When Doctor M. Scott Peck suggested Elan to my parents I was skeptical because the first program he sent me to was a drug program, and I had never done drugs. He said it wasn't, and that Elan treated teens with emotional problems. He told me that Elan had psychiatrists and counselors, and activities, so I agreed to go.

What I witnessed was unbelievable. Elan was an insane asylum, run by the inmates, and Joe Ricci was God. For more than thirty years I told people I had been in prison, rather than the truth of what happened there. After you read this book you will understand why

The Media

"The tales of treatment at the school during the 1970s were well-documented during the 2002 murder trial of former student Michael Skakel, and the practices of isolating students, screaming sessions called "general meetings" and physically rough treatment have been written about by dozens of former students, including disturbing details of Wayne Kernochan's time at the school between 1978 and 1980 detailed in his e-book, "A Life Gone Awry: My Story of the Elan School."~The Lewiston Sun Journal

"Former student Matt Hoffman, who boarded at Elan between 1974 and 1976 had little good to say about the program Wednesday, calling the campus "a sadistic, brutal, violent, soul-eating hell hole."~The Lewiston Sun Journal

Survivor Quotes

"I can't thank you enough for telling your story. I have felt alone for many years, and because of your story, now I don't"~Debi Levin Johnson

"Wayne's book about Elan, lucid vivid, captures the gist and grinding of what it was like to be in Elan, even during my time which was 7/74 to 7/76(a couple of years before Wayne) This book touches me to my very being. It cuts through to the marrow of my bones."~Matt Hoffman

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• Biography & True AccountsMemoirs
• Biography & True AccountsTrue Crime

• Publication Date: January 20, 2012
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 121 Pages
• File Size: 796 KB