A Life Gone Awry: My Story of the Elan School – By Wayne Kernochan – Book Description 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.