Author Topic: DAYTOPAGANDA  (Read 2949 times)

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Offline Inculcated

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DAYTOPAGANDA
« on: March 13, 2010, 09:45:53 PM »
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Today, just this afternoon, I for no particular reason took a look at the DAYTOP website and saw that it was much different than the one I've seen in the past; this one is newer, updated, made in 2010.  It seems as if DAYTOP is going stronger than ever these days.  

More later.  I'll be looking this one over.

http://www.daytop.org/
Hmmm, let’s have a look...

It’s interesting that while they do acknowledge the role of Synanon in the development of Daytop, they’ve elected not to include any reference to David Deitch under their history heading.
Quote
By a fortuitous turn of fate, Father O’Brien and Dr. Casriel chose the same day to visit the Synanon intake center in Westport, Connecticut. What they saw there convinced them that they were on the right track.
Um, wasn’t that ‘fortuitous turn of fate’ David Deitch?

The rift is only glancingly mentioned when they state:
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The early days of Daytop Lodge were stormy with shifting leadership, which culminated in its absorption into Daytop Village, Inc. in October 1964 at Prince’s Bay, Staten Island.  
Their outline of the ‘Basics of the treatment program' is reductively revisionist.
Quote
The basics of the treatment program were group therapy sessions, role modeling, job assignments and a hierarchy of peers. As residents progressed, they received more responsible duties, and earned more privileges. Those coming after them could see that others like themselves were gaining respect, and that life without drugs was possible. These basic elements have remained, as the therapeutic community evolved to meet the changing populations and needs of the clients.
No mention of encounters, marathons, grueling and humiliating LE s... Haircuts both literal and verbal have also been omitted as have any mention of screaming crying inductions.
Someone’s “too image” to “drop” and I think it’s Daytop!  :flame:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
“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: DAYTOPAGANDA
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2010, 11:42:34 AM »
http://www.daytop.org/yngadult-serv.html#out

Outreach centers provide the same clinical programs as our residential centers, on a less intensive basis. In addition to group and individual counseling sessions, Treatment services include Family Therapy, Art Feelings Workshops, a music program, young women’s programs, and other supportive services. These are included in a client’s treatment plan if they are indicated from the individual’s assessment. (Italics added for emphasis.)

The DAYTOP being presented here, and the DAYTOP I remember from Dallas in 1992 bear little resemblance to one another.  

There's nothing in here about The Chair, about humiliating L.E.s, signs, props, Encounter Groups, Haircuts, none of that stuff.  And I do not recall ever having my "treatment plan" described to me either.  My treatment plan, as I remember it, seemed to be something along the lines of, "You're such a phony.  Try to act normal, and don't use too many big words."  

There one one social worker on site (early on her name was Joyce Ratner, and after Joyce left the next one was named Susan Merlin) and a psychiatrist who was there on an infrequent basis (his name was Dr. Croix).  I myself never went to school in DAYTOP, as I had my GED, so I cannot say anything about what the schooling there was like at the time.  While most of the others were in school, I sat at the desk and answered the phone a lot in the morning, and I remember that on most days group was in the afternoon.

http://www.daytop.org/about.html#qua

Our clinical staff are required to maintain current licenses and accreditations, and counselors have or are preparing for CASAC certification. This is the Certified Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor credential, a 350 hour course required by the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services.

In fairness, I do not know what the exact educational requirements for the DAYTOP "counseling" staff in TX in the late eighties and nineties would have been, and I am sure that the staff there had at least some kind of minimum state accreditation/certification.  But I can tell all of you for a certainty that none of the counselors had a degree of any sort, and most had had no or very little college, for that matter.  Very little real training other than being program grads themselves, most of them.  I remember it as being a fairly "loose" operation back then.  

Actually, I remember that when I first went on Second Stage, I was living in an apartment with another Second Stager and was in classes at nearby Richland Community College.  One day, I was at the Richardson facility and I recall that Marcy and another female counselor asked me if I'd bring them a couple of class schedules, as they were thinking of signing up for some courses in counseling and psychology.  Here we are, and my counselors (both DAYTOP grads from NYC) are asking me to bring them the materials so that they could get into college too.  This did not strike me as odd at the time, but in retrospect the thought really pains me.  

I have to give the organization the benefit of the doubt in recognizing that I know little about how DAYTOP does things in 2010, other than what I read from their website.  And, I admit that I have had very little direct contact with them since 1994, at the Dresser Building.  Maybe they do have higher educational requirements for their counseling staff nowadays, and that would at least be a good thing.  Maybe they would be more careful to look out for kids with developmental and other neurological disorders these days, and would refer such kids appropriately to a specialist, upon recognition that such a referral might be necessary.  This also would be a good thing.

Their website offers a couple of scatter-plot charts as some kind of supposed evidence that their treatment modality is "working," in the sense of reducing their clients' cravings for their respective drugs of choice.  There is an email address to which one can write and request more detailed statistical information, supposedly demonstrating the efficacy of the DAYTOP program.  They didn't have this as a part of the old website.  On the newer DAYTOP site, as well, it is stated that "young adult clients" are considered as those ages 12 to 21.  I myself was 18 when I went into DAYTOP, and I was the oldest kid in the house all the way through.

Regardless, the fact remains that DAYTOP applies (and for years has been applying) coercive thought-reform techniques to children as young as twelve years of age, teaching them a philosophy that undermines their identity and blurs their boundaries and teaches them powerlessness and fear, or else cynicism and a knowledge of how to better manipulate others.

In my opinion, DAYTOP members (outpatient or residential) live under constant fear and are scared to death.  DAYTOP instills intense fear in its "clients."  At least, it did back when I was part of it.  Fear holds them in the group, and fear is what motivates a lot of the kids to gradually internalize the DAYTOPian philosophy and frame of mind, until it is actually accepted as being true, and real.  Or else, fear is what motivates them to at least "Act As If" their whole way through the program, which (again, in my opinion) is really, at least in the longer run, more of a corrupting and destructive than an edifying influence.

Maybe DAYTOP has actually changed in some respects, but I'd regardless wager that it's still essentially the same abusive thought-reform program that it has been for years.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline SEKTO

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Re: DAYTOPAGANDA
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2010, 07:34:30 PM »
Then, of course, there's this other place called Our Common Ground Inc., aka daytopca.org.  Obviously there is some connection between it and DAYTOP.  I'm not finding much about it online; does anybody know anything much about OCG?  Why don't they just call it DAYTOP, I wonder?

Also there's this one:

http://www.daytopnj.org/
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Inculcated

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Re: DAYTOPAGANDA
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2010, 03:18:40 AM »
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Then, of course, there's this other place called Our Common Ground Inc., aka daytopca.org.  Obviously there is some connection between it and DAYTOP.  I'm not finding much about it online; does anybody know anything much about OCG?  Why don't they just call it DAYTOP, I wonder?
Common Ground... My best guess is that Daytop inc. has experimented with revamping their image.
Californians have a long memory for cults. I’d’ve ventured to guess that OCG is a way to distance the organization from the negative connotations of its Synanon origins, but that was before the updated version of the Daytop Village inc. site made mention of Synanon. At least OCG doesn’t celebrate Gaudenzia.
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Also there's this one: http://www.daytopnj.org/
It was a sad laugh when I saw they were trying out the “preparatory school” angle in ‘Jersey. See whatever post it was where I bemoaned Daytop’s unaccredited locations for having made Swiss cheese of my transcripts.
In fact, there was another bitter chuckle from me when I saw a testimonial on the updated site, exclaiming “I never thought I would ever read Shakespeare.”
When considerations for school were finally being implemented in Texas we had lots of time to fill in between smoke breaks with watching that Michael Keaton movie (where the chick OD’s and he goes to rehab) over and over and watching B&W footage converted to videos of old school style Daytop from upstate over and over. Parents donated books. For a while, there was just this one ratty copy of the Tempest. Thx to the parent who dropped that in the box. The Flowers in the attic and other V.C Andrews stuff was just creepy, that didn’t keep me from reading all of them as a means to escape, so I guess thx for those as well…but still creepy.
Millbrook had real school for about 4 hrs.ea.weekday, with grades, and textbooks and everything.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
“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: DAYTOPAGANDA
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2010, 11:27:58 AM »
Quote from: "Inculcated"
In fact, there was another bitter chuckle from me when I saw a testimonial on the updated site, exclaiming “I never thought I would ever read Shakespeare.”
When considerations for school were finally being implemented in Texas we had lots of time to fill in between smoke breaks with watching that Michael Keaton movie (where the chick OD’s and he goes to rehab) over and over and watching B&W footage converted to videos of old school style Daytop from upstate over and over. Parents donated books. For a while, there was just this one ratty copy of the Tempest. Thx to the parent who dropped that in the box. The Flowers in the attic and other V.C Andrews stuff was just creepy, that didn’t keep me from reading all of them as a means to escape, so I guess thx for those as well…but still creepy.
Millbrook had real school for about 4 hrs.ea.weekday, with grades, and textbooks and everything.

We used to watch this old VHS 20/20 segment that was about DAYTOP, Scared Straight and this documentary about the Lewisberg penitentiary.  One time we watched Stand and Deliver.  Bill Pittman used to let me read his Bible sometimes.  But I don't recall anything other than these, in the way of reading material or films.  Of course, lots of cleaning.  And again, I never went to the school.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline SEKTO

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Re: DAYTOPAGANDA
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2010, 08:27:35 PM »
Here's a picture of the Monsignor accepting a Narcanon "Drug Free Heroes" award in 1994, posted a couple of Narcanon websites.  

Apparently, DAYTOP didn't do much in terms of looking into Narcanon, and its association with the Church of $cientology.

http://atlantarecoverycenter.com/commun ... ee-heroes/

http://www.drugrehabamerica.com/kirstie-alley.htm

Also, take a look here for how DAYTOP was connected to a certain Clearwater, Florida philanthropist.  

One of my old DAYTOP counselors graduated from high school in Clearwater, and once recommended to me that I read Dianetics.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 03,1162746

Hmmm...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »