Fornits

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Daytop Village => Topic started by: odie on October 01, 2007, 02:51:19 PM

Title: David Deitch
Post by: odie on October 01, 2007, 02:51:19 PM
I've seen far too many posts questioning the origins of the TC and how it's philosophy has trickled down to other programs. I guess it's time for me to send all those still searching in the grassy knoll to this man.  :roll:  For those want to see how Synanon was influential in Daytop, Phoenix House, and numerous other programs all you need to do is look up their connection with David Deitch, who by the way is a Synanon graduate. For those interested here is a link to him. ::argue::

http://psychiatry.ucsd.edu/faculty/ddeitch.html (http://psychiatry.ucsd.edu/faculty/ddeitch.html)
Title: David Deitch
Post by: Ursus on October 01, 2007, 05:16:08 PM
Thanks, odie!

Would you perchance also know:
Title: David Deitch
Post by: odie on October 02, 2007, 01:36:03 PM
The basis for his involvement was that he was in treatment there. He graduated, became "classically educated", and the rest is history. I believe he was in treatment around 1960 or so.
Title: David Deitch
Post by: Ursus on October 02, 2007, 03:02:31 PM
Here is an "ancient" fornits post found on a mirror site.  I tried to find it again in-house, but was unsuccessful.  Either it no longer exists, or fornits Search and Google's Advanced Search do not work optimally, or all of the above.

LINK to Mirror Cache (http://http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:AltUQ43anR4J:fornits.com/coolboard/article-299055712998167.htm+David+A.+Deitch&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us)

Wesley
04/15/00  17:20

    RE: Red Eyes Basis of Drug Diagnosis/The Great Drug War
   
Josef Stalling and Ilich Lenin made repeated public remarks that communism and capitalism could not co-exist, that sooner or later one would topple the other and that it was the Soviet goal to topple capitalism. Nikita Khrushev gave a speech to the United Nations in 195? saying to the West, "We're going bury you." Some Americans did not take these threats idly. In the Sixty's while the flower children were smoking joints, a group called the Minutemen were clandestinely stashing arms for the ultimate East/West struggle. A more intellectual, white-collar group was the John Birch Society. The Communist Manifesto stated that Communism and Capitalism can not co-exist, and that Communism will work to topple Capitalism. The John Birch Society had a stated platform that Communism and Capitalism can not co-exist, and that the Society will work to topple Communism. Now the KGB worked hard in the 1960s and 1970s to try to help overthrow the United States from within. For example, the KGB seeded money to the civil rights movement (though the freedom marchers never knew it) and the KGB made a heyday showing angry blacks burning down Watts on Soviet TV. KGB operatives infiltrated the anti-war movement and seeded money to it too--unbeknownst to War protesters. They made a heyday showing films of Abbey Hofman and the Chicago Democratic Convention riots on Soviet TV. They infiltrated the movements of Catholic nuns and German and American housewives laying down in front of trains transporting nuclear weapons in the American west and in Germany. (I was an Army Intelligence Officer in those days. I was commissioned just after Congress forbade the military from keeping files on American citizens.) Now one group the KGB really feared was The John Birch Society. So it started propaganda to paint the society as red-necked, white extremists of the American Nazi Party ilk. They did a good job too, convincing us all that intelligent men didn't join the Society. Incidently, the John Birch Society took a stand against Synanon saying that it was a communist society. (I don't know what the Society said about Jim Jones and The People's Temple, but Jim Jones even admitted he was trying to establish a Communist society in Guyana.)

In the 1960s William O'Brien, a caring Catholic priest from Brooklyn, sent many of New York's heroin addicts out to Synanon. New York psychiatrist Dan Casriel visited Synanon in the 1960s and wrote So Fair a House which helped put Synanon on the map. Monsignor O'Brien and Dr. Casriel teamed up to form their own synanon for Brooklyn's Probation Dept. which they called Daytop Lodge. Daytop was funded, in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). But like MATRIX, a federal synanon or therapeutic community (TC) set up by NIMH at the federal lock-up hospital in Lexington, Ky, Daytop Lodge failed because it did not have a charismatic leader. So O'Brien and Casriel coaxed David Deitch, an assistant administrator at Synanon, to join them. The new Daytop is called Daytop Village. But it wasn't long before the administration was saying that Deitch was trying to set up a communist commune based on the teachings of Ernesto Che Gueyara--Fidel Castro's right-hand man. So David Deitch was booted out. Today Daytop is one of the biggest surviving synanons (or therapeutic communities which is what they have decided to call themselves these days.)

Not to be out-done NYC's Mayor Lindsey was looking for a solution to the overall heroin addiction problem in that city. The Black Muslins were working on an exhortative approach to drug addiction cures. I believe some Black Panther officials had met with Synanon to observe The Game. Though NYC's heroin problem was predominantly in the black ghetto communities, Mayor Lindsey compromised and settled on another minority to head his Phoenix House. Phoenix House was sponsored by the city's Addiction Services Agency which was sub-headed by a psychiatrist from California name Mitchell Rosenthall. A Puerto Rican psychiatrist named Dr. Efren Estaban Ramirez was selected to head Phoenix House. Now Synanon had a treatment facility in Puerto Rico. Dr. Ramirez selected synanon-style Games as his treatment modality for Phoenix House. One female psychiatrist who had visited Dr. Ramirez down in Puerto Rico was Dr. Julian Gensen-Gerber. She created her own synanon in New York City called Odyssey House. One her houses was the first TC for children. Dr. Rosenthall became head of Phoenix House when Ramirez left.. Synanist Rae Tibble directed one of the Phoenix houses. Synanite John Maher left Synanon to found The Delancy Street Gang in San Francisco. Rod Mullen and some other Synanists left Synanon to form Amity Foundation in Tucson

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro ... -9923.html (http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/06.10.99/cover/prisondrug-9923.html)

In June 1970 a former New Yorker and recovering alcoholic named Art Barker formed The Seed in Fort Lauderdale. A TC for kids. No one down there had ever seen anything like it. A kid being controlled by the GROUP. Brutal verbal confrontations. They called him a genius. Art let everyone believe that he just sort of dreamed up his own version of kids shouting indictments at other kids. Art Barker's gaudy, Gothic sign for The Seed is strangely similar to John Maher's sign for The Delancy Street gang. Barker was funded by NIMH and then by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) when that sub-organization was formed and headed by Robert DuPont.

After getting kicked out of Daytop, David Deitch wound up helping set up synanons for the Illinois Drug Abuse Programs (IDAP) and was on the staff of Chicago's new TC named Gateway. While Deitch was setting up synanons for IDAP, Dr. Jerome Jaffe was making a name for himself at IDAP treating heroin addicts with methadone. Richard Nixon selected Dr. Jaffe as the first drug czar. Dr. Jaffe was replaced by Robert DuPont as the second White House Drug Czar due to DuPont's work with methadone treatment in Washington, DC. Robert DuPont, who administered funding to The Seed, once told Dan Baum that he had looked at TCs as a possible solution to the nations way out of the drug war but had felt TCs could not handle the load of the enormous numbers of the nation's addicts. Yet when he left NIDA he became a paid consultant for Straight, Inc. and helped make it the largest synanon in the world.

Deitch's Gateway House testified against Straight in the Fred Collin's case in 1983. An association had been formed called the Therapeutic Communities of America (TCA) of which Gateway and Phoenix House belonged. The TCA had a client bill of rights and the TCA felt that Straight had not held to this. David Deitch references Straight's abusive tactics in an article he wrote on Coercion in the Therapeutic Community for the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 1984. In 1984 David Deitch had become Director of Clinical Services for Phoenix House.

Which all gets us to Ginger's question? Why didn't we know that there were books on Straight before? (Actually, by now I've forgotten exactly what Ginger was asking about, but I think it was something along what I'm replying to.) Answer. Even as the communist propagandized against the John Birch Society so that no respectable thinking man today would admit that he had been a John Bircher (I was not. I was too young and had my head stuck too deeply in science and engineering books to realize that there was a shooting war going on over in Asia, and that people were beginning to be locked up for smoking pot. However, had I known, I probably would have been a John Bircher.), so the drug warriors propagandize against people who are trying to bring reason into the phony drug war. Straight's former national director infiltrated Pride. Dr. Newton's name is mentioned at their conferences. PANDAA still pushes Newton's and DuPont's books. The drug warriors have done a good job painting the Drug Policy Foundation as a group of pot heads wanting to use dope, when in fact they're some pretty level-headed, intellectuals. Arnold Trebach is an attorney with a Phd in Criminal Justice and a professor at American University. He was a voice crying out almost alone against the horrors of Straight. The Drug Policy Foundation gave Richard Bradbury a $10,000 grant to aid him in his work.

Straight was so taken aback by Trebach's 1986 book which made reference to the fact that Straight was brainwashing children that Straight invited two psychologists from Simon Frazer University in Canada to visit Straight. Dr. Bruce Alexander was one of those visitors. In Peaceful Measures: Canada's Way Out of the Drug War, he writes that Straight does indeed use Communist brainwashing techniques on its clients. As for the other professor. Dr. Barry Beyerstein. You want to know what he said. Well you'll just have to visit my web page for that.

So yes Ginger. There were people who knew. There were people who were trying to help. You kids were just too shell-shocked to find it. And besides the Internet did not exist. The Drug Warriors have done a good job in painting moderates as coke snorting felons, just like the KGB had John Bircher's painted as red necks back in the 60s. Wouldn't surprise me if they haven't infiltrated moderation groups like the Drug Policy Foundation or the Lindsmith Foundation. By the time you kids woke up, the stuff was off the press. There wasn't a big demand for it in those days. You were the real benefactors-to-be of the books. You just wern't ready yet.

If anybody from the Drug Policy Foundation is listening, I think you'd better tell the printer to stock up on The Great Drug War. I think a 100 copies might be needed within a year. The kids are finally growing up Melvin.

Wes Fager
Oakton Institute for Cultic Studies
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: Inculcated on July 07, 2009, 01:04:34 AM
SEKTO:
I’m not sure if you had already come across this thread yet. I’ve just read it and found it interesting.
I’d like to know what your thoughts are on the info. TTYS.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: SEKTO on July 07, 2009, 09:40:46 PM
Hi there, accountabilibuddy.

Hmmm, no, I'm not sure that I have seen this thread before, but will study it out and get back to the forum later with my thoughts.  

It'll have to wait until tomorrow though, as I have had a long day and just want to chill now.  

Thanks for pointing this out, and asking for my input.

Peace be upon you.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: SEKTO on July 08, 2009, 07:07:57 PM
This is a lot of ground to cover, so I'll try and make my post well-thought out but relatively brief.

Personally, I never heard of Straight until '93 when I met a guy in DAYTOP named CM who had come out of there when they closed, and told us all kinds of horrible stories, really bad stuff.  He was telling us how DAYTOP was a cakewalk compared to what he had come out of.  

On the matter of Great Drug War, and to provide some context:

At the height of the American Empire (late forties through late sixities) when for all intents and purposes we had all the bombs, all the cops, it was all ours with the two car garages and the Cadillacs, the split-level ranch houses, we were Number One in the world and there was no competition.  Communism was The Great Evil and these were the days in which JBS had its genesis.

There were 76 million Americans born between the years '46 and '64, they were trained by Dr. Spock to be demand-fed; they were the first consumer species, they were the first electronic species, and the very fact that you were an American and you were young at the time (late forties through early sixties) meant that you deserved the world.  

The importance of this to me, is that this represents a demonstration on the Baby Boom generation of their sheer numbers, of their strength, of their clout, or their power, which was in straight quantity.  

The '60s and '70s hippie/antiwar/drug culture, and the backlash against that counterculture in the form of all of the Nixon-Reagan-Bush conservative drug war hysteria were all a part of this profound, historic generational change.  

The long and the short of what I have to say is that a whole generation of American kids got screwed over by that '80s and early '90s Reagan/Bush era "Just Say No" antidrug hysteria that we grew up immersed in, which had its origins in the likes of Harry Anslinger, and more recently Richard Nixon.  

More thoughts as they come to me.

Avoid all needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
Abbie Hoffman
Title: Re: David Deitch believes the hype
Post by: Inculcated on December 09, 2009, 03:00:21 AM
http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html (http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html) This site had some interesting facts posted & linked with David Deitch weighing/cashing in on hysteria about Druggie Teens.

December 8, 2009
The "Lindsay's the EveryGirl" lynch mob
Associated Press entertainment writer Sandy Cohen's abysmal--and typical--lack of journalistic ethics ("Lohan Latest Star to Tumble Into Abuse," July 24, 2007) imaging Lindsay Lohan as the poster child for young Hollywood and young America is just the latest fictional travesty in AP’s lazy, sensational anti-youth meanness.
Imagine growing up with a father—in this case, Lindsay Lohan’s father, Michael, now 46—whose rampant drug and alcohol abuse, repeated violent assaults, corporate thefts, and drunken criminality destroyed his family, led to years of incarceration, and forced his daughter to see legal protection from his “uncontrollable behaviors” and abuses. And parents who put her through a long, contentious divorce. And a mother, Dina, who was full of public sympathy... for herself... declaring to the press: "Teen drug addiction runs rampant and we are not the only family suffering from this. My heart goes out to families going through this pain."
No, Ms. Lohan, teenage drug addiction is not rampant. It is, however, more common when rotten parents put their kids through years of addiction, crime, violence, bitter divorce, and excuse their own execrable behaviors by publicly claiming drug abuse is just a "teenage" problem. With alleged grownups like these in charge, it's a wonder teenagers don't drink more. Fortunately, the Los Angeles Times ran a much more intelligent piece on young celebrities' toxic parents.
Add to that the toxicity of the entertainment press smeling a cheap chance to moaralize. Reporters such as AP's and commentators including “substance abuse experts” and self-described feminists, so insensitive they never mentioned Lindsay’s history of abuse and addicted parents—all so modern-day moralists can exploit her drug and alcohol afflictions to indict “young Hollywood” and young female America as some uniquely addicted, troubled generation worrying its wise and concerned parents.
Welcome to the “culture war” and its cruelties, led by news reporters, pundits, and quotable drug treatment hawkers eager to place their own popularity and profit ahead of revealing ugly truths to Americans.
The harsh reality: Lindsay Lohan’s drug and drunken driving woes are very atypical of young people (including young celebrities) today. But when teens and young adults have drug and alcohol problems, it’s not because they’re modern youth, but virtually always because they come from addicted, often abusive family backgrounds. Meanwhile, drug-abusing middle-agers like Lindsay’s father do represent a skyrocketing scourge neither news reporters nor “experts” (in this case, the Phoenix House’s craven “addiction specialist” David Deitch, quoted in the July 24 AP story) have the basic guts or decency to mention. Why should they? They know today's reporters run any anti-youth quip, no matter how factless.
The latest 2004 National Center for Health Statistics figures show 865 American teenagers did indeed die from illegal drug overdoses, and FBI reports show 551,000 Americans under age 20 were arrested for drug, drunken driving, and drunkenness offenses in 2005. That kind of fact gets huge publicity. Oh, the poor parents who suffer such terrible kids!
But what is never mentioned was that 10,763 Americans ages 40-49—the parents—died from illicit-drug overdoses in 2004 and 675,000 in this supposedly mature, stable middle-aged group were arrested for drug and drunk driving violations in 2005. Teens are suffering far more from their parents’ addictions and rotten behaviors than the other way around.
Of course, the press and supposed addiction experts like Deitch shrink from discussing. Instead, they spread lies that “today's youngsters start experimenting with drugs about age 12” (Deitch, quoted in the AP story). In fact, our most reliable and only long-term measure, Monitoring the Future, shows only 20.9% of today’s eighth graders (average age 14) ever used an illicit drug even once, a proportion that has dropped sharply since the 1970s. The National Household Survey shows just 11.7% of 12 year-olds ever used any drug at all. Hardly a 12 year-old epidemic.
But in today’s world of adults desensitized to young people and indifferent to real trends and problems, no one important cares what is really going on. Lindsay is a visible, exploitable commodity, and bullying interests are piling on her to push their agendas.
Mike Males, YouthFacts.org
Title: Re: David Deitch believes the hype
Post by: Inculcated on December 09, 2009, 03:03:52 AM
Oh, and Deitch’s comments in the article the author was responding to were:
Quote
At the same time, the average age at which kids -- famous or not -- start using drugs has dropped every decade since the 1960s. Today's youngsters start experimenting with drugs about age 12, said Dr. David Deitch, an addiction specialist for more than 40 years and clinical director of Phoenix House, a national nonprofit provider of substance-abuse treatments.

"The earlier the age of onset of chronic drug-taking, the greater the prognosis is for long-term problems," he said.

People who start using drugs at young ages fail to develop "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies," he said, which can often lead to further drug use and addiction.

The glitter and glamor of Hollywood only exacerbate the problem, he said: "That life is all about the excitement, drama and peak performance followed by a letdown that gets medicated with entertainment and medication."
http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html (http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html)
Title: David Deitch harbors his delusions
Post by: Ursus on December 09, 2009, 10:28:46 AM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Oh, and Deitch's comments in the article the author was responding to were:
Quote
At the same time, the average age at which kids -- famous or not -- start using drugs has dropped every decade since the 1960s. Today's youngsters start experimenting with drugs about age 12, said Dr. David Deitch, an addiction specialist for more than 40 years and clinical director of Phoenix House, a national nonprofit provider of substance-abuse treatments.

"The earlier the age of onset of chronic drug-taking, the greater the prognosis is for long-term problems," he said.

People who start using drugs at young ages fail to develop "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies," he said, which can often lead to further drug use and addiction.

The glitter and glamor of Hollywood only exacerbate the problem, he said: "That life is all about the excitement, drama and peak performance followed by a letdown that gets medicated with entertainment and medication."
http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html (http://youthfacts.org/lohan.html)
And, of course, what Deitch himself was responding to was his own life history, not facts pertaining to the rest of the American public. One can only wonder at the "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies" he failed to develop due to his time spent in therapeutic community environments consequent to his addiction(s).
Title: Re: David Deitch harbors his delusions
Post by: Inculcated on December 12, 2009, 01:53:04 AM
Quote from: "Ursus"
And, of course, what Deitch himself was responding to was his own life history, not facts pertaining to the rest of the American public. One can only wonder at the "multiple social, intellectual and behavioral competencies" he failed to develop due to his time spent in therapeutic community environments consequent to his addiction(s).
...wonder or something like it that includes a shiver.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: Inculcated on December 12, 2009, 06:05:11 AM
David Deitch, one time patient at the notorious Narcotic farm (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=28143&p=341208) (Notorious for conducting research trials on the incarcerated among others; and of notable infamy for cultivating several of the earliest Synanon modeled TCs on its grounds) weighs in on the topic (http://http://healthyliving.freedomblogging.com/2009/10/12/cocaine-vaccine-promising-but-obstacles-remain/11189/)  of the experimental Cocaine vaccine (http://http://discovermagazine.com/1999/jun/ashotofsanity1633).
Title: Re: David Deitch at Synanon photo in Ebony article
Post by: Inculcated on January 13, 2010, 10:22:16 PM
Ebony Magazine circa 1963 on Synanon features an ancient photo of Deitch at Synanon before he got around to Daytop (http://http://books.google.com/books?id=d04FVw8V0YoC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=synanon+deitch&source=bl&ots=eW1s11jd01&sig=5ws-rPjrdHvNeGL_lqWDRH3XR0s&hl=en&ei=zIlOS8z-JoXwsgPyxPTYBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=synanon%20deitch&f=false)

I know it’s like counting a jar of jelly beans, but does anyone know exactly how many programs David Deitch started or put his stink on? Estimate?
Title: Re: David Deitch at Synanon photo in Ebony article
Post by: Ursus on January 13, 2010, 10:43:16 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Ebony Magazine circa 1963 on Synanon features an ancient photo of Deitch at Synanon before he got around to Daytop (http://http://books.google.com/books?id=d04FVw8V0YoC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=synanon+deitch&source=bl&ots=eW1s11jd01&sig=5ws-rPjrdHvNeGL_lqWDRH3XR0s&hl=en&ei=zIlOS8z-JoXwsgPyxPTYBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=synanon%20deitch&f=false)

I know it’s like counting a jar of jelly beans, but does anyone know exactly how many programs David Deitch started or put his stink on? Estimate?
If Deitch was there in 1963, he might have been present when Bill Lane was brought in (who ended up staying about a dozen years). Hey, maybe Lane is even that guy in the pic, who's laid out on the couch, going through withdrawal...  :eek:

"As with all new Synanon residents, Lane's first task was to convulse his way through withdrawals on a couch in the common area, while other residents held him, wiped vomit from his mouth and nursed him to shaky sobriety." *[/list]


* See recent interview:BILL LANE: Transformed Transporter
viewtopic.php?f=45&t=29820 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=29820)[/list]
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: Ursus on January 13, 2010, 10:57:00 PM
Mmm. Check out the hairline and the nose of the guy prone in the Deitch photo (http://http://books.google.com/books?id=d04FVw8V0YoC&lpg=PA117&ots=eW1s11jd01&dq=synanon%20deitch&pg=PA117#v=onepage&q=synanon%20deitch&f=false) above and compare to below. Could be Lane...  :D

(http://http://www.tonic.com/scripts/thumb.php?w=595&src=/file/78844/) · Bill Lane
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: dragonfly on January 11, 2011, 02:47:44 PM
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: Inculcated on January 11, 2011, 04:24:19 PM
As for the primordial days of Synanon for the most part what I’ve come across tells of Dietrich starting running his game or the precursor to it in the twelve-step setting and then breaking off to form Synanon.

I have no links that provide additional details about Deitch and his journey from The Narcotics Farm to Synanon. This one that turned up covers the book and expands just an ity bit http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/201 ... 1935-1975/ (http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/11/29/the-narcotic-farms-drug-treatment-incarceration-1935-1975/)
Quote from: "dragonfly"
I guess I'm gonna have to call Deitch himself and ask him what came first the brainwashed chicken or the Feds on Maoist acid?
LMAO! Do please, let me know how that call goes.

Excerpts from a cached version of this article which may or may not be already pasted on another thread Deitch tells a slightly different (perhaps more forthcoming or revised) version than others. In this interview he attributes his recovery to Synanon whereas previous accounts acknowledge his relapse following his time on The Narco Farm, but mentions of his subsequent journey to Synanon were brief and along the lines of seeking training. Interestingly, in this interview he also asserts that Synanon was his "first exposure to peer based mutual help".

David Deitch, PhD and George De Leon, PhD on Recovery Management and the Future of the Therapeutic Community
Written by William L. White, MA   Tuesday, 21 September 2010 16:44  Counselor Magazine

This article—the third in a series of articles profiling pioneers of modern addiction treatment—engages two leaders of the international therapeutic community (TC) movement. Dr. David Deitch is one of the most singular figures in the American TC movement and one of the few people whose career transcends the infancy, adolescence and maturation of TCs around the world. Dr. George De Leon has spent a career conducting and publishing scientific studies of TCs, and using the results of these studies to guide the evolution of the international TC movement…
David Deitch: It’s a delight to participate with you and George to reflect on the evolution of the therapeutic community. I come to this discussion with a lengthy history of over 60 years in the addiction world. My first education was regrettably my early use of heroin, which I began at the age of 15. In 1951, I was arrested for drug possession and entered addiction treatment at the federal prison/hospital in Lexington, Kentucky (known as “the farm”). Upon release, I finished high school and became excited about learning, particularly philosophy and psychology. I continued sporadic college education amidst a continued cycle of relapse, crime and arrest. I was unable to get it together in spite of multiple treatments. At each institution, I tried hard to understand what was wrong with me. I attended every group, had great and caring psychiatrists, but always relapsed upon my return home. Then in 1961, I left New York in search of a new rumored “cure” called Synanon in Santa Monica, California.

Synanon was the beginning of the American TC movement and my first exposure to peer-based mutual help. It had everything—a charismatic leader, colorful ex-cons, con artists, motorcycle gang members, great jazz musicians, liberated women. We (recovering addicts) did everything, including security. Everybody started at the bottom and earned their way up. It wasn’t a treatment program; it was an amazing community, and every­one contributed to its magic. Synanon was a new society that honored the outsider, played to the rebel. It was a place where we entered to get clean and ended up seeing ourselves as the heroes of a new movement. These were the days before Synanon evolved into a cult and eventually imploded.

Many of us who left before Synanon developed into such a closed community were called upon by different agencies to help start new therapeutic communities. Daytop Lodge was the first. The lead psychologist for the Brooklyn Department of Probation, Alex Bassin, and the Chief Probation Officer, Joseph Shelly, visited Synanon and embraced it as an answer to the growing heroin problem in New York. They sought funds from NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] to place addicts on probation into a Synanon-like setting and recruited me to develop that program. In 1965, we, along with Monsignor William B. O’Brien, formed Daytop Village. Daytop Village marked a break from Synanon and set the model for future TCs in terms of acceptance of government funding, evaluation procedures and external governance.

1965-1970 in New York was a breeding ground for TCs due in great part to the influence of Dr. Efren Raimirez, a psychiatrist recruited as New York City’s first “drug czar” by Major Lindsay. Efren, who had been trained in the Maxwell Jones TC model, persuaded me to use the term therapeutic community (TC) as a more scientific way to describe our method. Until that time, we had proudly used the term, “A Humanizing Community.” Efren hosted regular meetings of key people interested in the treatment of heroin addiction. These meetings included Mitch Rosenthal, who developed Phoenix House; Judy Densen-Gerber, who founded Odyssey House; and a young social worker, who helped create Samaritan Village. Within a few years, Daytop graduates went on to help build Gaudenzia in Philadelphia, Gateway in Chicago, Walden House in San Francisco, and Marathon House of New England. By the 1970s, a full fledged TC movement was spreading across the United States, Europe and Asia. TC methods became more diverse across these different geographical, cultural and political contexts. Since this period, I have had the privilege of observing and participating in the worldwide spread and evolution of the TC as a treatment for addiction.
Bill: Thanks, David. George, could you introduce yourself to our readers and add your thoughts on the early evolution of the TC movement?

George De Leon: As a jazz musician, years before my career as a psychologist, I understood the drug problem through its impact on friends and fellow musicians, some of whom turned their lives around in Synanon. I had early contacts with Daytop Village and Synanon groups in New York, but my work in the TC movement began when Mitch Rosenthal asked me to bring my research skills to help in the development of Phoenix House, circa 1967.
Title: Re: David Deitch "Change agent"
Post by: Inculcated on January 11, 2011, 08:25:23 PM
You know what I find interesting…well, it’s not nearly quite the conundrum of just how Art Barker (whose job history seems to have been previously limited to being a comedian) was transformed from his life of performing as an intermittent fill in for the local Playboy club to somehow suddenly being endowed with the funds to set up The Seed program and just how the hell that selection process came about…

However, it is also interesting (if we go by David Deitch’s own account of his addiction history given in the above quoted interview)to wonder at the marvel of just how Joseph Shelly, head of the Supreme Court Probation Department in New York, Criminologist Alexander Bassin, psychologist and Director of Research and, Prof. Herbert Bloch and psychiatrist Daniel Casriel and Monsignor O’ Brien all concluded that David Deitch (with a decade long history of relapse and at that point (just ehm 2 years? of sobriety) and a criminal record that dated back to his time at the Narcotic Farm) was the ideal person to run their program...hmmm...
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: heretik on January 11, 2011, 09:29:04 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
As for the primordial days of Synanon for the most part what I’ve come across tells of Dietrich starting running his game or the precursor to it in the twelve-step setting and then breaking off to form Synanon.

I have no links that provide additional details about Deitch and his journey from The Narcotics Farm to Synanon. This one that turned up covers the book and expands just an ity bit http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/201 ... 1935-1975/ (http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/11/29/the-narcotic-farms-drug-treatment-incarceration-1935-1975/)
Quote from: "dragonfly"
I guess I'm gonna have to call Deitch himself and ask him what came first the brainwashed chicken or the Feds on Maoist acid?
LMAO! Do please, let me know how that call goes.

Excerpts from a cached version of this article which may or may not be already pasted on another thread Deitch tells a slightly different (perhaps more forthcoming or revised) version than others. In this interview he attributes his recovery to Synanon whereas previous accounts acknowledge his relapse following his time on The Narco Farm, but mentions of his subsequent journey to Synanon were brief and along the lines of seeking training. Interestingly, in this interview he also asserts that Synanon was his "first exposure to peer based mutual help".

David Deitch, PhD and George De Leon, PhD on Recovery Management and the Future of the Therapeutic Community
Written by William L. White, MA   Tuesday, 21 September 2010 16:44  Counselor Magazine

This article—the third in a series of articles profiling pioneers of modern addiction treatment—engages two leaders of the international therapeutic community (TC) movement. Dr. David Deitch is one of the most singular figures in the American TC movement and one of the few people whose career transcends the infancy, adolescence and maturation of TCs around the world. Dr. George De Leon has spent a career conducting and publishing scientific studies of TCs, and using the results of these studies to guide the evolution of the international TC movement…
David Deitch: It’s a delight to participate with you and George to reflect on the evolution of the therapeutic community. I come to this discussion with a lengthy history of over 60 years in the addiction world. My first education was regrettably my early use of heroin, which I began at the age of 15. In 1951, I was arrested for drug possession and entered addiction treatment at the federal prison/hospital in Lexington, Kentucky (known as “the farm”). Upon release, I finished high school and became excited about learning, particularly philosophy and psychology. I continued sporadic college education amidst a continued cycle of relapse, crime and arrest. I was unable to get it together in spite of multiple treatments. At each institution, I tried hard to understand what was wrong with me. I attended every group, had great and caring psychiatrists, but always relapsed upon my return home. Then in 1961, I left New York in search of a new rumored “cure” called Synanon in Santa Monica, California.

Synanon was the beginning of the American TC movement and my first exposure to peer-based mutual help. It had everything—a charismatic leader, colorful ex-cons, con artists, motorcycle gang members, great jazz musicians, liberated women. We (recovering addicts) did everything, including security. Everybody started at the bottom and earned their way up. It wasn’t a treatment program; it was an amazing community, and every­one contributed to its magic. Synanon was a new society that honored the outsider, played to the rebel. It was a place where we entered to get clean and ended up seeing ourselves as the heroes of a new movement. These were the days before Synanon evolved into a cult and eventually imploded.

Many of us who left before Synanon developed into such a closed community were called upon by different agencies to help start new therapeutic communities. Daytop Lodge was the first. The lead psychologist for the Brooklyn Department of Probation, Alex Bassin, and the Chief Probation Officer, Joseph Shelly, visited Synanon and embraced it as an answer to the growing heroin problem in New York. They sought funds from NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] to place addicts on probation into a Synanon-like setting and recruited me to develop that program. In 1965, we, along with Monsignor William B. O’Brien, formed Daytop Village. Daytop Village marked a break from Synanon and set the model for future TCs in terms of acceptance of government funding, evaluation procedures and external governance.

1965-1970 in New York was a breeding ground for TCs due in great part to the influence of Dr. Efren Raimirez, a psychiatrist recruited as New York City’s first “drug czar” by Major Lindsay. Efren, who had been trained in the Maxwell Jones TC model, persuaded me to use the term therapeutic community (TC) as a more scientific way to describe our method. Until that time, we had proudly used the term, “A Humanizing Community.” Efren hosted regular meetings of key people interested in the treatment of heroin addiction. These meetings included Mitch Rosenthal, who developed Phoenix House; Judy Densen-Gerber, who founded Odyssey House; and a young social worker, who helped create Samaritan Village. Within a few years, Daytop graduates went on to help build Gaudenzia in Philadelphia, Gateway in Chicago, Walden House in San Francisco, and Marathon House of New England. By the 1970s, a full fledged TC movement was spreading across the United States, Europe and Asia. TC methods became more diverse across these different geographical, cultural and political contexts. Since this period, I have had the privilege of observing and participating in the worldwide spread and evolution of the TC as a treatment for addiction.
Bill: Thanks, David. George, could you introduce yourself to our readers and add your thoughts on the early evolution of the TC movement?

George De Leon: As a jazz musician, years before my career as a psychologist, I understood the drug problem through its impact on friends and fellow musicians, some of whom turned their lives around in Synanon. I had early contacts with Daytop Village and Synanon groups in New York, but my work in the TC movement began when Mitch Rosenthal asked me to bring my research skills to help in the development of Phoenix House, circa 1967.

Inculcate, could you help me find the link that was used here. I would like to follow the trail that just may give me more info concerning Marathon House.

excerpt from your post: ^
Quote
1965-1970 in New York was a breeding ground for TCs due in great part to the influence of Dr. Efren Raimirez, a psychiatrist recruited as New York City’s first “drug czar” by Major Lindsay. Efren, who had been trained in the Maxwell Jones TC model, persuaded me to use the term therapeutic community (TC) as a more scientific way to describe our method. Until that time, we had proudly used the term, “A Humanizing Community.” Efren hosted regular meetings of key people interested in the treatment of heroin addiction. These meetings included Mitch Rosenthal, who developed Phoenix House; Judy Densen-Gerber, who founded Odyssey House; and a young social worker, who helped create Samaritan Village. Within a few years, Daytop graduates went on to help build Gaudenzia in Philadelphia, Gateway in Chicago, Walden House in San Francisco, and Marathon House of New England. By the 1970s, a full fledged TC movement was spreading across the United States, Europe and Asia. TC methods became more diverse across these different geographical, cultural and political contexts. Since this period, I have had the privilege of observing and participating in the worldwide spread and evolution of the TC as a treatment for addiction.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: Inculcated on January 11, 2011, 10:32:29 PM
Quote from: "heretik"
Inculcate, could you help me find the link that was used here. I would like to follow the trail that just may give me more info concerning Marathon House.
Sure:
A “Pioneer series” PDF link (http://http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:GLexRT2a_coJ:www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/file_download.php%3Ffn%3D2010%2BDr.%2BDavid%2BDeitch%2B%2526amp%253B%2BDr.%2BGeorge%2BDe%2BLeon%26ext%3Dpdf+David+Deitch,+PhD+and+George+De+Leon,+PhD+on+Recovery+Management+and+the+Future+of+the+Therapeutic+Community&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESilp9OEuhRQKe42dc5zIvVyBKUWK3qZe3e9zSUqATyWX1OtvpUfspfNyjJ0879ptRxzqpOHjwI1iaB4YYeLz7CQVdAyxDhTclP3ehQ7HS3ABjkxd-aS29qKIb2lp7TWNo2y1jOB&sig=AHIEtbR6SEMS9abP_LZyh3nVcYgB1Mgadw)
The other search results for the same article from counselor magazine say that the “webpage cannot be found” and seem to be only retrievable by google cache (http://http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R-cS8DTflscJ:www.counselormagazine.com/feature-articles-mainmenu-63+David+Deitch,+PhD+and+George+De+Leon,+PhD+on+Recovery+Management+and+the+Future+of+the+Therapeutic+Community&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) at this time.

 I’d be very interested to read anything that comes from you following that trail regarding Marathon or even Phoenix House or threads you create about your experience of those programs, Heretic.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: heretik on January 11, 2011, 11:14:26 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Quote from: "heretik"
Inculcate, could you help me find the link that was used here. I would like to follow the trail that just may give me more info concerning Marathon House.
Sure:
A “Pioneer series” PDF link (http://http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:GLexRT2a_coJ:www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/file_download.php%3Ffn%3D2010%2BDr.%2BDavid%2BDeitch%2B%2526amp%253B%2BDr.%2BGeorge%2BDe%2BLeon%26ext%3Dpdf+David+Deitch,+PhD+and+George+De+Leon,+PhD+on+Recovery+Management+and+the+Future+of+the+Therapeutic+Community&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESilp9OEuhRQKe42dc5zIvVyBKUWK3qZe3e9zSUqATyWX1OtvpUfspfNyjJ0879ptRxzqpOHjwI1iaB4YYeLz7CQVdAyxDhTclP3ehQ7HS3ABjkxd-aS29qKIb2lp7TWNo2y1jOB&sig=AHIEtbR6SEMS9abP_LZyh3nVcYgB1Mgadw)
The other search results for the same article from counselor magazine say that the “webpage cannot be found” and seem to be only retrievable by google cache (http://http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R-cS8DTflscJ:www.counselormagazine.com/feature-articles-mainmenu-63+David+Deitch,+PhD+and+George+De+Leon,+PhD+on+Recovery+Management+and+the+Future+of+the+Therapeutic+Community&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) at this time.

 I’d be very interested to read anything that comes from you following that trail regarding Marathon or even Phoenix House or threads you create about your experience of those programs, Heretic.

I sure will accommodate. Thanks.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: dragonfly on January 12, 2011, 01:49:52 PM
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: heretik on January 12, 2011, 02:23:09 PM
Quote from: "dragonfly"
Thanks Inculcated, I read the David Deitch article...

I suspect that somehow, the Feds were getting curious about communist brainwashing and instigated all this TC stuff...

I guess it could be that chuck D just accidentally discovered the dynamics on his own but that seems unlikely...

Too many random people suddenly being funded by NIMH to not have some sort of mastemind behind it...

Not that it matters, Its just so fascinating...the whole human capacity to be brainwashed...how our basic human need to connect can be turned against us...

You said it right there, funds. IDK about a mastermind, but people were falling all over one another to get their  product out there to get the money. Treatment Center models were the new fade...according to some. The gov't was interested in spreading the wealth.
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: dragonfly on January 12, 2011, 06:48:45 PM
Title: Re: David Deitch
Post by: Inculcated on January 12, 2011, 11:05:21 PM
Indeed it is and at the moment it is still a working link to a very interesting PDF. One of the authors is the same William Whitehead who conducted the above quoted and linked interview with Dietch and DeLeon….
It’s got a strong lead in to an informative body of work, then it goes askew with a bit of revisionist history that has become all too familiar
(See Deitch laments under subsequent developments  p. 12)
I'm also going to put excerpts from and a link to it in the confrontational attack therapy thread.
Edited to add: LMAO just realized it is the same fricking article as posted in the confrontational attack therapy thread. Okay, I'm going to step away from thinking because clearly my brain is at status :ftard: tonight. In my brain's defense it’s been tweaked (the article) renamed and loaded with a couple of graphs and I've just come off of reading mind numbing excerpts of MSDS reports contrived to be more obfuscating than a shill troll could ever aspire to compose.
Title: David Deitch Duplicity or Dissonance...
Post by: Inculcated on January 23, 2011, 12:49:51 AM
From Heretik’s contribution (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=393909#p393909)  in The Seed forum which happened to include quotes including but not limited to Daytop and Phoenix House David Deitch opportunistically casting aspersions on Straight --thereby seizing an opportunity to imply that their tactics are legitimate and Kid cruelty free and that the absence of physical restraint/violence in their respective programs means an absence of indemnic abuse.
Quote
The LA Times noted in 1990 that Phoenix House and Daytop use peer pressure and confrontation like Straight but for shorter periods, with smaller groups, and that they also provide formal education.
That rag sure needs to retract that flat out BS! Over two years for me and many many others and the girl who had the bunk above mine at Millbrook spent about five years in that so called short term exposure!
Formal education? Only one of the four locations I went through was even accredited and the others had packets instead of text books and passed off grounds keeping duties as horticulture class.

Quote
Former Synanite Dr. David Deitch, then a Phoenix House director, has stated, "A client must have the choice of leaving treatment, even if the youngster is on probation and the alternative is jail."(19)
Excerpt from Ursus' post on the same thread (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=393918#p393918)
Quote from: "Ursus"
Riiiiiight. Someone oughta inform all those kids in Daytop (David Deitch) that there simply has been some kind of misunderstanding re. the concept of "choice." Along with similar misunderstanding re. the attack therapy ... which must be called "something else" now for perception management purposes. It's nothing short of surreal to read Deitch spouting this stuff in print.
Freedom of choice from the guy whose made a career of promoting (even w/ legislation) and profits from remand situations. ..yeah. Tell it to the TYC kids who had threats of their PO being called hanging over them for even the most petty infractions or objections.Tell it to the kids whose parents were told to bar them from returning home and to report their splitee kids as runaways (some need no such motivation, but that’ll keep for an abusive treatment setting as an abdication of parenting/ perpetuation of parental abuse rant some other time). Tell it to the kids shipped time zones away from home to a place where residents and counselors are keenly aware of the “inventory”  of those who object to a given aspect of Daytopian life…some (those who are closer to aging out or have much to fear where they’ve come from ) are told they’re free to leave any time whilst others are put on a van to the city to see the doc’ and then put on "one to ones".And for that matter confrontational attacks were at the time of that quote and are to date still integral and central to the milieu.

David Deitch’s self promotion in speaking out against Straight (which was already circling the drain at that time) is not dissimilar to Hazelden renouncing the use of verbal abuses/confrontational attack therapy at places like Daytop and Phoenix House in the mid eighties. Interestingly both Daytop and Phoenix House inherited a number of Straightlings in the early-mid nineties. Lol it is fuckin’ surreal.
Title: Re: David Deitch "Change agent"
Post by: dragonfly on August 13, 2011, 11:53:50 PM