Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Daytop Village
DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
psy:
--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---What, in your estimation, is the condition, solution and big picture?
--- End quote ---
There are alternatives to AA that have higher success rates. Ones that focus on a cure, rather than dependence on a group.
SEKTO:
A couple more notes/thoughts:
I remember that there were a few kids in the DAYTOP facility where I was who had come out of Straight; remember, I was in DAYTOP from '92 to '94, about a year and a half, and Straight closed in '93 I believe. One of these kids was involved in some kind of class-action suit against them, I think. We "inherited" some kids from Straight. These kids used to tell horror stories of what life in Straight was like. I am talking physical assaults, forced druggings, use of physical restraints, sleep and food deprivation, really overtly coercive and abusive stuff. Over-the-top bad things of a physical nature.
To be fair, I never saw or experienced anything like that at all in my experience with DAYTOP. We were encouraged to yell and scream and verbally abuse one another, they'd use humiliation and shaming, the deadinsaneinjail phobia indoctrination, the memorized and daily-recited DAYTOP Philosophy prayer and DAYTOP Values mantras that warped my sense of personal boundaries and identity...
But even then, there were certain guidelines, standards of behavior that we, the kids and counselors alike were obligated to abide by. For instance, in the encounter groups, we had to keep both feet on the ground at all times and (as we were kids, minors most of us) were not permitted to use profanity during the group session. Any kind of physical assault or fighting was never permitted. There was this one time, though, when I remember (this was in an encounter group) the counselor in charge allowed one kid to walk over and push another kid down, hitting the floor while still in his chair (in the course of a particularly heated exchange of words in which the kid that got pushed was being downright insulting) but he (the counselor) broke it up before it actually came to blows.
So I never witness or experienced any physical or sexual abuse of any kind there, nothing at all like what I heard from kids coming out of Straight. It was mainly verbal and emotional abuse, degradation, humiliation, and groupthink indoctrination.
SEKTO:
--- Quote from: "psy" ---
--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---What, in your estimation, is the condition, solution and big picture?
--- End quote ---
There are alternatives to AA that have higher success rates.
--- End quote ---
Such as...?
Stuff like this?
http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/006854.html
psy:
--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---You can’t keep it unless you give it away: This one threw my sense of boundaries way out of whack. The best way to help yourself maintain your sobriety is by helping somebody else to do the same. Or in a churchy group the best way to maintain your salvation is by helping others to attain the same, by "getting people saved." A good value in and of itself I suppose (keeping it by giving it away, whatever "it" may be), it sounds good enough in principle, but taken literally and to an unhealthy degree this mindset fosters co-dependence and a group mentality, and an unhealthy sense of responsibility for other people’s success or failure. It’s true that in a sense that “we are all in this together” (in the sense of a global community and all that), that we are interdependent, but it’s also true that I have to be selfish in order to learn how to be selfless in a healthy way. DAYTOP taught me a lack of balance and a boundary-reducing philosophy in this respect. You cannot keep yourself unless you give yourself away. In retrospect, it sounds so insane, but that's what I tried to do, give myself away.
--- End quote ---
It sounds like they incorporated a bunch of elements into that one philosophy (attack on the self, missionary work, group cohesiveness). I am guessing that by "helping" others you would be expected to harshly confront them in group? What did help entail? Would it be accurate to state that the group was seen as more important than the individual?
Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")? How detailed did these reports get? Were people expected to rat on others for minor offenses? For doubting the program? Was there a sort of "thought crime" you could be accused of? Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?
SEKTO:
--- Quote ---It sounds like they incorporated a bunch of elements into that one philosophy (attack on the self, missionary work, group cohesiveness). I am guessing that by "helping" others you would be expected to harshly confront them in group? What did help entail? Would it be accurate to state that the group was seen as more important than the individual?
Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")? How detailed did these reports get? Were people expected to rat on others for minor offenses? For doubting the program? Was there a sort of "thought crime" you could be accused of? Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?
--- End quote ---
We'll save these for tomorrow night, OK? It's pretty late and I am going to go to sleep soon. Until next time,
B
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