Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Daytop Village

This abusive cult must be politically connected

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Anonymous:
This so called abusive cult has saved thousands of lives since its conseption back in the early 1960s.I must agree that some staff members are nuckleheads and they don't deserve the trust of those that have been abused or were abusing drugs. Daytop is not for everyone. Perhaps a teenager who is smoking a joint here and there does not have the addictive personality that a hard core drug addict has and therefore should be treated at home by the parents. I think that in the case of this young lady the parents should have been subjected to treatment & not the child. It is clear to me by what i read that this young lady did not have a problem yet.
perhaps a little prevention work at home would work for her.

Anonymous:

--- Quote ---On 2005-03-18 13:39:00, Anonymous wrote:

 Perhaps a teenager who is smoking a joint here and there does not have the addictive personality that a hard core drug addict has and therefore should be treated at home by the parents.
--- End quote ---


"Treatment" for adolescent experimentation?  You and those who think as you do  are definitely part of the problem.

Troll Control:
I think if you replaced the words "treated at home" with "properly parented" you're on target.

As a former employee of Daytop (Adolescent Diagnostic Unit), I could easily expound on mistreatment of kids there, but that wouldn't be germane to your comment.  

Parents should do a better job of being involved in thier children's lives, period.  Unfortunately, many parents use Daytop (and other programs) as a "safety valve" for problems they have created for themselves and for their children. They can't clean up their own mess, so they "sweep it under the rug" by sending the child away to a program.

On the outside it's "my kid needs help," but on the inside it's "I can't take this anymore."  Placing the child is simply a means by which to avoid the unpleasant consequences (a child who "acts out") of the parents' own behavior (poor parenting).

The child is first scapegoated (made to bear responsibility of their poor rearing), then neglected, abused, dehumanized and humiliated by the program(s).  BUT, since the parents are almost never aware of these facts ("blissfully ignorant"), to them, the problem has gone away.  

Thus we arrive at statements such as "The program is saving my kid."  For the critical thinker, the translation: "Thank God this is no longer my problem."

This comes as no surprise in a time when the child's teacher does the parenting for him/her for the majority of the day and the television does it for the remainder...

Anonymous:
Very good, "properly parented" is a much better term to discribe the old it's not my fault.
maybe not. However the child in this case smoked a joint or three and was sent to an intensive residential tratreatment center. not good.
I worked for Daytop Adolescent Re - Entry in Far Rockaway, also worked for The Adolescent dyognostic center @ Fox Run when Frank Lanza(don't like speaking ill of the dead but.....you know the rest) was the area director. I quit because i was tired of beating a dead horse. the amount of stress that i endured did not meet the means.I found that in re entry the kids were way more relaxed and conduted themselves much better. although adolescents will be adolescents. Treated at home was a term loosely thrown around in far rockaway to say don't give us your problem. We deal with serious hard core junkies. It's too bad no one can truly understand the adolescent,eventhough we were all there once. Anyone that has worked as closely as i did with the founders of Daytop knows that their mission to sencearly help those that need help is genuine. Daytop is not an abusive cult...or at least not intentionally. the numbers are the numbers without beds filled funding would not exist, and that's not good for those who care.The adolescent counselors may need to deal with their own frustrations by doing some listening,& not yelling or using abusive, demeaning language.Thank you for your reply.

Troll Control:
Well, it appears we were working there at the same time, under Frank Lanza (who is dead now, by the way).

The problem I have with your argument is that counselors like myself who are classically educated and degreed and deal with kids the way you suggest we should get ostracized and "squeezed out" of Daytop by the "Daytopians" (people who ascended to their position through the program and who have no real qualifications to assume care of anyone, much less a kid).

The reason that the "Daytopians" are eager to get rid of educated counselors is simple: their lack of qualifications/abilities and the "cult-like" atmosphere make them afraid of outsiders by whom they feel threatened.  That is, they are afraid to be exposed for what and who they are, namely uneducated, unqualified people who cannot find and maintain gainful employment EXCEPT AT DAYTOP.  Frank Lanza fit this bill perfectly.

Now, let me also say that I know and did know a few people from Daytop who were wonderful with their kids.  The low pay, harsh environment and the "Daytopians" brought these folks down and squeezed them out...

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