Desisto School

[Anonymous]

It's not a rumor.  It was announced today that DeSisto at Stockbridge will officially close after having been repeatedly taken to task for their failure to insure the safety of teens who self-harm.  I'm applauding this decision, having worked there for a year back in the late '80s.  I was aghast at the treatment of the students and the manner of which parents were kept at arm's length.  In just the brief time that I worked there, two teens broke their necks....One from diving into a swimming pool and one from jumping off the open balcony in the school area.  The student who jumped from the balcony was overtly suicidal, had given clear intent of her plan to hurt herself and DeSisto failed to hospitalize her despite being advised of her suicidality.  

It's about time that this place was closed.  Although there is no disputing that some teens have received help there, it's more a testimony to the youth's resiliency and the devotion of some of the staff.  The structure and supervision of the program is sorely lacking.  The manner of discipline is abusive.  My sincere apologies to those employees that sincerely cared about and for the kids......but there are far better programs out there who know how to humanely help kids and there families chang.

[Timoclea]

Isn't it sad that so many of these kids will be shipped out of the country where they have no rights or protections against child abuse.

And their parents appear to be active accomplices in the abuse of these children.

This is why I think shipping children out of the country to places like this ought to be grounds for immediate loss of custody from the parents to whatever fit relative or fit adult friend applies to be the child's guardian.

Child abuse is a truly terrible thing, and it is unfortunate that there are twisted adults willing to engage in it and even subcontract it out.

Thank you for coming forward.  It's important for those of us trying to stop this to realize that sometimes some of the staffers are good, well-meaning people caught up in a bad system.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.
-- John Muir

[Anonymous]

Michael DeSisto was a caring counselor and to some degree a real psychic.  I worked at DeSisto School for about 1 year.  The reason I worked there was because of Michael.  Michael is obviously not perfect, but he does have the tremedous ability to get through to difficult teenagers.  

DeSisto school has numerous flaws, I must admit.  From the whole 'farming' idea, the cornering and the restraining, it definitely was unconventional disciplining methods.  But strangly enough, some students reacted well to the DeSisto system.  I know because I witness the transformation of some of the kids myself when I was a dorm parent at the 'farm'.  

The unique methods applied at the school, only worked because Michael was personally involved.  Now Michael has died, I do not believe the staff remaining at the school, new or old, could effectively utilize Michael's educational philosophies to benefit the school's students.  I would have to agree that there is no benefit in a parent sending their child to DeSisto School, because DeSisto School is not a special school anymore.  It is now just another school...

[Anonymous]

The most amazingly positive thing to come out of the DeSisto School was the musical, "Inappropriate," which was an off-Broadway hit in 1999-2000.  The critics, the public, even top theatrical agents were all raving about that show and its key players, Josh Geyer, Diane Schwartz, Averie Boyer....  A producer bought an option on TV/film rights, too.  But then Michael and the show's co-creators clashed, and everything fell apart.  While the show was an off-Broadway hit, it was amazing.  And even if some of the kids in the show hated aspects of DeSisto, there was joy in performing and being embraced by the public.  Michael's passion for theater, and enthusiassm for talented kids, energized all that.  He was an unusual figure, charismatic--you wanted to followe  him even when he didn't necessarily have the wisest advice to offer (like when he'd offer his theories on nutrition and diet--anyone remermber his enthusiasm for spi ach as a cure-all; the "How Diet"?).  The school could be very oppressive, and parernts were kept in the dark about some things--but Michael helped some kids feel like stars for a couple of years.  And that seemed very cool at the time.

[Anonymous]

Inappropriate was never optioned or close to any type of production. The story of Inappropriate and Hollywood is a sad very DeSisto story. Michael approached a former student who was succcessful film maker. The former student agreed to put up some of his own money to bring Inappropriate to the left coast and get it looked at by the right people, and "see if there's anything there". They didn't see anything and took a pass on the whole thing. A similiar thing happened for an Inappropriate CD. No takers! Somewhere around this time I believe one of the creators of Inappropriate died. Michael had been representing himself as the owner of Inappropriate-- he was not. Meanwhile with the deal's failure, the film maker  wanted his stake of development fund returned by Mike as was previously agreed. Mike refused saying he wished he could but was broke.

[Anonymous]

According to reports in the Berkshire Eagle, the DeSisto's School is worth about $5 million dollars.  That is what the sale of the 300-acre Stockbridge campus is expected to net.  If they can get that kind of money, they should have no trouble buying a new home for themselves in another state.  (Or another country; the remaining underclasssmen relocated this past weekend to the school's "Mexico base"--which Michael had once hoped would be his retirement home.)  The DeSisto School has a bigger campus than some colleges.  But when some of the creative personnel involved with "Inappropriate"--who helped shape the book, direct the show, choreograph ity, compose and arrange music--wanted to be paid a customary royalty for each performance  of the show (whether in NY, LA, on the road, or at the school), Michael could cry poormouth.  And people who helped create the show felt they were being nistreated,.   Michael liked rto give the impression that the show was soon to be on Broadway (with maybe a tryout in Toronto first), or a major movie, and he claimed he'd turned down one record company that wanted the cast album because he was sure he could get a better offer.  It was hard to tell what was the truth, what was hype.  He had some amazing student performers--bright kids (three went on to NYU)--and the best lines in the show rang true because they were written by DeSisto students (taken directly from the graduation books student wrote, even if Michael and the late Lonnie McNeil were credited as the script's official co-authors); they were true autobiographical statements of kids who's done to DeSisto.  The kids were natural performers.  Considering how much the school was charging the parents (more than 60 grand a year), it seemed surprising they could not hire vocal teachers and dance teachers to help the kids really reaxch their potential as performers.

[Anonymous]

The school could make students very dependent on DeSisto, and ill-prepared to cope in the real world.  If parents enrolled a 14-year-old boy at the school because they thought he was using too much drugs or liquor, DeSisto could become the boy's whole world--the program went year-round, no summer vacations back home--for six years.  No one could graduate until the community as a whole felt he was ready.  But what happens if you keep a kid in a structured environment for 6 years, where he's not free to phone who he wants, or Email who he wants, or meet people outside the small school com,munity?  You miss out on a lot of normal socializing.  You don't get to date.  You're eager to get approval of teachers.  And when you're released and told to function normally in a big-city college, the freedom can be overwhelming.  Siome DeSisto grads return eventually as a teachers or dorm parents because the school is wghere they feel most comfortable.

[Anonymous]

I agree. After you'd been at DeSisto for years and years being there was a snap. I find that for lot of students including myself the time right after DeSisto was when things really started getting tough. I don't know about the reasons why students went back to teach at DeSisto,but there were not many of them by my count.

[Nihilanthic]

So, quackery... and a cult of personality.

Dr. Kellogg meets your friendly neighborhood dictator. Joy.

[Anonymous]

I think most of the postings on this topic are ridiculous. I agree that DeSisto School may not be for everybody but it works and as with every good idea, things change as time goes by. so much of the nonsense you hear about DeSisto are based on lies, hearsay or partial truths that are twisted. I worked at DeSisto for over nine years and watched rules, limits, responses change as the years went by. If concerns were brought up about practices, it was addressed and things were changed. I believe that a lot of replies on this site are from disgruntled runaways, people who were sent to DeSisto because they had difficulty accepting structure and change. I suggest that you get many types of opinions. DeSisto is the only place that I know of where runaways over 18 voluntarily come back and re-enroll themselves. We constantly had runaways also asking to come back and make amends with the school and do outside programs in order to graduate. I agree that some runaways are able to be successful without the help of DeSisto yet we constantly hear from the ones who admit that whatever time they spent there was crucial for their survival after they left. If you want another view, ask the graduates. They too hated the place. ask why they stayed. Parents aren't brainwashed by parent groups. they're required to work on themselves and on their relationships with their kids in order to stay in their lives, not just dump them somewhere to "get cured." ask them why they stayed. DeSisto kids aren't allowed a lot of access to outside stuff initially but get more so as they advance in the school. Restrictions have gotten looser as the years have gone on and the types of kids have changed. The school has made every effort to acknowledge those changes. I really think that if people want to know what DeSisto is like today, ask the people who are currently there, not those who left years ago with bad feelings. ask them and don't believe everything you read b/c a lot of it isn't true. A lot of the people posting entries wouldn't recognize the place today as the place they went to. As to some of the replies, I have never heard of citrus as a cure for smoking. As a matter of fact, the school never claims to stop kids rom wanting to smoke. We simply enforce no smoking while enrolled. However, kids are not sent to school b/c they smoked. that's the least of the things we deal with. And I was on the Farm with Bonnie. That student knows that the issue was dealt with as soon as it was brought up. Also, I was there for Tony. He doesn't tell you all the crap he did at school when he was there, either. Be honest, folks. I had hoped DeSisto would have taught you that much. As to kids being sheltered, that's also something that has been addressed in the recent years to help transition. Again, I say, talk to the people currently involved with the school.

[Anonymous]

:question:

[Anonymous]

To get a objective view of a cult - don't ask someone IN the cult. Ask someone who is OUT.

A former parent

A former faculty

A former student

As for the prior message - I could count on a single-hand (even a few fingers!) the number of faculty members that have lasted 9 years.

Most faculty are well-meaning, early twenty-something year-olds with no formal education or training outside of the school itself. And whose training them? Look at the Bios on the web site of the people running the school. You can't find any? There's a reason for this.

They're not PhDs, or MSWs - they're people who were hired - either right out of college, or former alumni, who worked their ways 'up the ranks'. Ask for the qualifications and resume of the Executive Director.

Michael DeSisto was (and no one could doubt this) a BRILLIANT therapist. In his own world he (perhaps) got too caried away with his own power and idea of what was "right" - as many people do in a position of power, who are unchecked.

The people who are at the school are the ones who have subscribed to this phylosophy - good or bad.

[Anonymous]

In all the time I was there, no issue about the operations of the school or flaws in the philosophy were EVER addressed.  I did, however, witness medication, intimidation and coercion used regularly as management tools to avoid such an appraisal.

[Anonymous]

"What I have to say on this topic, and to any parent who is considering sending their child to a long-term specialty school, boot camp, treatment program, or whatever... Is that life is too short, childhood in particular is too short, to spend months or even years living apart from the people who love you... Provided they really love you. "

I couldn't agree more with the above statement. Parents who feel the need to send their children off to let someone else 'deal with them' need to do some serious soul searching to figure out what the real problem might be. For more extreme cases though, I can certainly understand... but I saw FAR too many folks using that place as a child dumping ground.

Now that might sound crass to you, but frankly after 4 1/2 years of that school, the best thing I got out of it was being able to leave at 18 and having to make my way in the world on my own, forgetting everything I learned there.

[Anonymous]

I haven't registered, but wanted to add that it's now approaching 20 years later, and I only see things that happened back then more clearly... and I do just fine for myself.