Awake all of this is the obvious, what more is going on here? Some folks on these web sites sound as if there is this country wide conspiracy going on to capitalize on children and their parents weaknesses to make money.
I just don't see this or can believe it, what I do see is programs that allocate their money within their organization in a piss pore way. Their priorities are screwed up, instead of investing more money in qualified staff and Psychiatrists, they want a new jungle gym or better uniforms for sports, newer classrooms to impress parents, ect.....
.
Well, I don’t think it is all that obvious to some families, and I think there may be some validity in a ‘conspiracy’ of sorts underlying the success of the TTI. There is enough evidence for me to believe that the perception of therapy is illusory and a resulting phenomenon of their unique organizational structure. I may not have all the evidence to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, but in the early days of development there are some telling influences.
For now the very(very) short version is Synanon meets the Human Potential Movement and has a bunch of TTI program babies. Synanon is the model of the TC, and the Human Potential Movement that uses humanistic philosophy for the purpose of cultivating successful societal change. (If you want to know why Lifespring, Est, Esalen are relevant it is because of this). The founder of Cedu, Mel Wasserman, actually used elements of Lifespring to create Cedu. This, to me, represents the difference between subjective growth and the spread of a shared pathology, in this case purposely misinterpreted as ‘growth’.
Read this over on Lifespring, a Human Potential organization that was used to create Cedu.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/lifes ... ring4.html So this particular history goes:
Abraham Maslow, founder of Humanistic Psychiatry, stayed at Synanon (Daytop branch, NY) in 1965 and promoted a unity of humanism with Synanon.
1967, Esalen, Santa Barbara Ca, becomes a center for studying humanism and ‘personal growth’ testing marathon groups, encounter, psychodrama, guided imagery, bioenergetics, gestalt, (pretty much anything under the sun! Extreme temperature variations, nude encounter, ‘eye gazing’, polarizing emotional experiences, heavy emphasis on bringing the subject to catharsis ( as catharsis is the point of being ‘de-programmed’ in ‘human potential work’), any experience that can be uniquely ‘human’ essentially. This place was an unprecedented meeting ground for many innovative and influential minds in new psychotherapeutic approaches.
1967, Synanon, undergoes a massive change to incorporate many of these new humanistic styles, such as marathon group experiential, claims itself to be a Utopia. It Opens up the Synanon ‘Game’s to any outsider that wants to play and grows centers In Santa Barbara and Oakland CA.
1967 Mel Wasserman founds Cedu, a know affiliate of Synanon who hired from that organization, used tools from Lifespring (along with a whole variety of humanistic methods) to creat the first “Emotional Growth” school, that has been widely copied.
So yes, I think there is an art of manipulating subjective growth (and the perception of such) systemically in favour of the organization and it’s directors. And it has a direct connection with the earliest development of TTI programs. I want to say there might be the possibility of something that could be called a conspiracy here.