Chapter Twenty Four- The Exposé

In September 1972, Lynne Langley, a reporter for Maine Times wrote an exposé about Kinsman Hall which cast shadows of great skepticism upon not only the whole validity of the Kinsman Hall's operation, but the people running it as well. Page one of the article simply plants the seeds of doubt by asking the question, "Successful cure center or concentration camp?"  This question is accompanied with a photo of a male resident sitting on the ground with his back to the camera...shaved head, of course for full effect! 

This is followed up by another million dollar question?  Why doesn't the state find out what's happening? One might assume at that time, state funding might be tight or that regulations are not  what they are today that govern places like Kinsman Hall. I'm sure several factors played into the State of Maine's apathy towards the residents at Kinsman Hall especially since several of them including myself were put there from the State of Maine through the court system. 

 

There are a few points in the article that are simply not true. For example what was written about the females hair being cut short is a false statement. Females were under no requirement to have their hair cut.  If any females chose to do so, it was because they wanted to cut it short and not because Kinsman Hall forced them to do so. I was there when this article was written and I can only think of a few females who wore their hair short.

After rereading this article several times, I still have the same reaction to it. The statement about graduating high school as being a requirement of the program is totally bogus. It may have started out that way, but it didn't remain that way. I was sixteen when I entered the program at the end of 1971.  At no time was I ever approached about attending school or getting my GED.  I was never prepared in anyway about the taking any of the necessary steps I needed to take in order to graduate the program.  I don't even know what those requirements entailed or if there were any. I spent two years at Kinsman Hall and when I left, I was totally clueless.  I had no support system.  I had no real goals other than to get married and live happily ever after.  How realistic is that?  As for any long term plan for myself as an individual, I had none.  My thinking process was never geared towards that.  It was always focused on the here and now and just living from day to day. So in other words, I was ill-prepared to leave Kinsman Hall when I did. 

As seen in the photo is the major construction project which remained unfinished and became  quite an eyesore and possible tinderbox. Why start something if you can't complete what you start? Lack of funds is no excuse because you shouldn't have started it, if you didn't have the money to finish it. I know Dean had good intentions, but as he always preached to all of us all the time, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions!"  The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, but the construction site was cluttered with debris. And that's how it remained! 

I don't know who the "escapee" is that article refers to that talked to officials, but what they described seemed fairly accurate. General meetings are something that are forever etched into anyone's memory...especially if you were the recipient!  Obviously, "Johnny" wasn't trusted enough to do the interview without supervision.  I wonder what he would have said under different circumstances.  

Many have claimed that Dean took various popular concepts at the time like the one at Synanon and combined it with some popular psychological theories dealing with behavior modification then added a little bit of his own flavor and came up with Kinsman Hall.  At the time, only one other therapeutic center existed like Kinsman Hall in Maine so he virtually had no competition for the downtrodden and misfits market in that state.  Élan School was a private, coeducational, and highly controversial residential behavior modification program and therapeutic boarding school in Poland, Maine founded by three people, Gerald Davidson, a psychiatrist, David Goldberg, an investor and Joseph Ricci, a former heroin addict. Some called it our "sister" program.  Like Kinsman Hall, its legacy might make a great Stephen King novel. Like Kinsman Hall, Élan School was formerly a hunting lodge, but Élan School managed to outlive Kinsman Hall by 35 years. They finally shut their doors in 2011. They came into being at the same time as Kinsman Hall.  They were run the same way and they were cloaked by same type of obscurity until their doors shut. 

Dean boasts that his success rate is high and that may very well be true, but let's not talk about the people who stayed on to go on staff because that's a safe existence and they are afraid to leave Kinsman Hall.  Let's discuss the others.  What about all the people who have left Kinsman Hall? He claims they all went to college or were in business. As I look at the head count sheet, tears fill my eyes because I know that isn't true nor was it at the time.  I don't think it ever was true. What kind of place has that kind of success rate?  If that were the case, then Kinsman Hall would still be in business and have facilities opened all over the country to help people with addiction. Dean Hepper would be a household name.

Dean's vision may have been on point in the beginning, but I think it got clouded by too many factors along the way.  It was an uphill battle and one he was never going to win.  Wherever he landed, he was never going to be welcome.  People have preconceived notions about the type of people who fill drug rehabs. Those are the type of people small communities like Hillsdale and Jackman do not want infiltrating their lives. I'm not saying that people don't have compassion for people with addiction issues, but it's a totally different story when your community has to be exposed to it on a level it never has been exposed before by having a treatment facility in its backyard. That's when people start getting bad attitudes and stuff starts happening.

The article also mentions a male who was diagnosed as being schizophrenic.  I can attest to the fact that while I was a resident, we had residents there who suffered from serious mental illness.  Kinsman Hall was not the place where they should have been.  Anyone with a social work, psychology or nursing degree should have known better and should have spoken up and said something on that person's behalf.  The next examples are not included in the article, but rather is something I firsthand experienced. I was only sixteen and it was obvious to me that someone who sits and smears menstrual blood all over themselves and the room they have locked themselves in needs a little more help than what Kinsman Hall can give them.  Anyone who cannot or will not communicate with people in an appropriate manner using words like everyone else does needs more help than what Kinsman Hall offered.  Also, a full blown fugue state is a little bit disconcerting to be around to say the least. It's sad and scary to watch someone who is mentally ill spiral downward and what's even sadder and scarier is for the people who are supposed to be charge to refuse to accept that these people need more help than what they can give them. 

Some might take this as finger pointing long after the fact, but at the time  we the residents had no voice. And now, it really doesn't matter because the damage was done long ago, the place is gone and the key players are long deceased and can't answer for any of this.  I can't say I was mistreated, but others were. I witnessed it.  Others witnessed it and others have to live with those scars and memories just as I have to live with them.  No one can make me "unsee" what I saw or "unfeel" what I felt.  It'd be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't.