Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers
Into the Belly of the Beast, the Comparison
Che Gookin:
So there were no levels or stages for the students but there were stages for staff?
Muppeteer:
--- Quote from: "Che Gookin" ---So there were no levels or stages for the students but there were stages for staff?
--- End quote ---
Not sure which program you are asking about, but in terms of Elan, the dichotomy I posted upstream in this thread was for the students.
The staff consisted of a few different positions. There was "staff," usually a new hire, as there was plenty of turnover. When I was in Maine, Clare Woodman joined as "staff." Each house (there were four houses in my time, 3, 5, 7 & 8 ) generally had two staff. Each house also had one or two "assistant-directors" as well as a "director."
Adjunct employees also included the nurse, a residential director (Fr. Robert Allanach during my stint, who also served as Ricci's campaign manager when he ran for Governor in 1986), and a staff psycologist who saw kids from all the houses. There were also plenty of support staff (Sharon Terry was the "annex lady" ((where we could obtain sundries, cig's and soda's)) and she was also Joe's secretary when I was there), a comptroller, a headmaster for the school, and a cadre of teachers for the nightly school sessions.
As many have already reported, Dr. Davidson was personna non grata most of the time. And thankfully, since Ricci was running for Governor at the time I was there, he also had limited involvement in the day-to-day.
Che Gookin:
Ahh ok, was a bit confused by the way you answered Psy's question about Elan's stage system.
For the detainees/students... how were stage advancements decided?
Muppeteer:
That is an interesting question (how did you advance as a detainee/student in Elan?), because much of the decision making in that regard was not ever made really clear to the detainees/students.
In essence, if you abided by the program rules, you advanced. If you resisted (or were percieved to be resisting) or became blatently violent, you did not advance, or would get "shot-down" for a period of time and have to work your way back up the dichotomy.
There were rewards that came with each advance, generally speaking, a higher allotment of cigarettes and soda, as well as more opportunities to leave campus to see a film, go bike riding, etc. Many trips were to the mall.
Matt C. Hoffman:
Cool Muppeteer and thank you for your earlier kind words, and I thank you for speaking about Elan during your time. It is neat to get a comparison and contrasting of the Elan program and how it modified yet still achieved the same means, ten years later from my time.
Your discription of the dicotomy is fairly accurate - Chief expeditor was above the Shingle during my time. We had a senior Co-Ordinator as the top position in the house ,then the full Co-Ordinators and of course the co-ordinator trainees. Guru and Jr Guru.
Haircuts could be given in any room of the house. There were also large Haircuts called the Round Robin.
Mary O'Brien from my time has a very accurate drawing in her book titled, My Imagination and Art Sustained Me, concerning one that she and Jennifer Stamler received in the dining room together, they were back to back and about 25 plus people participated ( all her drawings in her book are like pictures from many incidents that I witnessed and remember, at least for me her drawings area treasure and are incrediblly accurate and are really cool. Her drawings are the only real pictures of elan during my time, except for the one group photo that most have from that time ) .
The full expeditor could give blasts to the expeditor trainee. Expeditor Trainees were constantly getting blasted, and to the point that they were put into a mental state called spinning. Rushing ,running ,carreening off the walls to get those headcounts.
The same thing ,spinning could happen to residents that were shotdown, provided they had a P.O. that were told to blast them every few minutes , some people had 2 P.O.s so they blasted in a tag team fashion. Po's were people whose only job was to follow you around 24-7 either to make your life hell if you were shotdown or to keep an eye on you so you wouldn't split or commit suicide. Elan was insane during my time.
No one during my time got a job in Elan unless they had graduated that paid minimum wage. Muppeteer your description of people working in the Poland Spring house #3 's kitchen for minimum wage was interesting.
Joe Ricci created a position called re-entry staff in 1976, you got paid a stipend of 20 dollars every two weeks . Your parents were still shelling out the $1200 a month as it was back then until you graduated . Re-entry staff were still in the program, until they graduated, they still lived on the property with other folks that were in re-entry. I will expound on this later if needed re-entry Staff were not like the paid employees -like regular Staff, Assistant Directors and of course the Directors.
I wonder what Elan was charging in 1986?
That was the ditcotomy of Staff . Staff , Assistant Directors and directors . All graduates that were tapped to be employees started out as Staff. If it was a good match( lol) then they proceeded to become Assistant directors, this could happen with in 4 months to 8 months of a graduate beginning to work as an Elan Employee.
I always had respect for the staff that left and there was one person who became an assistant director and in less than 3 months he quit. It was surreal people you knew graduated and became staff anf then became assistant directors. One such fellow signed my diploma. Elan was crazy , you knew things that they had gotten general meeting for and they were now working as paid employees - some things were quite sick.
The staff let us know that they got to go home and we didn't, amongst other things- lol.
Again Muppeteer thank you for what you have been contributing to this thread. I don't mean to step on your posts, I am simply writing about the Elan that I know and knew. I would like to get into what the groups were like individually , you spoke that the Primal scream was still in use only at specific houses? I thought they had gone by 1978, intersting. I called them the voodoo doodoo primal scream groups - will get into that later if anyone is interested.
Encounter groups could be like little general meetings - will expound on them also . Muppeteer did you have the sensitivity groups, that was the only decent group in my opinion ?
Psy there was no aftercare program when I was there.
edited for spelling and clarity ,may have to edit again I am a very bad speller.
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