

[Ursus]

I don't know where to begin.  So happy our son is out of that place!!  The arrogance, verbal abuse, poor supervision, and the most dysfunctional cast of characters that athey call a staff.  If your child has a mental health issue, substance abuse issue, learning disability, or just low self esteem, they will not improve here.  The campus is rife with drugs - prescription and otherwise and some students are prone to violent outbursts.   They idea of discipline is forced labor and humiliation through meetings with faculty where they verbally abuse, embarass, and degrade students.  The FLC meetings are a joke, not to mention they expect you to go to parent group meetings in your area.  They aren't concerned with the fact that you have other children, a job, or other important commitments.  My parent group leader devulged very personal graphic issues of her strained marriage in our first meeting!!  Its a cult atmospher and the staff does not take criticism well at all.  This idea of accountability does not apply to them.  These children are suffering at the hands of grossly underqualified "teachers".  Most are Hyde grads themselves who have no real world experience.  They go to college and come right back home.  Students' issues go untreated because they are told they are just lazy and need to work hard to overcome them.  There is no qualified pschiatric care anywhere on campus.  At FLC' meetings, arrogant unfeeling facilitators humilate you and tell you that you are not sharing enough.  Not having much to share I made the mistake of asking if I should make something up to satisfy them.  FLC's are not younger sibling friendly.  The things that some poor families have gone through are not for your 12 year old's ears.  They sell you a wonderful happy "we can fix your child" story when you're at your lowest point.  So desperate you'll sign that contract and next thing you know you are out $45k for nothing!!  No refunds my friends.  Once you've signed on the dotted line, that's it whether your child is there 9 days or 9 months.  Once you've signed the caring supportive staff that just finished selling you a load, will then proceed to verbally abuse you as well and tell you that you've done a poor job of raising your child.  Then there are the scandals on campus that they are quite adept at sweeping under the carpet.  A male teacher using pot and allegedly having inappropriate contact with female students, a teacher's loaning out a summer home where an under age drinking party occurred, and a student selling his dad's oxycodone!!  Yes, the very few painful months we were involved in that place felt like a lifetime, what a hellish period in our lives!!  I could go on forever with more stories but I'm sure you get my point that its not a safe, nuturing place for your troubled teen to sort out their issues!!

I am sorry (but somehow not at all surprised) to hear that Hyde School is still practicing these exploitative methods on desperate families. Thankfully, it sounds like your family is pretty much on the same page about it all. Not all families are so lucky. Some can get pretty torn apart by Hyde's manipulations of ideals and loyalties...

I had no idea there was such a problem with drugs. Which campus did your son attend?

Also, speaking of Hyde's possible (or probable) criminal activities and their ilk, which teacher was "allegedly having inappropriate contact with female students?" This sort of thing has been going on for years, long before Sandusky, and seems to be wholly endemic to the place.

[joenazigauld]

SENDING ANYONE TO HYDE IS A HUGE MISTAKE.
Reading posts of anyone who commends Hyde, or applauds anything to do with the place is disgusting.
I got away from Hyde, and cannot being to preach how thankful I am for the opportunity to leave that hellhole.
The fact that anyone can read all these negative comments, and still consider even touring at the school is concerning.
Kevin Folan, the dean of students was an alcoholic, and had serious problems with substances like cocaine. I had many personal talks with him where he confessed to abusing cocaine even in the past 5 years! Josh Welch, a dean as well, was a serious heroin addict, was mentally unstable, and was busted numerous times by police on accounts of drug trafficking.
Regardless of the dean's problems, the Head of School at Woodstock, Laura Gauld, is nothing short of a nutcase. In a conversation I had with her, she told me she contemplated suicide upon finding out her son Harrison was "not normal". The fact that those words ever left her head is revolting, however the bigger issue is that this shows Laura Gauld is mentally unstable, if she cannot handle what life has dealt her, but expects everyone around her to deal with it.
The accountability requirement (2-4) is possibly one of the most hindering things your child can go through. It consists of waking up for a 5:30 workout. Waking up is not the problem, it is the fact that the workouts are lead by faculty who are instructed to torture you, and make you physically suffer for whatever you did. The day continues with you being isolated from the community, while being there somehow. This paradoxical idea of making a student isolate him/her self from people who surround them, is beyond me. Whether a "college" intern, or senior proctors your day should not be a factor as you will be verbally abused and broken down either way. The 2-4 study hall is more or less a 4 hour solitary confinement. It is only called a study hall to please the parents and give them the idea that a punished student is keeping on top of their academics.
The students at Hyde consist of disgruntled children who have broken homes, substance abuse problems, and personality disorders. If you think your child is on "lockdown" from drugs at Hyde, you are mistaking. Being a student there for quiet some time I saw more drugs than I ever had in my years before the place. Sleeping pills are abused and smuggled in like candy. The amount of people having sex on campus is not even acknowledged. I say this because most of the faculty suffer from "cabin fever" and are having relationships with each other, whether it mean cheating on your spouse or not.
The faculty at Hyde are a team of Hyde graduates, confused 20 year old kids who have nice degrees, and drug addicts who are there mostly because they are insecure about their pasts and are power hungry.
Manipulation is one of the most used tactics of Hyde faculty. John Rigney is notorious for randomly mentioning to parents he went to Harvard. In a conference call with my parents, and I, he must have blurted out how great his time at Harvard was, and how it shaped him. Jason Warnick, the "master manipulator" on campus, informally known as the "admissions guy" is a despicable human. He numerous times has confiscated drugs or tobacco products from students and has used them! This is very under wraps, but is known amongst students this has happened to. If that isn't enough, the fact that his job is to lie to families and glorify his place of work should get to you.
Looking at the bookshelf of an office at Hyde is interesting, it is riddled with books on Nazi's, Hitler's regime, and brainwashing tactics.
The number of kids who leave Hyde school after the year is over is very high. It should actually be higher because some parents are so "brainwashed" they keep there kids there.
Humility might be a word of Hyde, but it should be humiliation, the faculty love humiliating students privately and publicly. At school meetings, "jokingly" nominating ugliest students, and most un-athletic students is unnecessary and vile.
Students and parents are also humiliated for not sharing enough, and saying that they are hiding something.
FLC's are nothing short of a joke. It can be described as a bunch of parents, of former Hyde kids, who have incredibly messed up lives, i.e. divorce, abuse, and substance abuse. They provide these strict by the book rules, which they break, but reprimand others for breaking. Hearing stories of how a father raped his daughter's best friend, or how a mother was cheating on a husband for years, is traumatizing, personal, and 100% unnecessary to hear, ever.
The issues of students truly are disregarded, a simple connotation of what happens is they are called lazy, and are told to be lacking discipline. There are no licensed doctors on campus by the way!
The tuition of about $50,000 is not refundable, and outrageous considering it will only go towards inhibiting your child's "unique potential"
The immoral behavior at Hyde is everywhere. A teacher smoking weed, and having sex with a student is nicely hidden from the law. A child stealing his father's oxycodone and selling it to half of the school is completely acceptable to hide from authorities. Underage drinking at a faculty's home is fine, and students smuggling in large amounts of liquor to dorms with the intent to sell it is A-OK.
All in all, Hyde is to be avoided at all costs. The place should be shut down before it takes over into something bigger. There is no reason to send anyone to Hyde. You can make any case you want, but even justifying Hyde's acts is not acceptable. For everyone else who survived this place, or had loved ones survive this place, I salute you.

[Anonymous]

The question I have, and will ask when I'm interviewed for my book, is if Hyde is using behavior modification. It sounds like it. The yelling and humiliation, and forced labor. Do they call it therapy? Do the people who work there have degrees? Before I go off about it, I need to know.

Elan dumped some of their victims on Hyde, and Peter Rowe is now working there. The new owner of Elan's Poland Springs campus has ties to Hyde.

What I can't find, is anything by Hyde calling what they're doing therapy. If someone can point me to it, I'd appreciate it. Then I can ask how they're allowed to practice psychology without training

The editor of the newspaper considering me has asked for specifics. All I can find is terms like "Character building" and stuff like that. A link would be nice

[joenazigauld]

The question I have, and will ask when I'm interviewed for my book, is if Hyde is using behavior modification. It sounds like it. The yelling and humiliation, and forced labor. Do they call it therapy? Do the people who work there have degrees? Before I go off about it, I need to know.

Elan dumped some of their victims on Hyde, and Peter Rowe is now working there. The new owner of Elan's Poland Springs campus has ties to Hyde.

What I can't find, is anything by Hyde calling what they're doing therapy. If someone can point me to it, I'd appreciate it. Then I can ask how they're allowed to practice psychology without training

The editor of the newspaper considering me has asked for specifics. All I can find is terms like "Character building" and stuff like that. A link would be nice

Hyde is 100% using behavior modification. They love to yell in your face, and humiliate you, publicly and privately. Forced labor is part of the school, and used in a more extreme way to punish students. They call nothing therapy, that is because no one who works there has a degree. You should go off about it, because they cannot do any of this. All these are therapeutic techniques, yet no one on campus, either campus, has a degree, about 75% don't even have teaching degrees.
Hyde is smart about hiding there behavior modification and humiliation, in your face yelling techniques, and so on. They purposely do not call it therapy, because there is no one properly trained on campus.
Character building is just accountability. A perfect example of this is 2-4. 2-4 is explained pretty well on here, but to sum it all up, its a mix of solitary confinement, a physically impossible workout, brutal humiliation, and repenting time.
If you were writing about Hyde, be sure to include all of these things, and also be sure to include how often they lie, abuse kids, and skew statistics to raise the school's popularity.

[none-ya]

Don't tell me that Wayne is working on yet another book about a program that he's never been to. Oh well it's never stopped him before.

[DannyB.II]

Don't tell me that Wayne is working on yet another book about a program that he's never been to. Oh well it's never stopped him before.

Maybe he can write about your alleged time at the Seed that you made up  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:

[spacecadet]

I seriously doubt that Hyde's calling what they do "therapy" for the simple reason that if they did they could be sued for malpractice.

[Ursus]

The question I have, and will ask when I'm interviewed for my book, is if Hyde is using behavior modification. It sounds like it. The yelling and humiliation, and forced labor. Do they call it therapy? Do the people who work there have degrees? Before I go off about it, I need to know.

Elan dumped some of their victims on Hyde, and Peter Rowe is now working there. The new owner of Elan's Poland Springs campus has ties to Hyde.

What I can't find, is anything by Hyde calling what they're doing therapy. If someone can point me to it, I'd appreciate it. Then I can ask how they're allowed to practice psychology without training

The editor of the newspaper considering me has asked for specifics. All I can find is terms like "Character building" and stuff like that. A link would be nice

Hyde is 100% using behavior modification. They love to yell in your face, and humiliate you, publicly and privately. Forced labor is part of the school, and used in a more extreme way to punish students. They call nothing therapy, that is because no one who works there has a degree. You should go off about it, because they cannot do any of this. All these are therapeutic techniques, yet no one on campus, either campus, has a degree, about 75% don't even have teaching degrees.
Hyde is smart about hiding there behavior modification and humiliation, in your face yelling techniques, and so on. They purposely do not call it therapy, because there is no one properly trained on campus.
Character building is just accountability. A perfect example of this is 2-4. 2-4 is explained pretty well on here, but to sum it all up, its a mix of solitary confinement, a physically impossible workout, brutal humiliation, and repenting time.
If you were writing about Hyde, be sure to include all of these things, and also be sure to include how often they lie, abuse kids, and skew statistics to raise the school's popularity.

I seriously doubt that Hyde's calling what they do "therapy" for the simple reason that if they did they could be sued for malpractice.

No, they didn't call it "therapy" in my time either. Nor was anyone qualified, from the standpoint of professional training not to mention accountability, to conduct such psychologically invasive practices.

In fact, from what I recall, Joe seemed to project a pretty hefty antipathy towards those who made their living as "psych professionals" (save for the few individuals that served as Hyde School referral sources; these individuals often being, in addition, and not surprisingly, Hyde parents).

However, I think the reason for the absence of avowed "therapeutic" aim in Hyde School philosophy is more involved than mere concern for legal accountability. [In fact, I kinda doubt that Hyde's concept of "legal accountability" bears any resemblance to what the average person (living in the real world) thinks of it as being! As many who have experienced or witnessed particularly unsavory events at Hyde fully know, or should know, Hyde School has absolutely NO respect for the letter nor even the spirit of the law when it runs counter to their purposes, or when to do so might jeopardize their financial wellbeing.]

Rather, I think the decided avoidance of — or the aversion to — reference to the term "therapy" (and its etymological offspring) stems more from Joe's ego, personal perspective and proclivities, as well as from what was going on in the cultural mix at the time Hyde School was founded in the mid 1960s.

If y'all might recall, or not, back then, encounter groups — part and parcel of the human potential movement — were just becoming the rage. Back then, encounter groups were often described as "therapy for normals," hence, professionals need not necessarily be involved to run them.* From a 1970 article in TIME Magazine, emphasis added:

To many Americans, these activities typify a leaderless, formless and wildly eclectic movement that is variously called

sensitivity training, encounter, "therapy for normals," the bod biz, or the acidless trip. Such terms merely describe the more sensational parts of a whole that is coming to be known as the human potentials movement—a quest conducted in hundreds of ways and places, to redefine and enrich the spirit of social man.

· · < snip snip > · ·

Even though the movement's advocates deny that it is therapy, many people visit the new growth centers or attend informal group sessions in quest of precisely that. The American Psychiatric Association estimates that in California, more troubled individuals already seek help from the human potentials movement than from "traditional sources of psychotherapy."[/list][/size]
What Hyde School currently calls "discovery groups," and in my time were called "seminars," are, imo, essentially encounter groups for teenagers and/or their families, run and orchestrated by fully "Hyde-ified" adults, ensconced in and committed to "The Hyde Way."

Like other HPM advocates, Hyde School sees no reason to call what they do "therapy" (they call it "preparation for life"), even though the nature of what they promise and profess to do would ordinarily come under ... just such a characterization.

Go figure.


-----------------------
* See also: Wechsler, I.R.; Messarik, F. and Tannenbaum: "The Self in Process: A Sensitivity Training Emphasis" in Wechsler, I.R. and Schein, E.H. (eds): Issues in Training, National Education Association: National Training Laboratories, 1962, pp 33-46.

[katfacehead89]

Roger that.