I must confess that I'm totally relieved that others are onto the ridiculous people who call themselves the school psychologists and counselors at the Pingry School. Talk about inept and dangerous. Pat Lionetti and Mike Richardson, alone responsible for all the 700 kids at Pingry's campus in Martinsville have no clue what they are doing and in the process are harming otherwise good kids. I should know: I am one of those kids (now grown up, of course).
I suffered from depression during my freshman and sophomore years at Pingry. My parents called the head of the upper school, a decent guy who seemed to get along with essentially every student, and he told them to have me see Mike Richardson. Three lousy and absurd conversations then insued and in each one "Dr." Mike (I don't believe the degree can possibly be from anything but a mail order diploma mill) asked me more and more questionsa bout my parents.
I later went to enough real counselors to know this can be a good area of questioning but in my case the issue was not my parents. I had an actual mental health disorder and was trying over and over again to tell him how I all I wanted to do was sleep or not eat or stay in bed. He actually TOLD my parents they needed to back off because I felt too much pressure for them, which totally pissed us off. I NEVER said anything of the sort.
When my dad told him this he hemmed and hawed and said that sometimes kids say things without saying them and apparentsly he could read between the lines what I didn't say. WTF?! So my parents, who never pressured me in anything but getting better and getting help, tried to switch me to the other "psychologist" Mrs. Lionetti.
Ok, so if "Dr." Mike was scary, this woman was a nightmare. She stood me up on 8 different meetings after telling me each time exactly when to see her. If my mom hadn't of called back the head of the upper school to tell him what was going on I would not have kept trying. Finally I got into her office and answered her questions, which were total repeats of "Dr" Mike's take. Did I feel stressed abut grades? Did my parents have unrealistic expectations, blah blah blah?
It was like she was talking to some other kid with some other set of problems. She could NOT respond to what wsas by that point totally obviously depression. She kept telling meI could always go and talk to her but she was NEVER in her office and impossible to meet because she stands everybody up. None of the kids in that school that I knew trusted these counselors but they are the only people your supposed to talk to.
After two months of sending me to the school quacks, my parents finally got me to a private practice therapist, who immediately had me hospitalized. She told me and my parents that what the counselors had done was totally dangerous and irresponsible. We agree. I left the school because i was too sick that year to stay and I was sad about everything. But in the long run I am so psyched to be out of there because I think that nothing can go right in a place that has those two quacks in those offices.
Pingry needs to wake up and fire those clueless idiots. Kudos to the others who have already made this point here on usacomplaints.com. If you are a parent thinmking of sending your kid here and shelling out a quarter of a grand, think again. He could get good grades and a college acceptance letter to write home about but he will not have support from intelligent life forms in those two counselors.
Someone needs to report them to whatever organization allows them to stay in practice. Or maybe that's what I'll do next. ROCK ON! And if you are a kid stuck with them, do NOT feel sad or scared. You are not alone, help is out there, you just won't find it in them.
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