. The truth is Santa Monica was enforcing a valid zoning prohibition. It is with Dederich who created the system, a person who in his own words never cared for one single second about any person who left. Good luck. Sidney Poitier did more for race relations in one movie than most of the world combined. *.*..*. For those, as stated above, there is no doubt Synanon served as Ofshe stated, a realistic shelter while they got their act together. That is why the health department took action in 1977. Also true, is that my ego places me in my eyes in a higher position than others. NIH had even started its own experimental synanon at the federal lockup hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Most program lingo IS Synanon lingo! And that number was highly inflated by injection of squares and children born to addicts and squares alike. But generally, as to your comment, my book was not in disagreement. Correcting Claire Clarks Recovery Revolution, Book Escape: My Life Long War Against Cults. She was at the facility for almost one year before she escaped at the age of 15. I'm going to rise up above all this kind of stuff, and I'm going to take care of everyone. I remember how hard it was for a woman to get a job and how few there were in my law school class. there is little value in replying to you because you dont have what Dederich would call the thinking tools. You say there are lies But you dont list them. It's not good.' In the last chapter I discussed the same aspects you mentioned about television and politics. On June 27, 1990, six weeks after the death of Michelle Sutton, 16-year-old Kristin Chase died at the Challenger wilderness camp in Utah of hyperthermia and dehydration after a 5-mile forced march in 105-degree heat. Matt C. Hoffman I'm going to get up at 5:00, I'm going to feed the rabbits, I'm going to make myself breakfast, I'm going to make myself lunch, I'm going to walk to school. In one sense it becomes like the question of which came first the chicken or the egg. You might call that egotistical, but I felt I had that knowledge because I had engaged so many. As stated in the Skeptics Dictionary, law enforcement officials, politicians and religious leaders helped push those fearing addiction to what it determined was primarily rackets designed to make money with little regard for human well-being (like Elan and CeDu). Some children have been placed for nothing more than marijuana smoking, and some because the programs told the parents unless they gave them the younger kid they would expel the older sibling. In 1972 he reported on the case of a 12 year old boy who had been admitted, along with older clients, to a second generation Synanon called The Odyssey House in New York City. Simon, also using the Lifton model, concluded there was a danger in observing Synanon through participation because one could be caught up in the brainwashing. Further, Yablonsky married a Synanon woman and admitted he felt any attack on Synanon was an attack on her. He also admitted violence could not occur without his approval but he forgot the details due to his stroke. ("There was no soft place to land, there was no one really caring about us," he explains. Synanons punitive system of verbal attacks and humiliation was counterproductive and drove out most that entered. but if I missed something please tell me. Real crazy people. He worked hard in high school and ended up earning a scholarship to Stanford. By 1975 Barker had opened four expansion Seeds, but in 1974 both houses of the US Congress had investigated and made the brainwashing charges., Wrote Fager: Despite the fact that the only way Synanon Church could keep addicts off drugs was to keep them at Synanon foreverthat is Synanon was a cultand despite Synanons sordid pastSynanon was a violent cultthe idea of the Game became the basis for a new breed of therapy where the addict himself helps in his own recovery just as Chinese thought reform students help in their own recovery. is a different This is due, in part, to many Synanites having left to form their own lucrative drug rehabilitation companiesa degree in medicine is not a requirement., ***. Dr. Casriel in 1963 reported that of 62 people located of 160 entries, 19 were graduates, while 43 remained inside Synanon. They also had to fight for attention from the few loving adults who monitored them, Jollett explains. Below is a chart made by Maia in Mother Jones: A. Orange on his website lists interesting quotes: Tough Love: Abuse of a type particularly gratifying to the abuser, in that it combines the pleasures of sadism with those of self-righteousness. ***. Elan made millions and millions of dollars, off of criminal child abuse. is probably the most clear and present danger the presidential office ever faced. Many of these, however, were more like resorts for the rich and famous and charged $30,000 a month. Synanon, a drug rehabilitation program turned violent cult founded by Charles Dederich Sr. in the late 1950s in California in part spawned the troubled teen industry, organizers claim. Rogers had been referring to the dangers involved with a kid participating in a typical Synanon Game with 11 people yelling at him, where he could fight back verbally, where he could leave if he chose, and where there was no physical violence. Nicholaus Contreraz, 16, died at the Arizona Boys Ranch near Oracle, Arizona, March 2, 1998, of cardiac arrest, after instructors continued to harass him and force him to exercise even though he told them he was sick. But Farve had the money so he could be self indulgent. I have countless books of interviews and depositions. They must be lies because you cant live with any other thoughts. "I am not bound by the rules," Dederich said, according to a 1978 PEOPLE story. And just how successful were the Synanon imitators? Anybody. A popular TV series was based on John Maher, a colorful former Synanite, who formed his own second generation Synanon in San Francisco called The Delancey Street Gang. still, we had not had a good Republican president since Eisenhower. The Cedu Schools developed into an industry of sister schools, clones and copy-cats, that are now a multi-million dollar, international and unregulated business., *.*.. It also provides no real therapy and is the same program for everyone. Some children were taken to foreign countries, or islands, although foreign countries have done more to stop them than our government. Such people probably would be happier in a small environment with given friends, lovers, jobs and a sense of purpose, where most needs are fulfilled. At his death bed, Maslow finally denounced the Human Potential Movement. Ramirez set up the synanon-based Phoenix House which hired former Synanite Ted Dibble to manage one of its centers. That's our job, to love this [child] fiercely and protect it. By 1971 Dederich would submit that while 10 to 12,000 people had gone through Synanon only about 10% stayed free of drugs for as much as 2 years, which was similar to the statistics everyone else concluded, which were the same at Lexington Hospital when Synanon was founded. By the mid-80s Straight was operating in seven states. The effects of this type of interaction upon a fragile self-image and upon later impulse control in the world at large have not been determined. (Joe Ricci was a former Daytop student who went on to found his own program for troubled youth in Maine called Elansee below.) According to Department of So I asked him how he could then discount it and he responded because if it existed, he would have to consider it occurring in religions (he is a Christian and lover of utopian communities) and other groups. Hollywood Park recounts Jollett's life at various stages: an orphaned 5-year-old, a troubled preteen, and an adult trying to find himself in his music. Maybe if I had written sooner some would still be alive. I think he recognized, 'Oh, is this one going to become an addict, too? In my book Synanon was only one chapter. Hitler did great things for Germany, but it would be wrong to use them to assert we should all think of it as Spring Time for Hitler, as Janzen did of Dederich. It is the process that was wrong and counterproductive, ultimate leading to the vasectomies, changing partners and violence. Also Santa Monica acted because Synanon did not have a license to treat anyone. It was bizarre, surreal,and violent it was not a school in any stretch of the imagination. You would make Wes Fager proud, I am sure, sadly he is no longer with us. I think Synanon was one of the most important stories of the 20th-century and leaves us with one of the most documented histories that is worth studying and learning from. Now, if it is not very God damn profitable, I would go into another business. Need your help! When I was first fighting Synanon, however, things were very black and White. What is mysterious about this? And I think he saw I might be going down that path, too. Maybe it's one of the things about human nature, that isolated power corrupts people. Followers joined Synanon, from the first beach house location in Santa Monica that expanded to San Francisco, Oakland, all across California, and the nation. Thousands of people joined and the organization acquired millions of dollars in assets. By example, as compiled by Dr. Ofshe, in 1961 all Dederich reported was that 70 out of 176 addicts had stayed for 5 days. I was not for that idea, because I saw most members as victims. Spare the Rod Healing. But it is a calculated risk we take. This was written before he joined. No one knows the actual final fate of the 19. We're going to pillage the town! Children say they were punched, kicked and forced to eat dirt for minor infractions such as failing to stand up straight. Sells noted in 1976 that, The more strict the program the lower the percentage of clients retained in the [TC] program..Current magazine had noted that clients in TCs give up all rightsexcept the right to leave. . Today as it is known that alcoholic recovery has a 40% success rate with no treatment at all; it is doubtful AA can surpass that. Were they all out to get rich at the sadistic treatment of others, or was this end in part of natural consequence of using such a punitive system, as suggested by the Stanford experiment on role playing of prisoners and guards? In 1966 New York City Mayor John Lindsay hired Puerto Rican psychiatrist Efren Esteban Ramirez to run the citys Addiction Services Agency. Gina Score, 14, at the state-run juvenile prison camp at Plankinton, South Dakota, 1999 was run to death. And when former clients sued Straight for holding them against their will, Straight pressured parents into letting Straight fight for them for the right to force their kids into treatment with the force of a court order. Per Dr. Robert J. Lifton, this is what one would expect from any totalitarianism environment after removal. The evil was he boasted that they would cut off any charity that did not do as Synanon told them to do. Have a merry. And it is no wonder that almost everywhere Synanon went, Dederich picked a location that was out of zone in which he knew they would be kicked out of, allowing him to claim outrage and obtain sympathy and donations. I was inducted in late 1976 at the age of 14. I was also impressed by stories I was told about the early days and when the Synanon website first started it had lot of anger expressed towards Dederich. Every time we let somebody into Synanon we assume an enormous liability and this is done consciously. Looking back, I think my brother was appropriately angry with the adults.". Charles was arrested while drunk in 1978 and was barred from any further leadership within the I suppose if they werent why Id have to find another business. In the introduction I asked the question was Charles Dederich just another sociopath who rose to power or was he a Jedi Knight seduced by the Dark Side. The monster that now existed had to be stopped. Further, I wrote that the study of cults is studying a microcosm of the greater society. I find I edit better after I posted and edited this one about 5 times so far. And of course, this was what was best in early Synanon, i.e., peers to talk to and help if the craving starts; also support when kicking cold turkey, food and a roof. Justice For Our Angels. Synanon was discredited in the late 1970s and 1980s as its violent record was exposed. But the "abuse of children was absolutely swept under the rug, ignored, gaslit to hell," he says. Both AA and Synanon provided this insight, but unfortunately each bounded its members with an ideology and demand to never quit the organizations. They made people like Bernie Kolb who I loved very much. Any dammed fool who wants to come in and say Id like to live with you and we let them in. Like you I made an incorrect assumption, I complained to Ben you all deleted after I responded. Nov 04, 2017 Daina Fanning rated it really liked it. Sure it maybe closed but it still needs to be investigated in the same fashion that Penn state was investigated. Ms Szalavitz wrote there are hundreds of emotional growth boarding schools, wilderness camps, and tough love anti-drug programs that make up the billion-dollar teen residential treatment industry. '", After Tony went to rehab, their dad quit his job to be home with them and cooked dinner every night. His family claims his pleas for help were ignored. It is also a story of the unconditional love between a By then only 1000 out of the 12,000 claimed to have entered were there and leaving was defined as failure. This kind of stuff, and violent it was not looking for truth live with any other.... 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