And that number was highly inflated by injection of squares and children born to addicts and squares alike. Let alone, 'Okay, here you go stranger I've never met, take care of my kid. Former Synanite Dr. David Deitch, then a Phoenix House director, has stated, A client must have the choice of leaving treatment, even if the youngster is on probation and the alternative is jail.(19) Richard Ashley wrote in Heroin that, The only power of decision the member retains once he enters a TC is the decision to leave. Dr. Efren Ramirez, founder of Phoenix House, has said that you dont rehabilitate a person against his will.. Dederich admitted at deposition that Synanon did not know how to cure a drug addict and he believed the addict would fail if he left. 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. It was reported between 6000 and 10,000 people lived in Synanon from 1958 to 1968 but apparently only 65 were ever known to have completed the program and elected to graduate to life outside the community. Straight used Synanons vaginal and anal searches to search for contraband for years even though they never found any. I am still not in the same league with Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, nor the late Margaret Singer, but what all of us shared was a hands-on experience. Did you change partners? Oh so very funny. 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? On my site, the chapter on Chapter Chucky rising, I tried to set forth how those early times, and the German ideology, were part of the story and evolution of Dederich. "He was just this big, masculine, Italian, strong guy that loved his boys. The Cedu schools (one in California, and one in Idaho) were each located in a mountain wilderness, and students soon discovered that they were teenage captives, without identification or money, in an imposing geography they could not easily or safely negotiate or escape. In 1971, Dederich stated, as Ofshe noted: we want at the idea of graduate. This was a sop to social workers and professionals who wanted me to say that we were producing a graduate. I always wanted to say to them, A person with this fatal disease will have to live here all of his life. I know damn well if they got out of Synanon they are dead. We let, we let crazy people into the door and we dont discriminate. As to the last presidential election, I agree that bigotry raised its ugly head. As a key distinction between comparing Synanon to America, those in Synanon who tried to warn or criticize were shut down and shoved out. He was a great man and kind human being. I would say probably every decade my views changed, either up or down, but only in small degrees. Where you at synanon in 1972-1973? But that questionwhile interestingis really moot; the fact is that while shelter and support is of assistance, the Synanon system based on hate (as stated by Dederich) and punishment was not only a failure but its achievement in publicity, like a Synanon movie starring Ed OBrien, has led to 50 years of horror to countless victims all over the world and continues to do so. When I was first fighting Synanon, however, things were very black and White. They made people like Bernie Kolb who I loved very much. I responded to him that the media never knew the extent of the actual violence and as far as violence inside Synanon, how many incidents would you like to know about? Later I sent him a copy of the History of Synanon violence with over 80 incidents and he never responded nor did I hear from him again, nor did he ever apologize to the public for writing a book in which he intentionally avoided the actual evidence. ! standing in line at a supermarketI get it reading the rags past the time. You dont present any facts that they are lies because you have none. After Bush lied to us and caused mass distraction in Iraq that outdid 9/11, this country was much like a cult which is expected to happen when one is subjected itself to terrorism. But there wont be any room for the kind of people you are now. Saying his death was caused by cardiac arrest, said Cohen, is really sugar-coating the pill as he was tortured to death and also denied medical treatment. I immediately sensed he was writing a book in which he was avoiding obtaining information that might challenge his view. I delete only the crazies refuse to present any argument, rebuttal facts or evidence that anything stated was not true; but just a statement that anyone who would think that or write such facts belongs in a nut house. Justice For Our Angels. Largely, the squares were people looking for purpose and to be part of something. If Dederich had just built a shelter, fed and clothed, and gave support he would have had something. But generally, as to your comment, my book was not in disagreement. In the last chapter I discussed the same aspects you mentioned about television and politics. 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). .It is also clear that the psychological effects of this modality upon different age groups have not been adequately studied., In 1974 Arnold Rachman and M. Heller warned about using the Game with kids when they wrote: There is a serious shortcoming within the theory and the practice of the T.C. Further, Yablonsky married a Synanon woman and admitted he felt any attack on Synanon was an attack on her. Podcast. While Jollett's time in the cult was traumatizing, he reveals that after his mother escaped with him and his brother when they were 5 and 7, life didn't get much better: He recounts watching their roommate, a man who'd also escaped Synanon, being beaten nearly to death in broad daylight. He wrote the failure of Yablonsky to see the horror of what he had written raised questions suggesting a lack of humanity in Yablonsky. The truth is Santa Monica was enforcing a valid zoning prohibition. *, As with The Seed, at Straight abuse was omnipresentincluding beatings and kidnapping of adult participants. No one knows the actual final fate of the 19. my last chapter in my book did just exactly what you asked which was put my what you call myscholarly talents on the American cult. Tony, always angry as a child, sank into addiction at an early age and went to rehab. Synanon did not even keep it from the public. '", After Tony went to rehab, their dad quit his job to be home with them and cooked dinner every night. I am very aware of the early philosophies of Synanon. Phoenix House is one of the biggest TCs today. A business illiterate, I dont know an invoice from a purchase order or the difference between shipped and delivered. Prove that all the Synanon documents directing kidnappings, beatings and murder did not exist. By the 60s the Los Angeles school system had schools (not all) already well integrated and taught anti-bigotry. Its first example, naturally, as failure, was Synanon, and like Synanon, its clones became the darlings of the media and politicians in election years. None of us were hardcore drug addicts. Originally a nonviolent group, Diedrich created the Imperial Marines to maintain orderwithin and outside of the community. Severe examples were made of the few unfortunate children who decided to speak with investigators about the truth. Relationships at the school between students and staff seemed to have little formal structure or sense of normal boundary and a students life was always under threat of intense and unpredictable disciplining and punishment. Rather than a commune wonderfully described by Yablonsky and Janzen as reforming criminals, it made criminals out of non-criminals, and took former reformed criminals to a higher level of criminal violence. Chosen Survivors, regia di Sutton Roley (1974) Inn of the Damned, regia di Terry Bourke (1975) Aquila grigia il grande capo dei Cheyenne (Greyeagle), regia di Charles B. NIH had even started its own experimental synanon at the federal lockup hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. He told me he was completing a book on Synanon. Rather, the organizations said they worked, so people believed it. Yablonsky in his 60s book, totally bought into the enemys conspiracy and that people were against Synanon because blacks lived with whites. It also details how a few former residents ,as we were called then ,survivors as we call our selves, now worked for over 13 years to expose and shut down Elan. Dr. Roger Meyer and psychotherapists Thomas Bratter and Gary Forrest warned about using synanons on kids. That's our job, to love this [child] fiercely and protect it. Suggest reading the fall of series. A belief system based upon coercive persuasion is expected by all who have studied it to be largely abandoned when the pressures are removed. Now theres a little room for you now. I suppose if they werent why Id have to find another business. But I believe there are important messages in its history I was drivin not to let Janzen alter it. I stated my views, but I gave statistics and reports to back them, most unfortunate to learn of the great tragedy that have occurred in the clones are all these years. And furthermore, the National Institutes of Health (NIDAs parent) had funded the first Synanon copy-cat program in NYC called Daytop Lodge. Once again, her counselors said that she was faking when she complained. The first book was published in 1991, and the updated edition was published Decenber 13, 2012. No doubt their belief in Synanon was so strong that they had a good influence on others, but unfortunately they were also subjected to the Synanon system which from the early days warned of the enemy at the door (which Dederich eventually confessed at deposition he made up to bond followers), and later declared that you could never go home or contact outsiders. Because he had lived for so long surrounded by yes people, he had no understanding how others would see his actions and thus was very open in admitting what he did, including that violence could not happen unless he approved it. But the "abuse of children was absolutely swept under the rug, ignored, gaslit to hell," he says. But I, its a marvelous business to watch these assholes come in and fall all over themselves and try bite me in the ass. Learning of all the horrors and deaths that occurred in the clones over the past decades I only wish I had, as you accuse a single career in criticizing Synanon. That for about a period of 7 years most of my friends were ex synanon members. gave a grant to a Florida organization called The Seed, which applied Synanons methods to teenagers, even to those only suspected of trying drugs . I dont have to stay in it anymore. There is much that is accurate in many cult books, particularly those that follow Lifton, but many lack proper perspective. is a different There is likely truth that allowing contact with past relationships might lure someone to leave or want to get high, but that is the persons choice. What lies did we believe wholeheartedly?". While forced to admit the attack on me, there is no mention of Phil Ritter or Eidson, etc., in his book, Rise and Fall of Synanon (which was same working title I had) rather a statement that the media exaggerated the violence and that there was no violence inside Synanon. Finally, even the founder was not cured, returning to marijuana by 1977 and to an alcoholic stupor in 1978 that led to drunken parties throughout Synanon, as Phil Ritters and my murders were plotted, and the supposedly rehabilitated and reformed celebrated at the news of resulting injuries. That is, she was forced to run in the summer sun until she collapsed, and then she was left laying in the hot sun until she died. I witnessed a few cow boy ass kickings. It is also a story of the unconditional love between a It also provides no real therapy and is the same program for everyone. Good luck. Dederich said free choice in the hands of an addict was like a gun in the hands of a baby. The monster that now existed had to be stopped. But these rules had long been eradicated at Synanon the root of todays confrontational-type therapeutic communities. Per Dr. Robert J. Lifton, this is what one would expect from any totalitarianism environment after removal. Your post-talks about the bonds, the relationships and enjoyment people had, particularly in earlier days. Vision Quests leader was convicted of smuggling cocaine. The problem I thought was that the men did not know what to do in response which increased the divorce rate. Naya Arbiter Jollett, 45, tells PEOPLE about the abuse he and many other children experienced while growing up in the "school" of the infamous Synanon cult. But he failed to see while controlled and anti-social pathology still existedit awaited release and that many were eager to respond to their old days ways if the message to do good turned to do bad. Kids were assaulted and restrained without cause and all the rest. And in March she went, flying into Georgetown with her family, a few friends, and Jordan This intrusive, assertive therapeutic style works well for a few clients but may injure many more. Professor Bellis noted that, A number of clients. As messages here seem to disappear and reappear per you request I am repeating it. He noted that the child seemed lost in the rigid hierarchy and confrontation tactics of the program. He wrote: As a clinician I am concerned about the effects of intense, violent verbal interaction upon young teenagers engaged in a sensitive process of identity formation. And with that all being announced on the wire, murder attempts begin. So again I stand by my position, no one wanting to write an accurate book on Synanon could not interview me as a lead, and could not refuse to examine the documents I offered him. "'Ha, ha! The money was too good; parents panicking at the finding of a joint and willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to anyone with the sales pitch, never quite understanding the tortures and deaths that awaited. That did not exist in Synanon, that is what cemented its doom. There is a book called Duck in a Raincoat it is by Maura Curley and this is the 2nd edition, an updated edition if you will. : troubledteens. It wasnt until the end when I wrote the legacy that a few people started to complain. If you look at your post, you will see you bring up matters which were brought up in the entirety of my text and there is little difference. The story of Synanon is how one man took good people and turned them into terrorists. This piece was limited to legacy and was put together through stats, admissions and results in clones. Sincerely I am also assuming that you have learned some of these things since you wrote this post-as I have seen some things you have written since that I was quite impressed by. Out of 1,180 addicts who had entered Synanon in its first five years of operation, only 26 had graduated. Barker had been arrested at age 16 for burglary and when he was 18 he was charged with assault and robbery, for which he joined the Army a few days later and then went AWOL. Jollett says his feelings were not validated by his mother, who instead relied on him for comfort. but if I missed something please tell me. Maybe it's the leader's fault. At least three dozen teens have died in these programs, often because staff see medical complaints as malingering. borderline schizophrenic patients, schizoid personalities, and acutely anxious, neurotic adolescents. Founded in 1958, Synanon sold itself as a cure for hardcore heroin addicts who could help each other by breaking new initiates with isolation, humiliation, hard labor, and sleep deprivation. As to CED I have no clear answer, but certainly his childhood traumas and abandonments were likely to produce pathology. Maia wrote: No fewer than 50 programs can trace their treatment philosophy, directly or indirectly, to an anti-drug cult called Synanon. Do you realize that over 80 people were attacked? The musician was careful in his portrayal of his mother, whom he feared would come across as a one-dimensional villain. ", It wasn't until the boys moved in with their father a tall, Italian man who awed them with stories about once hiding a shotgun under his trench coat that the once-distant dad became more than just a mythological figure. Sidney Poitier did more for race relations in one movie than most of the world combined. 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