Élan School

POLAND, MAINE 1970–2011

At one of the nation’s most notorious therapeutic boarding schools, students endured strict rules, humiliating punishments, and “attack therapy,” which uses confrontation as treatment. In socalled General Meetings, students would take turns berating one person about their flaws. In 1982, 15-year-old Phil Williams Jr. died of a brain aneurysm after reportedly being forced to box another student. No charges were filed in his death. Élan shut down in 2011, after a Reddit thread of abuse allegations went viral. The school’s owner blamed the online campaign, which she called “false attacks,” for the school’s declining enrollment and financial problems.