Author Topic: David Deitch  (Read 21507 times)

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Offline odie

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David Deitch
« on: October 01, 2007, 02:51:19 PM »
I've seen far too many posts questioning the origins of the TC and how it's philosophy has trickled down to other programs. I guess it's time for me to send all those still searching in the grassy knoll to this man.  :roll:  For those want to see how Synanon was influential in Daytop, Phoenix House, and numerous other programs all you need to do is look up their connection with David Deitch, who by the way is a Synanon graduate. For those interested here is a link to him. ::argue::

http://psychiatry.ucsd.edu/faculty/ddeitch.html
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Offline Ursus

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David Deitch
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2007, 05:16:08 PM »
Thanks, odie!

Would you perchance also know:
    When was David Deitch involved with Synanon, and
    What was the basis for his involvement?
    (Some folks were not addicts per se, and were more attracted to Synanon's avowed ideals from a TC perspective).
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Offline odie

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David Deitch
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2007, 01:36:03 PM »
The basis for his involvement was that he was in treatment there. He graduated, became "classically educated", and the rest is history. I believe he was in treatment around 1960 or so.
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Offline Ursus

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David Deitch
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2007, 03:02:31 PM »
Here is an "ancient" fornits post found on a mirror site.  I tried to find it again in-house, but was unsuccessful.  Either it no longer exists, or fornits Search and Google's Advanced Search do not work optimally, or all of the above.

LINK to Mirror Cache

Wesley
04/15/00  17:20

    RE: Red Eyes Basis of Drug Diagnosis/The Great Drug War
   
Josef Stalling and Ilich Lenin made repeated public remarks that communism and capitalism could not co-exist, that sooner or later one would topple the other and that it was the Soviet goal to topple capitalism. Nikita Khrushev gave a speech to the United Nations in 195? saying to the West, "We're going bury you." Some Americans did not take these threats idly. In the Sixty's while the flower children were smoking joints, a group called the Minutemen were clandestinely stashing arms for the ultimate East/West struggle. A more intellectual, white-collar group was the John Birch Society. The Communist Manifesto stated that Communism and Capitalism can not co-exist, and that Communism will work to topple Capitalism. The John Birch Society had a stated platform that Communism and Capitalism can not co-exist, and that the Society will work to topple Communism. Now the KGB worked hard in the 1960s and 1970s to try to help overthrow the United States from within. For example, the KGB seeded money to the civil rights movement (though the freedom marchers never knew it) and the KGB made a heyday showing angry blacks burning down Watts on Soviet TV. KGB operatives infiltrated the anti-war movement and seeded money to it too--unbeknownst to War protesters. They made a heyday showing films of Abbey Hofman and the Chicago Democratic Convention riots on Soviet TV. They infiltrated the movements of Catholic nuns and German and American housewives laying down in front of trains transporting nuclear weapons in the American west and in Germany. (I was an Army Intelligence Officer in those days. I was commissioned just after Congress forbade the military from keeping files on American citizens.) Now one group the KGB really feared was The John Birch Society. So it started propaganda to paint the society as red-necked, white extremists of the American Nazi Party ilk. They did a good job too, convincing us all that intelligent men didn't join the Society. Incidently, the John Birch Society took a stand against Synanon saying that it was a communist society. (I don't know what the Society said about Jim Jones and The People's Temple, but Jim Jones even admitted he was trying to establish a Communist society in Guyana.)

In the 1960s William O'Brien, a caring Catholic priest from Brooklyn, sent many of New York's heroin addicts out to Synanon. New York psychiatrist Dan Casriel visited Synanon in the 1960s and wrote So Fair a House which helped put Synanon on the map. Monsignor O'Brien and Dr. Casriel teamed up to form their own synanon for Brooklyn's Probation Dept. which they called Daytop Lodge. Daytop was funded, in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). But like MATRIX, a federal synanon or therapeutic community (TC) set up by NIMH at the federal lock-up hospital in Lexington, Ky, Daytop Lodge failed because it did not have a charismatic leader. So O'Brien and Casriel coaxed David Deitch, an assistant administrator at Synanon, to join them. The new Daytop is called Daytop Village. But it wasn't long before the administration was saying that Deitch was trying to set up a communist commune based on the teachings of Ernesto Che Gueyara--Fidel Castro's right-hand man. So David Deitch was booted out. Today Daytop is one of the biggest surviving synanons (or therapeutic communities which is what they have decided to call themselves these days.)

Not to be out-done NYC's Mayor Lindsey was looking for a solution to the overall heroin addiction problem in that city. The Black Muslins were working on an exhortative approach to drug addiction cures. I believe some Black Panther officials had met with Synanon to observe The Game. Though NYC's heroin problem was predominantly in the black ghetto communities, Mayor Lindsey compromised and settled on another minority to head his Phoenix House. Phoenix House was sponsored by the city's Addiction Services Agency which was sub-headed by a psychiatrist from California name Mitchell Rosenthall. A Puerto Rican psychiatrist named Dr. Efren Estaban Ramirez was selected to head Phoenix House. Now Synanon had a treatment facility in Puerto Rico. Dr. Ramirez selected synanon-style Games as his treatment modality for Phoenix House. One female psychiatrist who had visited Dr. Ramirez down in Puerto Rico was Dr. Julian Gensen-Gerber. She created her own synanon in New York City called Odyssey House. One her houses was the first TC for children. Dr. Rosenthall became head of Phoenix House when Ramirez left.. Synanist Rae Tibble directed one of the Phoenix houses. Synanite John Maher left Synanon to found The Delancy Street Gang in San Francisco. Rod Mullen and some other Synanists left Synanon to form Amity Foundation in Tucson

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro ... -9923.html

In June 1970 a former New Yorker and recovering alcoholic named Art Barker formed The Seed in Fort Lauderdale. A TC for kids. No one down there had ever seen anything like it. A kid being controlled by the GROUP. Brutal verbal confrontations. They called him a genius. Art let everyone believe that he just sort of dreamed up his own version of kids shouting indictments at other kids. Art Barker's gaudy, Gothic sign for The Seed is strangely similar to John Maher's sign for The Delancy Street gang. Barker was funded by NIMH and then by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) when that sub-organization was formed and headed by Robert DuPont.

After getting kicked out of Daytop, David Deitch wound up helping set up synanons for the Illinois Drug Abuse Programs (IDAP) and was on the staff of Chicago's new TC named Gateway. While Deitch was setting up synanons for IDAP, Dr. Jerome Jaffe was making a name for himself at IDAP treating heroin addicts with methadone. Richard Nixon selected Dr. Jaffe as the first drug czar. Dr. Jaffe was replaced by Robert DuPont as the second White House Drug Czar due to DuPont's work with methadone treatment in Washington, DC. Robert DuPont, who administered funding to The Seed, once told Dan Baum that he had looked at TCs as a possible solution to the nations way out of the drug war but had felt TCs could not handle the load of the enormous numbers of the nation's addicts. Yet when he left NIDA he became a paid consultant for Straight, Inc. and helped make it the largest synanon in the world.

Deitch's Gateway House testified against Straight in the Fred Collin's case in 1983. An association had been formed called the Therapeutic Communities of America (TCA) of which Gateway and Phoenix House belonged. The TCA had a client bill of rights and the TCA felt that Straight had not held to this. David Deitch references Straight's abusive tactics in an article he wrote on Coercion in the Therapeutic Community for the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 1984. In 1984 David Deitch had become Director of Clinical Services for Phoenix House.

Which all gets us to Ginger's question? Why didn't we know that there were books on Straight before? (Actually, by now I've forgotten exactly what Ginger was asking about, but I think it was something along what I'm replying to.) Answer. Even as the communist propagandized against the John Birch Society so that no respectable thinking man today would admit that he had been a John Bircher (I was not. I was too young and had my head stuck too deeply in science and engineering books to realize that there was a shooting war going on over in Asia, and that people were beginning to be locked up for smoking pot. However, had I known, I probably would have been a John Bircher.), so the drug warriors propagandize against people who are trying to bring reason into the phony drug war. Straight's former national director infiltrated Pride. Dr. Newton's name is mentioned at their conferences. PANDAA still pushes Newton's and DuPont's books. The drug warriors have done a good job painting the Drug Policy Foundation as a group of pot heads wanting to use dope, when in fact they're some pretty level-headed, intellectuals. Arnold Trebach is an attorney with a Phd in Criminal Justice and a professor at American University. He was a voice crying out almost alone against the horrors of Straight. The Drug Policy Foundation gave Richard Bradbury a $10,000 grant to aid him in his work.

Straight was so taken aback by Trebach's 1986 book which made reference to the fact that Straight was brainwashing children that Straight invited two psychologists from Simon Frazer University in Canada to visit Straight. Dr. Bruce Alexander was one of those visitors. In Peaceful Measures: Canada's Way Out of the Drug War, he writes that Straight does indeed use Communist brainwashing techniques on its clients. As for the other professor. Dr. Barry Beyerstein. You want to know what he said. Well you'll just have to visit my web page for that.

So yes Ginger. There were people who knew. There were people who were trying to help. You kids were just too shell-shocked to find it. And besides the Internet did not exist. The Drug Warriors have done a good job in painting moderates as coke snorting felons, just like the KGB had John Bircher's painted as red necks back in the 60s. Wouldn't surprise me if they haven't infiltrated moderation groups like the Drug Policy Foundation or the Lindsmith Foundation. By the time you kids woke up, the stuff was off the press. There wasn't a big demand for it in those days. You were the real benefactors-to-be of the books. You just wern't ready yet.

If anybody from the Drug Policy Foundation is listening, I think you'd better tell the printer to stock up on The Great Drug War. I think a 100 copies might be needed within a year. The kids are finally growing up Melvin.

Wes Fager
Oakton Institute for Cultic Studies
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Offline Inculcated

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Re: David Deitch
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2009, 01:04:34 AM »
SEKTO:
I’m not sure if you had already come across this thread yet. I’ve just read it and found it interesting.
I’d like to know what your thoughts are on the info. TTYS.
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“A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free”  Nikos Kazantzakis

Offline SEKTO

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Re: David Deitch
« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2009, 09:40:46 PM »
Hi there, accountabilibuddy.

Hmmm, no, I'm not sure that I have seen this thread before, but will study it out and get back to the forum later with my thoughts.  

It'll have to wait until tomorrow though, as I have had a long day and just want to chill now.  

Thanks for pointing this out, and asking for my input.

Peace be upon you.
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Offline SEKTO

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Re: David Deitch
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2009, 07:07:57 PM »
This is a lot of ground to cover, so I'll try and make my post well-thought out but relatively brief.

Personally, I never heard of Straight until '93 when I met a guy in DAYTOP named CM who had come out of there when they closed, and told us all kinds of horrible stories, really bad stuff.  He was telling us how DAYTOP was a cakewalk compared to what he had come out of.  

On the matter of Great Drug War, and to provide some context:

At the height of the American Empire (late forties through late sixities) when for all intents and purposes we had all the bombs, all the cops, it was all ours with the two car garages and the Cadillacs, the split-level ranch houses, we were Number One in the world and there was no competition.  Communism was The Great Evil and these were the days in which JBS had its genesis.

There were 76 million Americans born between the years '46 and '64, they were trained by Dr. Spock to be demand-fed; they were the first consumer species, they were the first electronic species, and the very fact that you were an American and you were young at the time (late forties through early sixties) meant that you deserved the world.  

The importance of this to me, is that this represents a demonstration on the Baby Boom generation of their sheer numbers, of their strength, of their clout, or their power, which was in straight quantity.  

The '60s and '70s hippie/antiwar/drug culture, and the backlash against that counterculture in the form of all of the Nixon-Reagan-Bush conservative drug war hysteria were all a part of this profound, historic generational change.  

The long and the short of what I have to say is that a whole generation of American kids got screwed over by that '80s and early '90s Reagan/Bush era "Just Say No" antidrug hysteria that we grew up immersed in, which had its origins in the likes of Harry Anslinger, and more recently Richard Nixon.  

More thoughts as they come to me.

Avoid all needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
Abbie Hoffman
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Offline Inculcated

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Re: David Deitch believes the hype
« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2009, 03:00:21 AM »
http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html This site had some interesting facts posted & linked with David Deitch weighing/cashing in on hysteria about Druggie Teens.

December 8, 2009
The "Lindsay's the EveryGirl" lynch mob
Associated Press entertainment writer Sandy Cohen's abysmal--and typical--lack of journalistic ethics ("Lohan Latest Star to Tumble Into Abuse," July 24, 2007) imaging Lindsay Lohan as the poster child for young Hollywood and young America is just the latest fictional travesty in AP’s lazy, sensational anti-youth meanness.
Imagine growing up with a father—in this case, Lindsay Lohan’s father, Michael, now 46—whose rampant drug and alcohol abuse, repeated violent assaults, corporate thefts, and drunken criminality destroyed his family, led to years of incarceration, and forced his daughter to see legal protection from his “uncontrollable behaviors” and abuses. And parents who put her through a long, contentious divorce. And a mother, Dina, who was full of public sympathy... for herself... declaring to the press: "Teen drug addiction runs rampant and we are not the only family suffering from this. My heart goes out to families going through this pain."
No, Ms. Lohan, teenage drug addiction is not rampant. It is, however, more common when rotten parents put their kids through years of addiction, crime, violence, bitter divorce, and excuse their own execrable behaviors by publicly claiming drug abuse is just a "teenage" problem. With alleged grownups like these in charge, it's a wonder teenagers don't drink more. Fortunately, the Los Angeles Times ran a much more intelligent piece on young celebrities' toxic parents.
Add to that the toxicity of the entertainment press smeling a cheap chance to moaralize. Reporters such as AP's and commentators including “substance abuse experts” and self-described feminists, so insensitive they never mentioned Lindsay’s history of abuse and addicted parents—all so modern-day moralists can exploit her drug and alcohol afflictions to indict “young Hollywood” and young female America as some uniquely addicted, troubled generation worrying its wise and concerned parents.
Welcome to the “culture war” and its cruelties, led by news reporters, pundits, and quotable drug treatment hawkers eager to place their own popularity and profit ahead of revealing ugly truths to Americans.
The harsh reality: Lindsay Lohan’s drug and drunken driving woes are very atypical of young people (including young celebrities) today. But when teens and young adults have drug and alcohol problems, it’s not because they’re modern youth, but virtually always because they come from addicted, often abusive family backgrounds. Meanwhile, drug-abusing middle-agers like Lindsay’s father do represent a skyrocketing scourge neither news reporters nor “experts” (in this case, the Phoenix House’s craven “addiction specialist” David Deitch, quoted in the July 24 AP story) have the basic guts or decency to mention. Why should they? They know today's reporters run any anti-youth quip, no matter how factless.
The latest 2004 National Center for Health Statistics figures show 865 American teenagers did indeed die from illegal drug overdoses, and FBI reports show 551,000 Americans under age 20 were arrested for drug, drunken driving, and drunkenness offenses in 2005. That kind of fact gets huge publicity. Oh, the poor parents who suffer such terrible kids!
But what is never mentioned was that 10,763 Americans ages 40-49—the parents—died from illicit-drug overdoses in 2004 and 675,000 in this supposedly mature, stable middle-aged group were arrested for drug and drunk driving violations in 2005. Teens are suffering far more from their parents’ addictions and rotten behaviors than the other way around.
Of course, the press and supposed addiction experts like Deitch shrink from discussing. Instead, they spread lies that “today's youngsters start experimenting with drugs about age 12” (Deitch, quoted in the AP story). In fact, our most reliable and only long-term measure, Monitoring the Future, shows only 20.9% of today’s eighth graders (average age 14) ever used an illicit drug even once, a proportion that has dropped sharply since the 1970s. The National Household Survey shows just 11.7% of 12 year-olds ever used any drug at all. Hardly a 12 year-old epidemic.
But in today’s world of adults desensitized to young people and indifferent to real trends and problems, no one important cares what is really going on. Lindsay is a visible, exploitable commodity, and bullying interests are piling on her to push their agendas.
Mike Males, YouthFacts.org
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Offline Inculcated

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Re: David Deitch believes the hype
« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2009, 03:03:52 AM »
Oh, and Deitch’s comments in the article the author was responding to were:
Quote
At the same time, the average age at which kids -- famous or not -- start using drugs has dropped every decade since the 1960s. Today's youngsters start experimenting with drugs about age 12, said Dr. David Deitch, an addiction specialist for more than 40 years and clinical director of Phoenix House, a national nonprofit provider of substance-abuse treatments.

"The earlier the age of onset of chronic drug-taking, the greater the prognosis is for long-term problems," he said.

People who start using drugs at young ages fail to develop "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies," he said, which can often lead to further drug use and addiction.

The glitter and glamor of Hollywood only exacerbate the problem, he said: "That life is all about the excitement, drama and peak performance followed by a letdown that gets medicated with entertainment and medication."
http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html
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“A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free”  Nikos Kazantzakis

Offline Ursus

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David Deitch harbors his delusions
« Reply #9 on: December 09, 2009, 10:28:46 AM »
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Oh, and Deitch's comments in the article the author was responding to were:
Quote
At the same time, the average age at which kids -- famous or not -- start using drugs has dropped every decade since the 1960s. Today's youngsters start experimenting with drugs about age 12, said Dr. David Deitch, an addiction specialist for more than 40 years and clinical director of Phoenix House, a national nonprofit provider of substance-abuse treatments.

"The earlier the age of onset of chronic drug-taking, the greater the prognosis is for long-term problems," he said.

People who start using drugs at young ages fail to develop "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies," he said, which can often lead to further drug use and addiction.

The glitter and glamor of Hollywood only exacerbate the problem, he said: "That life is all about the excitement, drama and peak performance followed by a letdown that gets medicated with entertainment and medication."
http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html
And, of course, what Deitch himself was responding to was his own life history, not facts pertaining to the rest of the American public. One can only wonder at the "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies" he failed to develop due to his time spent in therapeutic community environments consequent to his addiction(s).
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Offline Inculcated

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Re: David Deitch harbors his delusions
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2009, 01:53:04 AM »
Quote from: "Ursus"
And, of course, what Deitch himself was responding to was his own life history, not facts pertaining to the rest of the American public. One can only wonder at the "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies" he failed to develop due to his time spent in therapeutic community environments consequent to his addiction(s).
...wonder or something like it that includes a shiver.
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Offline Inculcated

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Re: David Deitch
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2009, 06:05:11 AM »
David Deitch, one time patient at the notorious Narcotic farm (Notorious for conducting research trials on the incarcerated among others; and of notable infamy for cultivating several of the earliest Synanon modeled TCs on its grounds) weighs in on the topic  of the experimental Cocaine vaccine.
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Offline Inculcated

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Re: David Deitch at Synanon photo in Ebony article
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2010, 10:22:16 PM »
Ebony Magazine circa 1963 on Synanon features an ancient photo of Deitch at Synanon before he got around to Daytop

I know it’s like counting a jar of jelly beans, but does anyone know exactly how many programs David Deitch started or put his stink on? Estimate?
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Offline Ursus

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Re: David Deitch at Synanon photo in Ebony article
« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2010, 10:43:16 PM »
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Ebony Magazine circa 1963 on Synanon features an ancient photo of Deitch at Synanon before he got around to Daytop

I know it’s like counting a jar of jelly beans, but does anyone know exactly how many programs David Deitch started or put his stink on? Estimate?
If Deitch was there in 1963, he might have been present when Bill Lane was brought in (who ended up staying about a dozen years). Hey, maybe Lane is even that guy in the pic, who's laid out on the couch, going through withdrawal...  :eek:

    "As with all new Synanon residents, Lane's first task was to convulse his way through withdrawals on a couch in the common area, while other residents held him, wiped vomit from his mouth and nursed him to shaky sobriety." *[/list]


    * See recent interview:
      BILL LANE: Transformed Transporter
      viewtopic.php?f=45&t=29820[/list]
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      Offline Ursus

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      Re: David Deitch
      « Reply #14 on: January 13, 2010, 10:57:00 PM »
      Mmm. Check out the hairline and the nose of the guy prone in the Deitch photo above and compare to below. Could be Lane...  :D

      · Bill Lane
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