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.
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Even though I didn't know Will that well, I still knew he was a nice person. You will be missed Will.