Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

PPS correlation does not mean causation.

Yup. That's exactly the way it used to be. Work crew, confrontation in seminar, ridicule in school meeting, and school-wide ostracism was used as a cure for everything from a bad attitude to aspergers. Joe had tremendous disdain for the professional practice of psychology, preferring a do-it-yourself approach using psych tricks brought to popular awareness through the human potential movement. From what I can tell, that's pretty much exactly what Hyde School still does, although they have been forced to make concessions re. kids taking psych meds due to cultural trends and public awareness.

The "character education" is, IMO, a reflection of Joe's obsession with his own self-improvement. What actually transpires at Hyde was probably based in part on, or at least was heavily influenced by, a therapeutic community based program for treating juvenile delinquents called Guided Group Interaction, originally developed for military offenders by Lloyd McCorkle in the 1940s.

GGI is the forerunner of Positive Peer Culture, a more palatable label that many folk confuse with a general descriptive of using the influence of peers in a positive way or towards positive goals. Make no mistake about it, PPC is a "group therapy" method which, in its original form, strives to create a 'round the clock, 24/7 therapeutic milieu in order to effect intended behavior modification. Pretty much every single program featured on fornits uses it or other TC-based protocols of one form or another. It all boils down to using group pressure, or mob mentality if you will, to coerce both behavioral as well as psychological change in adolescents.

Ursus, I was there. I don't need you or anyone else to validate my personal account of Hyde.

As far as Hyde making "concessions" regarding medication- did you read my post to begin with? Hyde has no authority to tell anyone what medication they can and cannot take. There was no concession due to "cultural trends." Stop making crap up and scouring the internet for whatever snipit of text you can copy and paste to support your opinion of the day.

Hyde is not a good place. I don't support it, but a lot of what you post on here is as off-base and misinformed as anything that goes on at Hyde.

PS who gives a crap what the etiology of Hyde's dogma is? I sure don't.

I would love to know why Duncan Mcrann is leaving... I was NOT a fan.

I do want to address the issue of RN's handing out meds. What is the problem? Are you assuming that all the meds are psychiatric? What would having a psychologist have to do with RN's handing out meds? Psychologists don't handle meds or prescribe. Psychiatrists prescribe medications and Hyde could never afford to have one on staff, and even if they could, no MD in their right mind would work there with all the questionable ethical practices.

When I was there we weren't even allowed to keep advil in our rooms. Things like birth control, allergy meds and vitamins are handed out by the nurse's. Nurse's don't prescribe them- the doctors the students see, who are not Hyde employees prescribe. FYI many boarding schools do this. The medication line is not unique to Hyde and quite frankly, I'd rather have a nurse make sure a 14 year old takes prescribed medication then hand a child a bottle of antibiotics, and HOPE they take them.  There are certainly many many kids taking psych meds at Hyde, and the other posters are right, many in that line are getting just that. I was one of them, of course, even if I hadn't been I'd still have been in that line to get my ortho and iron pill.

Bottom line, Hyde admits those kids, but has little to do with the medications. There are plenty of regulations about medication storage and administration that Hyde can't screw with. Which is a good thing. If Hyde had it's way I am pretty sure you'd be expected to solve your own mental health problems though work crew and having one to ones during dinner.

Hyde needs mental health professionals on staff but won't ever get them. Why? It would be professional suicide. Too much of the shit Hyde pulls is in direct violation of what you SHOULD do. Look up the National Social Worker code of Ethics. A real SW would run out of there screaming.

Back to Mcrann. I always thought it was a crock of shit that he worked for a school that was supposed to be so great at working with families, and yet, he had such a hard time with his own children.

Hyde is disgusting, and I wish some one would hurry up and do an expose of that place!

When I was there, there truly were a lot of good kids there. Many were going through hard times, and came from troubled families. but even the best kid can be made into a rotten crazy by that school. If you don't have issues to talk about in seminar then you're in trouble!

There were a lot of kids with learning issues, add, depression and self esteem issues. Many were adopted, had lost a parent or had parents who were just batshit crazy. There were also kids with substance abuse issues. There were kids who tried hard to magnify their own issues to fit in, seem strong or get props for "digging deep"

There were a few kids that I think were seriously mentally ill, and many had parents who just couldn't accept it. There was a girl there that I now recognize had schizophrenia when I was a student. My heart goes out to her now, she had a very hard time and it was never fair or ethical. She didn't get the treatment she needed, and was made fun of horribly by her peers.  (I am a social worker now, and have worked in multiple mental health settings) I remember being instructed to take my roommate's razors from her so she would stop cutting herself- I look back at that and cannot believe that was how a faculty member thought fit to handle a very serious situation!