Chapter 3: BEFORE AND AFTER.

This chapter discusses the problems of youngsters who were brought to the Peper Harow residential community. As we have seen, the real problem that youngsters brought to Peper Harow was not their anti-social behaviour. The greater problem was that they were actually unable to respond appropriately to the normal constraints of everyday life because of their inadequate or damaged psychological development. The first four of the following descriptions by ex-residents illustrate a variety of problems and behaviour. The transcripts frequently demonstrate the insight that has derived from the ex-resident's years of hard-won experience and from the maturation of their own personality. What still seems especially difficult for the participants in this study to acknowledge fully is the hurt and loss which their more extreme circumstances had caused them. It seems equally difficult for them to recognise how bizarre their behaviour actually was before and when they first arrived at Peper Harow. This phenomenon will be discussed more fully later. However, for the present, it may prove instructive simply to read what they themselves say about their past and about their behaviour before and just after they came to Peper Harow.