Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Daytop Village
A Christenning!!!!!!!!
Paul St. John:
--- Quote ---On 2004-02-19 16:36:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Hello Paul,
I assume you are a Daytop graduate. I have a friend that has been in for about 3 months now. I have very little contact with him. But, what contact I have he describes a VERY crazy situation. Can you tell me what goes on in Daytop on a daily basis? I thought that a Therapeutic community would be a warm, caring place.
Yeah.. one would thin.. right? :smile:
That it would give these men and women good therapy and compassion.
I know.. I am with ya.
What little I've heard from my friend is absolutely insane. It sounds like they go out of their way to make every person as uncomfortable as possible.
One of their twelve commandments is to deal with your uncomfortable areas. They can some times take this to an extreme. You see I agree with their idea that it is good to do that.
But if you think of a plant, it grows stronger and with time can handle more adeverdsarial conditions.
Their way is kinda like just going up tp the comfortable plant, and bending it into say oil, because in their minds, it should already be able to handle oil. Thre plant suffers as a result.
It is still sad to me that this is done to children. They have no sanctuary from it as the world is organised for them. My feelings are somewhat strong still about this.. I see it as slow murder, although humans are strong and most will survive. Long term it can be turn3ed into an advantage is my thought. It is human spirit that gets us through this, and if your friend has that. well then "HELL YEAH!" :smile:
What possible purpose could that serve. These are all people that have been suffering in one way or another all their lives. This can hardly be what they need.
It's the simplest logic in the world, and I wholeheartedly agree.
I've been writing to my friend about once per week. I write about mudane, everyday stuff. My friend told me that his counselor screams at him about my letters. He hasn't been able to explain that. What could it mean.
It most likely does not matter wahtr you write. Anything that is familiar to them or looks like a light in the tunnel will be scorned.
However you could enlighten me as to what my friend is going through would be greatly appreciated.
< B> I hope what I have written satisfies. Sorry, nothing much positive there, but on the light side, I have been through it, and I have another friend who hgas as well, and we are fine, and rocking.. It s kinda just like a part of us now. :smile:
Paul St. John
"
--- End quote ---
Anonymous:
I have first hand experience of what occurs at Daytop. It is an incredibly disorganized, dehumanizing, inconsistant, waste. These children will come out of the other end of treatment with three things.
1. Substitutes for their addictive behaviors that border on OCD's like the adult ex-addicts that are in charge.
2. New gang contacts/criminal information to use in the streets.
3. Learn that if they become snitches they will get what they want.
But at least they'll have a GED to show for it!
They enter thinking they are going to be there for 2-4 months, but that is NEVER true. They always find a way to make them stay until the program is completed or at least 6-9 months. And why would anyone mix 14 year old boys and 20 year year old men in the same schools/dorms?
A Former Daytop Employee With No History of Drugs/Treatmnet.
Anonymous:
--- Quote ---On 2004-02-20 16:05:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Maia,
Thank you very much for your response. Is there any professional psycological body that I could refer to to find papers condemning or condoning this type of treatment? I'd like to get more information in general also. How do I get your book?
My friend is a 48 year old PHD in clinical psycology, who lost his practice, his money, his life through a lifelong addiction problem, which over the last several years turned into a crack addiction. After all the money was gone, he began selling crack to high end customers for one guy in Manhattan. He was arrested after 3 months with a large amount of crack. He had sold to an undercover cop three times. That was three months after he began selling the crack. I hadn't seen him in about 8 years, but I understand at that point he was an end stage addict and probably close to death. After his arrest (three felonies in a state with the draconian Rockefeller drug laws) he was looking at 8 to 15 years. His father (a wealthy, retired lawyer) put up a considerable sum of money to get him into the treatment program instead of prison. The logic was that an affluent,educated white Jewish guy was not going to have a good time of it in prison. Well, he ended up getting the mandated treatment, for 6 months in residence and a couple of years of aftercare. Over the year and a half of postponements since his arrest, he had immersed himself in the AA, NA communtiy and had earned his one year coin. He was very motivated and energized by the meetings and the communtiy aspect. We renewed contact and I gave him a job selling organic vegetables on Saturday at my farm stand in a Greenmarket in the Village. He positively thrived doing that, speaking to people and learning about the organic farming I do in Upstate New York. When he finally got the treatment, he, his family and friends considered it a great victory. He would avoid a prison term and get real help. Well, the scarce contact I've had with him (His mother, father and myself all share his letters) has been positively frightening. It is difficult to even begin to understand the nature of this so-called treatment. Things like people getting "shot-down" and carrying around an empty dry-cleaning suit bag. Or the daily confrontations which are meant to be sadistic. My friend informed me that his counselor SCREAMS at him because I write to him once a week. I now write every 10 days. It all sounds so insane, that I MUST make some sense of it. I find it extremely odd that there is no explaination of this type of treatment anywhere easily accessable. I've tried google searches etc. This is the first real thing I've found.
Sorry to ramble on. I'm so disturbed by this. Thank you for your time and help,
Sincerely,
Jessica"
--- End quote ---
I wonder how much whining he'd be doing if he was sent to prison where he belongs? Might sound rude but I find it a little disturbing that a doctor gets treatment while some poor schmuck has to do his time.
Anonymous:
I know a Counselor working for Daytop and I often wonder how he's still employed there. He gets drunk and fights in bars like a hoodlum and tells all of Daytop business. They even have a Counselor working there that was once a Nurse and stole drugs from her workplace and to top it off, she has a felony for possession. Daytop Village is just a haven for the welfare and the impoverished. The only treatment they get is a bug ridden cot, $60.00 every two weeks and rotten food and they actually thinking they are rehabing people back into society. How can criminals turn criminals into model citizens. Most of the Counselors working there only have a GED. Hell, I heard that one of the Directors was a prostitute!!!
odie:
--- Quote ---On 2006-04-15 06:11:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I know a Counselor working for Daytop and I often wonder how he's still employed there. He gets drunk and fights in bars like a hoodlum and tells all of Daytop business. They even have a Counselor working there that was once a Nurse and stole drugs from her workplace and to top it off, she has a felony for possession. Daytop Village is just a haven for the welfare and the impoverished. The only treatment they get is a bug ridden cot, $60.00 every two weeks and rotten food and they actually thinking they are rehabing people back into society. How can criminals turn criminals into model citizens. Most of the Counselors working there only have a GED. Hell, I heard that one of the Directors was a prostitute!!!"
--- End quote ---
Wow let me see where I can start with this one. Would you rather be treated by some " Masters" level therapist who doesn't have a clue what a craving feels like? Or someone that knows exactly how you feel? And like I've said before in this forum, people change...what difference does it make what a person was involved in before treatment? Now as far as that counselor being drunk and fighting in bars talking about clients that is a whole different matter. Contact the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services at 1-800-553-5790 to report this unethical behavior.
What kind of humanism expresses its reluctance to sacrifice military casualties by devastating the civilian economy of its adversary for decades to come?
Henry Kissinger
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