Fornits

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Daytop Village => Topic started by: Inculcated on August 18, 2009, 01:02:35 AM

Title: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on August 18, 2009, 01:02:35 AM
Dan Casriel in the earliest days of Daytop expounds upon the beneficial use of fear in therapy, the “parahuman” addict and gives a nod to Synanon:

Therapy of Narcotic Addicts Sparks Psychiatric Theory
[From the Medical Tribune — World Wide Report]

New York. — A psychoanalyst said here that he has evolved a psychodynamic
Theory to explain character disorders by observing and working in the successful rehabilitation of narcotic addicts. The theory is based on the concept that persons whose primary method of defense is withdrawal, not "flight or fight," "fit into the psychiatric classification of character disorder."

Dr. Daniel H. Casriel explained both his theory and the rehabilitation process, which he called "the Daytop phenomenon," at a meeting of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, of which he is president-elect. The term refers to Daytop Village and Daytop Lodge, addict-reform communities in Staten Island, N.Y., patterned after the Synanon centers, with some modifications of technique.

"Daytop is the breakthrough in the treatment of the drug addict," said Dr. Casriel, who is medical-psychiatric superintendent of Daytop Village. "For the first time, an addict upon entering Daytop sees 100 people who were also addicted but who are living happily and functioning without drugs or the pre-occupation with the thought of drugs."

Daytop Village has been in existence for 6 months. It is an outgrowth of Daytop Lodge, established under a 5-year National Institutes of Mental Health project to compare the results of several alternative probation arrangements for felons of the Second Judicial District, New York Supreme Court, and initially limited to 25 probationers. ,

"People live in Daytop in a pleasant, paternalistic, tribe like, family environment," Dr. Casriel said, paraphrasing his book on Synanon, "So Fair a House."
The members think of Daytop neither as a hospital, a prison, nor a halfway house, but as a family-type club or home — a fraternity of people living together and helping each other to get well * * *. The members are neither patients nor inmates; they are free to leave any time they wish."

ONCE BELIEVED THERE WAS NO HOPE

He said that he himself had once believed there was virtually no hope for drug addicts: "Ten years of contact through community psychiatry with the problem of drug addiction had left me deeply pessimistic * * *. My observations had almost brought me to the conclusion that, once addiction was established in certain predisposed but undefined personalities. A basic metabolic change or deficiency was produced in the addict, manifesting itself in" a craving.

"That was my position until I discovered Synanon 3 years ago," he said, calling Daytop "the amalgamation of the best that was Synanon and the best of the professional understanding and knowhow."

Citing the relative lack of success of psychiatry in the treatment of character disorders, he said that "the question I kept asking myself was, 'Why were nonprofessionals able to stumble upon a rehabilitation and cure of the drug addict, whereas professionals, as a general rule, were completely unsuccessful?' At last I feel I've discovered why.

"After working intensively learning the process of treatment of the drug addict specifically and the character disorder in general, I was finally able to trace
it back and evolve a psychodynamic theory which to me explains why the process works."

The theory, he said, was a modification of the psycho cultural views developed by the Columbia School of Adaptational Psychodynamics.

"A major defect in the adaptational psychodynamic theory," asserted Dr. Casriel, "was its lack of awareness that there are three major methods of coping with pain or stress. * * * They accounted for two of these ways by the mechanisms of defense called flight or fight, using the emotions of fear or rage. What they failed to bring into focus is that there is a major, perhaps more primary mechanism in which one avoids danger or pain. * * * it uses neither the emotions of fear nor rage and may be called isolation or encapsulation. * * * Some people withdraw from the pain of awareness, the pain of reality, what they experience as the pain of everyday functioning, by withdrawing unto themselves."

It was big observation, he said, "that those people whose primary mechanism of defense is withdrawal are those who fit into the psychiatric classification of character disorder."

Once this "intrapsychic world without tension" has been evolved, he continued, "the individual will overtly or covertly fight anyone who attempts to remove him from his prison-fortress. * * * Once the adaptational mechanism of isolation is evolved and becomes a primary mechanism, the standard psycho- analytic techniques using introspections and observation are useless. The individual patient, though he hears, cannot be reached."  

To treat such patients, Dr. Casriel said, "One must first remove the shell and prevent the individual from acquiring or running into any other kind of shell."
Then he must be taught how to grow up emotionally, socially, culturally, sexually, vocationally, and educationally.

On this basis, addicts entering Daytop are given two simple prescriptions: no physical violence and no narcotics or other chemicals — "and by inference no other shells under which to hide." Only one reaction to his stress is left open to the Daytop member — fear. He can leave Daytop if unable to cope with his fears. However, said Dr. Casriel, "We anticipate that at least 80 percent of those who enter Daytop will sooner or later remain to get well."

If he stays, the member is given two prescriptions — go through the motions and act as if. The first means to abide by the rules and follow instructions, like it or not. If a member complains that he doesn't know exactly how to do as he is told, he is instructed to act as if * * * you knew what to do * * * you had the experience * * * you are mature * * * it is going to be successful * * * you are going to grow up and get well * * * you are already well and adult.

"When people go through the motions of acting as if," Dr. Casriel said, "they start thinking as if and finally feeling as if." At the beginning of this process, there is a crucial 90-day hump during which painful underlying feelings come to the surface, he said, but the support of others at Daytop helps the new member.

COMMUNICATION IS TREATMENT

Treatment through communication then helps the member to understand that
the undifferentiated somatic painful feelings that he has experienced on a visceral and emotional level * * * are nothing more than fear, anger, guilt, and depression, emotions experienced by all humanity * * * are not exclusive to what he felt was the mystical “parahuman” called the drug addict.

Tools of communications used at Daytop are a form of group therapy called the encounter, seminars, public speaking, psychodynamic interviews, lectures, and community relations. There are also rituals and rites of passage, including the intake and indoctrination processes, entrance into regular membership after a month's probation, a birthday after a year, and primitive rituals to maintain discipline, called the haircut and the general assembly.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on August 18, 2009, 01:14:26 AM
Is there a link to original source? Date of publication?
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on August 18, 2009, 01:28:18 AM
The article above was entered as [Exhibit No. 14(g)]  in the congressional hearings cited and linked on the Narco Farm thread.
Items submitted included his CV and publications:

Curriculum vitae as of testimony(Excerpts)
- Psychiatric consultant, NIMH; grant to study drug addiction in the
U.S. Army. July. August 1962.

- Psychiatric consultant to the Synanon Foundation, August 1962 to June
1964.

- Consultant and therapist for the restoration of young through training
program : A program conducted in cooperation with the New York City Department of Correction, March 1965 to September 1965.

- Cofounder and medical-psychiatric director of Daytop Village, Inc. (a nonprofit therapeutic community and an extension of Daytop Lodge). By January 1970. 300 people in four physical facilities and four outpatient (SPAN) facilities.

- Consultant BAN/ -BAN/LSD (barbiturates, amphetamines and nar- cotics). 1965 to 1968. An ODP clinic, supervised by the New York State Supreme Court. Department of Probation. 2nd Judicial District.

 Group relations Ongoing Workshops, member of board of advisors and
chief, psychiatric services, 1968.

 Board of consultants. Country Place, Warren, Conn.

 SANE, board of consultants, 1968.

 Board of directors. Spruce Institute, Philadelphia, Pa., 1967 to date.

MEMBERSHIPS
(1) New York County and State Medical Association, 1953.
(2) American Medical Association, 1953.
(3) American Psychiatric Association and District Branch, 1952.
(4) Medical Correctional Officers' Association, 1963.
(5) American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, 1958 (president, 1966 to
1967).
(6) Association for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, 1962.
(7) Pan-American Medical Association, 1967, member of the council in the
section on psychiatry, January 15. 1969.
(8) ^Member. Royal Society of Health, 1969.
(9) American Public Health Association.

PUBLICATIONS
Book

"So Fair A House." the story of Synanon, Prentice Hall, 225 pages, December
5. 1963.

Articles

(1) "Suicidal Gestures in Occupational Personnel on Okinawa," U.S. Armed
Forces, Medical Journal, vol. Ill, No. 12, December 1962.
(2) "Intramural Psychiatric Service in a Public High School." New York
State Journal of Medicine, vol. 56, No. 12, June 1956.
(3) "A Mental Hygiene Clinic in a High School," the School Review, Summer
1957.
(4) '-Modification of Adaptational Psychodynamics Theory in the Wake of
Successful Rehabilitation of the Drug Addict at Daytop Village," Physicians
Panorama, October 1966.
(5) "The Marathon and Time .Extended Group Therapy," Current: Psychiatric
Therapies, 1968
(6) 'Advice To The Family Doctor,'* Physicians Panorama, February 1970.
..(XT). 'Therapeutic Significance of Peer Interaction," American Public Health Bulletin, (to be published).
(8) -Federal Probation."

TO BE PUBLISHED:

Books

(1) "The Concept." The story of Daytop. Hill & Wang, Spring 1971
(2) "A Scream Away From Happiness." Psychodynamic theory and process of
my new identity process, an accelerated reeducation of emotion, attitude, and
behavior. Spring 1971.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on August 18, 2009, 03:28:32 AM
[Exhibit No. 14(c)]

Significant Therapeutic Benefits Based on Peer Treatment in the Casriel Institute and AREBA  -Daniel Casriel, M.D., New York, N.Y.
EXCERPTS:

“Currently, an ever-growing list of self-help groups are being established.
 Self-help therapeutic communities such as Daytop and Synanon, and more recently, scores of lesser known smaller self-help communities and storefront operations such as Encounter and SPAN are sprouting and growing".


 "Why is this happening? What need are these organizations fulfilling that traditional therapies (medical, paramedical, or religious) failed to fulfill? Who are the people helping and being helped that found no help by professional workers?
How are the incurable and un-helpable being helped by each other? Who are they able to help, and why are they able to help each other? What is the new "magic" ingredient? What can trained professionals learn from all this?

Simply stated, we must examine the process involved with words such as peer relationship, responsibility, concern, involvement, absence of magic and confrontation.”
He then goes on into a really pompous drone about how there is no magic. He really gets repetitive with the "there is no magic" bit. The basis of this section is an assumption that the person on the receiving end of treatment has such expectations or beliefs. In my opinion,this assumption speaks volumes of the reductive perceptions that lead to the concept.

- AREBA : A private therapeutic community for the rehabilitation of middle and upper class drug addicts and other behavioral bankrupts. AREBA (accelerated reeducation of emotions, behavior and attitudes).
“In AREBA, it is assumed that the new entering member knows nothing, has learned nothing but self-destructive, maladaptive behavior, thinking, and feeling. The members and staff of AREBA have in their own growth learned to be truly concerned for the entering member. They enjoy the challenge and will involve themselves with the new member. They know that the more they teach, the more they learn.
There is also the assumption that the emotionally and socially bankrupt member has learned nothing constructive for himself. The staff and senior residents.”

“The humanistic-peer attitude on the part of the therapeutic teacher-leader is essential. Peer relationship on the part of the therapist demands a more personal kind of involvement. It leads to a quicker, more resonant, and fuller human growth for the patient. It is diametrically opposite to the formal, detached, impersonal, nonfeeling therapeutic relationship demanded in our training and experience in psychoanalysis.

The effectiveness of humanistic-peer involvement as a therapeutic treatment
process has several significant implications.”

Hmmm, that kinda reminds me of something.
Quote
Harry G. Levine wrote:
Dr. Deitch claims to have played an important role in calling the lock-em up and bust-em down approach to curing drug addiction a "therapeutic community." But in his interview Deitch reveals that he is unhappy with the name therapeutic community. He regrets not using the term "humanizing community" to characterize these punitive, moralistic, authoritarian, infantilizing institutions. I believe that earnestly using the opposite term to name something is properly called "Orwellian." Since the fifteenth century, "humanism" has been about respect for human freedom, creativity and autonomy. Most American TCs push pretty much in the opposite direction. And Deitch hasn't a clue to the ironies and contradictions in his ideology.”
Now we return to this "humanist" expounding on what is required of treating the “untreatables”.  For Casriel this catch all classification subsumes addicts, hysterics and homosexuals.

"The effectiveness of humanistic-peer involvement as a therapeutic treatment
process has several significant implications.

First and foremost is a total change of attitude that professionals have to
develop in order to effectively engage in this type of process.

Second, the obvious empirical observation that a feeling human being, who
has learned for himself as a patient-student the process, and has the capacity, ability, and desire to engage others, can be an extremely effective therapeutic change agent. Previous academic training is of relatively little use, though previous life experiences are of great value as are one's own former neuroses or character-logical problems which have been resolved. In line with this, cured hysterics are most effective with uncured hysterics; cured alcoholics are most effective with uncured alcoholics; cured drug addicts are most effective with uncured drug addicts; and cured homosexuals are most effective with uncured homosexuals.
 However, this does not mean to say or imply that one has to be an ex-hysteric, alcoholic, drug addict, homosexual, to do effective intervention. The peer symptoms identification early in treatment is extremely helpful and in some cases necessary, but within a few weeks all patients, no matter what the variation of symptoms, realize they have the same problems,* that below the symptoms, they are all human beings with the same basic needs and desires and the same basic fears.

Third, psychoanalysis must be returned to the areas where it belongs : as a
highly specialized, very limited fine tool, in the tool chest of psychotherapy.

Fourth, because of the relative ease of treating and training, large numbers
of individuals can be treated and trained at little cost and relatively little time.
This means that large numbers of skilled group leaders can become available to meet a tidal wave of need. Costs are within realistic ranges."

Fifth, it is logical to see the role of the professionally experientially trained psychiatrist, psychologist and S.W. as consultant and trainer of the trainers, as well as being used as the agent of initial interviews, medication, testing or using traditional ancillary roles.

The significance for society is that the large number of untreatables could
now be treated ; the large numbers who could not afford treatment could now
afford it ; the large numbers who wanted treatment but had no available therapist in the area could now find therapists ; a large number who were unwilling or unable to commit themselves to many years of therapy could now look forward to major reparative psychotherapy and reconstructive (major personality change) therapy being done in a matter of months for most, or 1 to 2 years for some. Indeed, this process, if fully applied, could make a significant impact relatively quickly on major portions of our sick society."
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on August 20, 2009, 01:12:37 AM
Casriel mentioned in an article that goes on to describe bastardized variants of Encounters within the human potentials movement that reaches out from TCs into religious and corporate retreats. (excerpts below)

Behavior: Human Potential: The Revolution in Feeling:Monday, Nov. 09, 1970

...From a four-story midtown Manhattan brownstone, the sound of screaming can be heard all day long. It comes from patients of Psychiatrist Daniel Casriel, who believes that such release is therapeutic...
To many Americans, these activities typify a leaderless, formless and wildly eclectic movement that is variously called sensitivity training, encounter, "therapy for normals," the bod biz, or the acidless trip. Such terms merely describe the more sensational parts of a whole that is coming to be known as the human potentials movement —a quest conducted in hundreds of ways and places, to redefine and enrich the spirit of social man.

………. Encounter. T groups are now conducted internationally by 600 N.T.L.-trained leaders and are designed to improve corporations, government agencies, churches and other institutions. They differ from encounter groups in that they tend to be less emotional, place more reliance on verbal than on nonverbal communication, and are less concerned with the individuals' growth per se than with his development within his group. T groups improve relationships within organizations by trading what the late Douglas McGregor of M.I.T. called management's "X" approach (do as I say) for the "Y" approach (join with me so that we can work things out together). Obviously, that does not and cannot make equals of the boss and the factory hand; if that is the unrealistic goal, the "Y" approach will fail. But by making the president and the factory hand more aware of each other it can vastly improve the employee's sense of his own value and place...

......The very eclecticism of the human potentials movement has brought it criticism even from within its own ranks. Robert Driver, founder and operator of Kairos, San Diego's human growth center, has compared it to "a tree which is growing too fast without putting down proper roots." The movement also attracts a great many persons who join it for the wrong reasons: "Already," says Driver, "we see some growth experiences that are used merely to blow out the tubes every six months or so."

………There are more disturbing aspects of the proliferating group sessions. Among some 200 Stanford University undergraduates exposed to a wide variety of personal growth workshop experiences, the overall "casualty rate" —those who suffered psychological impairment—was 8%. Perhaps even more significant was the discovery that a so-called charismatic leader, or trainer, within the movement produced a casualty rate of 14%. Psychiatrist Louis A. Gottschalk of the University of California, after participating in one encounter group of eleven, diagnosed "one borderline acute psychotic withdrawal reaction" and "two severe emotional breakdowns with acute anxiety" within that group. Irving D. Yalom, chairman of the American PsychiatricAssociation's Task Force on encounter groups, reports that after one T group session 10% to 15% of the members consulted a resident psychiatrist for such adverse responses as anxiety, depression, agitation and insomnia.
The explanation could lie in the possibility that some leaders themselves may desperately need what they preach. At most growth centers, anyone can join the movement as a trainer with little experience. He learns on the job. Many such trainers are unequipped to recognize the casualties they produce. Their approach tends to be simplistic. "If expression of feelings is good," says the A.P.A. report sarcastically, "then total expression—hitting, touching, feeling, kissing and fornication—must be better."

The movement is also well aware of what it calls the "reentry problem." Writes Jane Howard in Please Touch, the result of a year's participation in the human potentials movement: ………..
.....Re-entry Problem. There is genuine concern as well at the lack of follow-up procedures to determine the long-term effect of the group experiences.

.....Youth's Disaffection. The dangers are real. But the human potentials movement cannot be dismissed as a passing fad. "There is increasing concern for the humanization of organizations," says Dr. Vladimir Dupre, executive director of N.T.L., "an increasing desire by people to feel more connected with each other, to act on their own environment rather than feeling acted upon."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943274-1,00.html)
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Ursus on August 20, 2009, 01:32:08 AM
Quote from: "Guest"
Is there a link to original source? Date of publication?

Link to source:
http://www.archive.org/stream/narcotics ... t_djvu.txt (http://www.archive.org/stream/narcoticsresearc00unit/narcoticsresearc00unit_djvu.txt)

Link to the post in which it appeared (The Narcotics Farm (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=28143) thread):
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=28143&p=341167#p341202 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=28143&p=341167#p341202)

As to date of the article Therapy of Narcotic Addicts Sparks Psychiatric Theory (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28320&start=0) (Medical Tribune — World Wide Report) ... Casriel mentions that Daytop had been in existence for about 6 months at the time, and that he had discovered Synanon 3 years prior.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on August 20, 2009, 01:43:55 AM
The following is excerpted from a Time article:
Hazardous EncountersMonday, Apr. 30, 1973

These leaders are ill-equipped to deal with serious emotional problems, take no responsibility for what they do, and are unwilling to let trained investigators take a close look at their results. Their methods, moreover, tend to be either useless absurdities or destructive assaults on the often fragile psyches of encounter enthusiasts—or victims.
Among the offending leaders, Maliver cites Manhattan's Dr. Daniel Casriel, a physician who, says Maliver, admits that he was dismissed from his analytic institute and appears to make "as much as $12,000 each week." "Name any psychiatric symptom," Maliver writes, "and Casriel will tell you how long it will take him to eradicate it." According to Maliver, Casriel promises patients "an accelerated re-education of your 'ABCs' A = affect-feelings-emotions. B = behavior-act-actions. C = cognition-attitudes-thoughts."
His approach, similar to Arthur Janov's "primal scream" therapy, is to teach members of his groups "to grab hold of a feeling—any feeling—and express it in a series of yells, screams and moans which increase in volume to almost unbearable intensity." Overwrought, the patient is then soothed by the rest of his group, as well as by Casriel, if he is present, or by one of the ex-patients who run most of Casriel's groups. No effort is made to understand the emotions that have so painfully —and dangerously—been aroused.
Casriel's technique is one version of what Maliver calls "psychological karate," an approach that precipitously strips away emotional defenses "in the naive view that by recognizing their pathological sides, people will automatically become healthy." In fact, without the careful preparatory steps taken in professional psychotherapy, such recognition can cause serious psychological damage. The effect is similar to that in encounter groups where participants are psychologically assaulted under the guise of "openness" or "honesty."
Summing up his own view of encounter, Maliver cites a position paper issued by the American Group Psychotherapy Association. Its key statement: "A much lower incidence of adverse side effects produced by a drug would cause its immediate withdrawal from the marketplace by federal authorities."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,907119-1,00.html)

They knew it was wrong even then. Hell, before I was even born. Yet, they’re still f*ing doing it. WRONG!
What’s wrong with them? (… as if any answer would bring satisfaction)  I wonder why I even bother wondering at the whys of it all.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Ursus on August 20, 2009, 01:49:00 AM
Quote
T groups are now conducted internationally by 600 N.T.L.-trained leaders and are designed to improve corporations, government agencies, churches and other institutions. They differ from encounter groups in that they tend to be less emotional, place more reliance on verbal than on nonverbal communication, and are less concerned with the individuals' growth per se than with his development within his group. T groups improve relationships within organizations by trading what the late Douglas McGregor of M.I.T. called management's "X" approach (do as I say) for the "Y" approach (join with me so that we can work things out together). Obviously, that does not and cannot make equals of the boss and the factory hand; if that is the unrealistic goal, the "Y" approach will fail. But by making the president and the factory hand more aware of each other it can vastly improve the employee's sense of his own value and place...
N.T.L. stands for National Training Labs based, at the time, in Washington D.C. and Bethel, Maine. It was and is the U.S. counterpart to Tavistock. You can see how their work fed into and helped propagate the "corporate climate" some of us so like to disparage.

Kurt Lewin was the fulcrum of the group at MIT, and he was also integral to helping start up NTL, though he died before that work came to fruition. Some time after his death, most of the MIT group moved as a unit to the University of Michigan.

One later member of that group at MIT or its remnants was a fellow by the name of Warren Bennis, later to become good friend of Werner Erhard and est-apologist. He is also a Hyde parent.

There was some quite relevant material you chose not to cite; the full article would have been helpful.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on August 20, 2009, 01:52:41 AM
I kept my focus narrowed to the excerpts I felt most pertinent to this thread.
I was then going to excavate the thread discussing corporate retreats and post paste.
Where is that thread btw?
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on October 28, 2009, 08:01:18 PM
Im startin to get real curious about this Casriel guy, namely why is there so little to be found on him ( as he is a rather important historical figure) and why are the germans such big fans? Google him or the therapy he invented, New identity Process or more recently bonding psychotherapy, and most everything comes up german. So if anyone speaks geman I need a translator.

Here are some interesting contributions to this thread.

The New Identity Process (NIP) is a method of group psychotherapy that began in the late 1960's, during the height of the humanistic psychotherapy movement. Developed by Dr. Dan Casriel, the NIP originally focused on the use of intense emotional release combined with a process of gentle, physical holding, to bring about a full experience of catharsis.

Therapeutic catharsis involves a safe and contained re-experiencing of regressed emotional material, which can then become cognitively integrated to improve the functioning and health of an individual. The NIP uses an affective, behavioral and cognitive method to achieve this integrative process.

Unique to the NIP is the practice of bonding, a technique combining, emotional opening and physical closeness, within a contained therapeutic space. Bonding may include minimum touch, as in holding a person's hand, to a full body hug during the process of catharsis, to aid integration of material and prevent retraumatization. The NIP is one of the few psychotherapies that addresses the importance of the role of therapeutic touch in psychological health.

Casriel trained therapists in the NIP in the US, Canada and across Europe, before his untimely illness and early death. The therapists he trained created the International Society of the New Identity Process (ISNIP) to continue education, research and training, with chapters in each country.

In the fifteen years since Dr. Casriel's death, the NIP has continued to be used in a wide variety of settings in hospitals, clinics and outpatient offices with adults, adolescents and families. The method has proven to be flexible and effective, undergoing a series of modifications that reflect the psychological advances of the past decade. As more is understood about mind/body science and the role of emotional energy, the NIP is able to validate its reliance on emotional expression as a method for holistic body/mind healing.

NIP groups, workshops and trainings are offered regularly throughout the US and Europe. ISNIP Conferences are held every two years, in the US and Europe. An International training center has been established in France and a rigorous certification program has become standardized for all NIP therapists. The NIP has a code of ethics and a methodology that details the correct use of the process. Only certified NIP therapists are authorized to lead NIP groups.

For more information about the NIP, or to become a member of the American Chapter and receive the quarterly newsletter, please contact Yetta Lautenschlager, President of ASNIP at toll free phone number 1-888-912-1891. You may also contact Lynn Grodzki, LCSW, Tel. (301) 434-0766, or e-mail her at http://primal-page.com/pplist1.htm (http://primal-page.com/pplist1.htm)

more on that
http://primal-page.com/pert.htm (http://primal-page.com/pert.htm)
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on October 28, 2009, 10:36:48 PM
Bitte  Gast,
Have you read Crazy Therapies (Singer/Lalich)?
 
I’m not sure why so many Germans seem to embrace the primal scream n’ snuggle bit, but I noticed that too. Kinky ?
The ISBP “Bonding psychotherapy” conference was held in Bad Grönenbach, last may.

There seems to be no dearth of reference material out there on the interthingy about Casriel’s contributions.
Some articles are vituperative and others praise loud Quacks of approval.

More info. re: Casriel and New Identity Process (basically build your own personality disorder, IMO).
http://www.skepdic.com/therapy.html (http://www.skepdic.com/therapy.html) -From Abracadabra to Zombies (See also Janov for NIP)
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on January 28, 2010, 08:26:32 PM
Has anyone actually read this book? I'm pretty much through it. It is unbelievably telling in terms of the methods he used and that have continued throughout TBS.

I found his philosophy to contain some obvious distortions especially in his perception of subjective vs objective reality. This especially applies in his definition of mental health and illness, in which he estimates 80% of Americans are Character Disordered, Neurotic, or Psychotic. Also the definition of “symptom” is applied extremely broadly, to just about any behavior (Being too introverted, extraverted, homosexual, drug addicted… all symptoms of illness and treated with the same universal group method).

All in all this is without a doubt the most definitive and concise book on how any yokel can build a psychotherapy cult I have read (aside from it being paired with with the hierarchal Synanon model, which he has written about in other books), in fact if you actually bought into it and did what he says you could probably end up running a cult and not even know it.

I found it amazing just how obviously destructive his processes could be and how he allows the group to act as therapist to each other with basically no structure or boundaries except to pressure each other to get into states of anger, rage, infantile helplessness and pain.

In many areas he points out dangers such as issues of transference between members in groups run by a mentally ill group leader and dissociative reactions to confrontation, but they are VERY downplayed and excused with fluffy logic and for the most part the possible dangers are not discussed at all.

Even at the end of the book he answers the question
“7. Can Group become a way of life? Doesn’t it tend to make participants depend on it? A. If someone is not committed to getting well, he will stay sick. My groups are by no means exempt from that problem…. He must stay in the struggle, and if group itself becomes too comfortable, he is not struggling in the outside world.”

“8. What about the possibility of Cultism? A. Cultism is a danger of any group oriented approach to living…. Treatment is for the good of the patient; Cultism and brainwashing is for the good of the leader.”

I could go on and on. Highly recommended reading. So much wrong with it I don’t know where to begin. Maybe the most important book in understanding the history and philosophy of the TTI IMO
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: SEKTO on January 29, 2010, 06:59:56 PM
Greetings.  You know, I do own a copy of this book, though have not read it yet.  Perhaps soon I shall do so, and will offer my thoughts when it's done.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Antigen on February 23, 2010, 11:59:12 AM
:bump:
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on February 23, 2010, 03:58:20 PM
Quote from: "Awake"
Has anyone actually read this book? I'm pretty much through it. It is unbelievably telling in terms of the methods he used and that have continued throughout TBS.
I found his philosophy to contain some obvious distortions especially in his perception of subjective vs objective reality. This especially applies in his definition of mental health and illness, in which he estimates 80% of Americans are Character Disordered, Neurotic, or Psychotic. Also the definition of “symptom” is applied extremely broadly, to just about any behavior (Being too introverted, extraverted, homosexual, drug addicted… all symptoms of illness and treated with the same universal group method).
All in all this is without a doubt the most definitive and concise book on how any yokel can build a psychotherapy cult I have read (aside from it being paired with with the hierarchal Synanon model, which he has written about in other books), in fact if you actually bought into it and did what he says you could probably end up running a cult and not even know it.
Yes, all who fall within that group were what Casriel called the “untreatables” …ahem while going on to outline his methods for treating them. Casriel’s dissonance in life was only outstripped in staggering nature by David Deitch. Megalomaniacs don’t play well with each other, but they will conjure up bastardized variants of whatever Philosophies play into their own egomaniacal reductive views of how they’re the cure all for the incurables.  Ursus and SEKTO had an interesting exchange on the topic of Diedrich and Hubbard, that says it well enough.
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Both LRH and CED were apparently obsessed with the idea of abortion. I see many similarities. LRH was a tall-tale teller, plagarist, and pathological liar. So was CED.

They all are!! Add to that list: megalomania and narcissism! Lately, I've been reading about Paul Twitchell (http://http://www.eckankar.org/Masters/Peddar/hisStory.html) of Eckankar (who also delved into Scientology at one point). Good Lord, I never knew... Plagiarism, in particular, seems to be de riguer for these harbingers of new "truths," lololol. They all steal from each other.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
Sure, there are many obvious differences too; CED didn't come up with some system paralleling LRH's Reactive/Analytical/Somatic division of the human mind, for staters.

Chuckie did not exactly have a "contemplative turn of mind," if ya get my drift!  :D
Quote from: "Awake"
Highly recommended reading. So much wrong with it I don’t know where to begin. Maybe the most important book in understanding the history and philosophy of the TTI IMO
I had (a few months back) skimmed a library copy of A scream away from Happiness, but didn’t get much more than a stomach ache out of it. I’ll order a copy and get back to you when the vomiting subsides.

Incidentally, I also read a copy of Junkie Priest a few years back and was struck by how much of the Monsignor oral lore (as opposed to current PR) attributed to O’Brian by Daytop seemed to be strikingly similar (concocted to co-opt?) to the Junkie Priest (Rev. Daniel Egan) story.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel "A scream away from happiness"
Post by: Ursus on February 23, 2010, 04:13:51 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Incidentally, I also read a copy of Junkie Priest a few years back and was struck by how much of the Monsignor oral lore (as opposed to current PR) attributed to O'Brian by Daytop seemed to be strikingly similar (concocted to co-opt?) to the Junkie Priest (Rev. Daniel Egan) story.
Part of that was just the lingo of the era, which seems to have been especially pronounced in distinguishing itself from previous generations, but that may well just be my perspective...
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel "A scream away from happiness"
Post by: Inculcated on February 23, 2010, 04:19:25 PM
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Incidentally, I also read a copy of Junkie Priest a few years back and was struck by how much of the Monsignor oral lore (as opposed to current PR) attributed to O'Brian by Daytop seemed to be strikingly similar (concocted to co-opt?) to the Junkie Priest (Rev. Daniel Egan) story.
Part of that was just the lingo of the era, which seems to have been especially pronounced in distinguishing itself from previous generations, but that may well just be my perspective...
My take on the versions vs. reality didn’t have anything to do with parlance.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Matt C. Hoffman on February 23, 2010, 05:11:13 PM
Glad fornits is back.

I am wondering did any of the other programs use" Primal Scream" groups?  

elan  did and they were run by re-entry and of course the directors. It figures that elan used them since j ricci was from daytop and I think they used them.

from 74 -76 I saw primal scream groups. I can't forget the first one I saw because it was a little weird to watch a grown man scream  "I feel like a faggot" in the whole primal scream group situation. The clean up was also strange to me.

I was 15 and a half  year old naive kid from Virginia.

I know elan stopped using them but that was after my time and I don't know when they ceased.  One scream away from happiness... I don't quite agrre with that phrase.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Ursus on February 23, 2010, 05:30:44 PM
S'pose it all depends on how you define "happiness," ha! Some people are self-flagellating, kool-aid guzzling masochists.   :D
Title: Daniel Egan, 84, Drug Fighter Known as 'Junkie Priest,' Dies
Post by: Ursus on February 24, 2010, 12:43:51 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Incidentally, I also read a copy of Junkie Priest a few years back and was struck by how much of the Monsignor oral lore (as opposed to current PR) attributed to O'Brian by Daytop seemed to be strikingly similar (concocted to co-opt?) to the Junkie Priest (Rev. Daniel Egan) story.
Part of that was just the lingo of the era, which seems to have been especially pronounced in distinguishing itself from previous generations, but that may well just be my perspective...
My take on the versions vs. reality didn't have anything to do with parlance.
Father Egan's obituary in the New York Times:

-------------- • -------------- • -------------- • --------------

Daniel Egan, 84, Drug Fighter Known as 'Junkie Priest,' Dies (http://http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/13/nyregion/daniel-egan-84-drug-fighter-known-as-junkie-priest-dies.html?pagewanted=1)
By ERIC PACE
Published: February 13, 2000


The Rev. Daniel Egan, whose tireless work in rehabilitating drug addicts brought him the nickname ''the Junkie Priest,'' died on Thursday at a hospital in Peekskill, N.Y. He was 84 and lived at the Graymoor Friary in Garrison, N.Y.

Father Egan's work with addicts began in 1952, when he was preaching in a church in Manhattan and saw a troubled woman. She was addicted to narcotics and in need of help. He telephoned a number of hospitals in the city, he recalled later, but none would take her. ''She was considered a criminal,'' he said.

So Father Egan, a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, became a certified alcohol- and drug-abuse counselor and a chaplain of Narcotics Anonymous. In 1962, he founded Village Haven, a halfway house for women who were addicted to drugs, in Greenwich Village. Before long, 8 or 10 women a week, most of them newly released from jail, were going to Village Haven for help.

''These women face a crisis the moment they are freed,'' Father Egan said in a 1963 interview. ''The simplest things become their deepest need -- a place to eat and sleep, a job, a coat to wear, a friend.''

His work took him far afield. He established a center for drug addicts a decade ago in Calcutta, at Mother Teresa's request. In an interview last year he recalled, ''She was like all saints -- very stubborn.''

Cardinal John O'Connor praised Father Egan in his homily at a Mass attended by Father Egan last September. At the time, Father Egan was serving in nursing homes for AIDS patients and continuing his work against addiction.

The cardinal said that when Father Egan was referred to as ''the Junkie Priest,'' it was ''with great affection and great admiration.''

When Father Egan was a young priest, the cardinal recalled, ''He used to roam the streets of Times Square, and that area in general, looking for ways of helping prostitutes, so many of them addicts to one form of drug or another. God knows how many lives and souls Father Egan has saved in that terribly difficult kind of work.''

A fellow Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, the Rev. Walter Gagne , said that in the 1950's, when Father Egan was beginning his work with addicts, he would go to the old Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village. Many of its inmates were addicts who had worked as prostitutes. ''He would stand on the sidewalk by the prison and start talking to the women up in the prison windows,'' said Father Gagne, and pretty soon: ''They'd be yelling at him, and he'd be yelling back at them. He was ministering to them even before they got out of prison.''

Regardless of how he carried out his ministry, Father Egan thought of the afflicted in spiritual terms. ''If we had the vision of faith,'' he once wrote, ''we would see beneath every behavior -- no matter how repulsive -- beneath every bodily appearance -- no matter how dirty or deformed -- a priceless dignity and value that makes all material facts and scientific technologies fade into insignificance.''

In a 1965 interview at St. Patrick's Villa Retreat House in Nanuet, N.Y., where he was ministering to women who had broken their heroin habit, he said the best way of dealing with drug addicts was through personal counseling.

He also suggested that government agencies fighting drug abuse ''save themselves money and trouble'' by setting up storefront offices in high-addiction neighborhoods.

''Besides the human salvation, think of the prison expenses you'd save,'' he said. ''You could pay these girls $5 a day to just sit there and talk to the junkies who wandered in for a cigarette instead of a fix.''

In 1970, he founded New Hope Manor at Graymoor for teenage girls who were addicted to drugs. Over the years, he also worked as program director at St. Joseph's Rehabilitation Center at Saranac Lake, N.Y., and in programs elsewhere.

He received various honors, including awards for pioneering anti-drug programs in the armed forces.

A native New Yorker, he was the son of a police lieutenant, Thomas J. Egan, and the former Mary Bierne. He went to schools in the Bronx, entered the Friars of the Atonement in 1935, professed his first vows in 1937 and received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's degree in religious education, both from Catholic University in Washington.

He is survived by three brothers, John, Philip and Gerard; and a sister, Veronica Egan.

Photo: The Rev. Daniel Egan in 1963. (Associated Press)

A version of this obituary; biography appeared in print on February 13, 2000, on page 144 of the New York edition.


© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Title: "Junkie Priest. Father Daniel Egan S.A." by John D. Harris
Post by: Ursus on February 25, 2010, 11:34:05 AM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Incidentally, I also read a copy of Junkie Priest a few years back and was struck by how much of the Monsignor oral lore (as opposed to current PR) attributed to O'Brian by Daytop seemed to be strikingly similar (concocted to co-opt?) to the Junkie Priest (Rev. Daniel Egan) story.
Description of a collectible PB volume of said book (http://http://www.maggs.com/title/MO40636.asp) offered on the MAGGS Rare Books website (London):

Modern Books & MSS: Drugs | Ref: MO40636

Junkie Priest. Father Daniel Egan S.A.
HARRIS, (John D.).; KROSS (Anna M.) (Foreword).


First paperback edition. 8vo., in the original stiff card wrappers photo-illustrated in a noirish style, all edges red. New York, Pocket Books Inc.. 1965

A very good copy for such a fragile book, with very slight wear.

With a beautifully rendered devil horned syringe set within a black cross on the lower wrapper.

Date:1965[/list]
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 12:32:32 PM
I am sitting here looking at a book written by a, Dr. Arthur Janov "The New Primal Scream" (Primal Therapy 20 Years On) Enterprise publishing, Inc. ISBN; 0-942103-23-8....Published 1991
Matt this was the master mind in Dr. Davidson and Joe Ricca's mind when they were trying to emulate his therapy methods, Dr. Janov.
What Dr. Janov is talking about is regressed emotions, which if you think about, this it would be good therapy for residents coming out of the centers to have, so they can release all that pent up agression they have towards the very places they were sent to help them. LOL
Why Elan (Davidson and Ricca) ever felt they could handle such therapy themselves never mind handing it down to staff barely out of the treatment center boggled my mind. Then of course they had to add insult to injury and have actual residents conducting the session with other residents. This all in the merits of one student helping another, "BULLSHIT" this was to save money pure and simple....at least with Elan.
Elan in 1976-77 had just over 400 residents in 6 houses, with approx. 26 staff/Directors paid employees maybe 10 more re-entry residents acting as staff. So a total of 36 staff to cover over 400 residents (rapists,attempted murderers, severly violent, ADDHD, BI-Polar, Autism, Mentally challenged,Emotionally Handi-capped and Drug Addicts or a combo of them all. So we had a 11.5 to 1 ratio, 11.5 students to 1 staff and that was when everybody was there working. Take away re-entry (who went to college or worked at other jobs during the day) and days off for staff well your at 25 to 1 ratio and this was no joke. Unqualified and untrained staff running groups and the center.
Talk about regression. Sad very sad.
Anyway not a bad read, I read another book by him back in the late 70's which was interesting.
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:  :shamrock: .........Danny  P.S. The book I read back then was "The Primal Scream".
"Primal Therapy is not just making people scream. It was the title of the book. It was never "Primal Scream Therapy". Those who read the book knew that the scream is what some people do when they hurt. Others simply sob or cry. It was the hurt we were after, not the mechanical exercises such as pounding on the walls and yelling, "mama". This therapy has changed what was essentially a art form into a science.
There are many hundreds of professionals practicing something they call Primal Therapy without a days training. Many unsuspecting patients have been seriously damaged thinking that they were getting proper Primal Therapy. I must emphasize that this therapy is dangerous in untrained hands. It is important to verify by contacting us.
Of the hundreds of clinics in the world using my name and falsely claiming to have been trained by me, I have never seen the therapy practiced correctly. We spend about a third of our time treating patients who come from mock primal therapist."
This was from the "Epilogue" from page; 371,  3rd paragraph......The New Primal Scream. :shamrock:
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 01:03:01 PM
Oh and by the way I did read this book "The New Primal Scream" also about early 2000, Both the Primal Scream and The New Primal Scream are good reads. He is actually credited with being the father of the Primal Therapy here in America. Check him out very interesting man.
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:  :shamrock:
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 01:05:16 PM
Trying to find out if there is any link between Dr. Dan Casriel and Dr. Janov but at this time none. Was Casriel just some knock off or what.
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:  :shamrock:
P.S. Ursus need your help.......lol
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Matt C. Hoffman on February 25, 2010, 05:22:00 PM
Hey all ,

I have not read either book.

I am familar with primals from elan.

I feel that serious issues  were created   with the groups when they were not used properly . For example forcing someone to work on something  that they did not want to ,by spanking them until they participated, on something they had no business working on.

I looked at the primals as voodoo.

In the hands of elan  and its henchmen they were dangerous. When you are messing with the psyche of a kid  and you don't know what you are doing , you can create more problems.

It took a strong mind to know that it was all a bunch of rot and still participate .

Sorry I just don't get the warm fuzzies about primals.Thats just me and my two cents worth.

I still want to know what other programs used primals?

Thank you

Matt
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Matt C. Hoffman on February 25, 2010, 06:08:34 PM
Hey Felice,

Encounter groups yep I certianly remember them. Group leader would say this is group and all hell would break loose . People got spanked in those also. They were out of control, group confrontation , oh the healing therapy of those groups.

 A person could really be made to feel hated , great for the self esteem.

I reckon it was one of elans way to teach us to  be angry . And that it was good to be angry.  yep dropping the slip.

They were crazy when the group was bigger than 25 people, and  themarathon encounter groups,  "Ode to Joy"

You learned some swear words thats for sure.

I didn't like those groups either. then not much to like about elan.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 06:19:07 PM
Quote from: "Eliscu2"
I do not remember primal groups when I was there.
I remember Encounter groups for when someone "dropped a slip" on you.
It was somewhere between a Haircut and a General Meeting.
It was "Group Confrontation"

They started to end towards the later part of 78 when someone threw themselves out of a window due to a recollection of them witnessing all over again their father killing their mother. Alan Frey, Jeff Gottlieb and Peter McCann all said go the Primal Scream and Marty, Larry Smaller, Rick Rosenhaus and myself said not too because we didn't know what would happen after. Peter went to Joe got permission and well I told you the rest. He broke both his arms, his cheek bone, cuts from glass on his arms and head. It was a fucking mess. On top of all of this this particular resident had a mental condition we hadn't even found out about yet. There was something clearly wrong with him before this episode.
There was a time early on only Joe and Dr. Davidson was running the primal therapy but you know what happens when you start making money you rationalize and say everybody can do it. Assholes!!!!!!!!!
This is a big reason why I left because you couldn't have a decent meeting without someone changing the decisions you made to suit there fucking fancy usually at the cost of a residents security. WE WERE ALL A BUNCH OF UNTRAINED, UNQUALIFIED WANNABEES TRYING TO ACT LIKE GURUS, FUCKING KILLING PEOPLE JUST BULLSHIT....... :-[
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:  :shamrock: ......DANNY
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on February 25, 2010, 07:03:12 PM
^Much of the above would be great discussion for the Élan forum. Maybe somebody wants to start a fresh thread in Élan Forum or excavate a decent old one to discuss the different group venues employed there, the experiences and consequences of them.
“Kul wahid yihtaljeh galub memdeshen” > “Every person you listen to requires a brand new heart.”
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on February 25, 2010, 07:08:27 PM
In answer to the question posed by Mr. Hoffman. No, Daytop did not ever have a group they actually called “Primal Scream Group”.
Yes, much of Casriel’s influence played out in Daytop settings in other ways. Witness the abreactions forced and feigned displayed in more intensive venues within the Daytop program and there you have it. These were elicited by relentless facilitators bent on bending participants to induced transformations. The effects of rousing participants to a state of hyperarousal (states of increased psychological and physiological tension) resulted in what some would call catharsis and some may indeed have experienced as such, but ultimately the means were executed to the end of having the group go through inauthentic recklessly intense experiences together. The release of these tense sessions IMO had more to do with being exhausted for having been brought to an often collective emotional overwhelm and then…relieved that it was over.
For me it's more difficult to articulate what the non-assailing-rage groups were like to be immersed in at Daytop. I found the following commonalities  summed up in so many words so well in an old thread of discussion from contributors out of various programs describing their respective group experiences:
Quote from: "psy"
They create pain to comfort it... to build artificial trust...
Quote from: "Ursus"
I believe the inherent theory is that they break you down before they build you up.  Of course, the corollary that you are so malformed and hence not worth the time to "fine-tune" or just "repair," is inescapable.
From remembering myself thread (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=21061&start=15)
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 07:53:37 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
^Much of the above would be great discussion for the Élan forum. Maybe somebody wants to start a fresh thread in Élan Forum or excavate a decent old one to discuss the different group venues employed there, the experiences and consequences of them.
“Kul wahid yihtaljeh galub memdeshen” > “Every person you listen to requires a brand new heart.”
Good idea..... :shamrock:
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 08:25:20 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Greetings.  You know, I do own a copy of this book, though have not read it yet.  Perhaps soon I shall do so, and will offer my thoughts when it's done.
:shamrock:  :shamrock:
Hey have you read that book yet, I'm still waiting...lol
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Ursus on February 25, 2010, 08:33:56 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO "
Agreed. Please limit discussion of Elan, to the Elan forum. Later I'll split this thread and move things over there.
With all due respect, I worry that you run the risk of diluting the significance of program overlap by censoring discussion. I myself have found this thread quite stimulating and it has given me a number of new insights.

If you are going to excise all mention of non-Daytop programs from the Daytop thread, folk may perhaps not make the connection of the historical role Daytop plays. Likewise of all programs which also played a role in the formation of Daytop itself.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Inculcated on February 25, 2010, 08:47:38 PM
Everybody can step off SEKTO’s ass because he just happened to be doing something I requested and Danny agreed with that the discussion relating to Élan groups is sorely needed in the Élan forum and would not be easily found by visitors in a Daytop/Casriel thread.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 09:00:27 PM
Though if we can possibly open a line/connection from Daytop to Elan that would be good, I am not sure about how to do this but we need to establish the blend. Daytop (Joe Ricca/resident/Director) and Elan (Joe Ricca/Owner). Most people I know do not really know this. Joe Ricca was in Daytop what 65-66 these articles are from that era and Joe did bring alot of therapy influence from Daytop.
Inculcate was right in her assessment that these posts I posted needed to be moved to the Elan forum. I did say this or infer this.
 :shamrock:  :shamrock: ...........Danny
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: SEKTO on February 25, 2010, 09:05:25 PM
Relax, Inculcated.  It's all good.  The thread stays as it is.  Let's stay on topic, however; that is, let's limit our discussion to that of DAYTOP and Casriel-related matters only.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Ursus on February 25, 2010, 09:18:32 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Relax, Inculcated.  It's all good.  The thread stays as it is.  Let's stay on topic, however; that is, let's limit our discussion to that of DAYTOP and Casriel-related matters only.
Hmmm. Casriel did not operate nor influence in a vacuum.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: SEKTO on February 25, 2010, 09:34:15 PM
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Relax, Inculcated.  It's all good.  The thread stays as it is.  Let's stay on topic, however; that is, let's limit our discussion to that of DAYTOP and Casriel-related matters only.
Hmmm. Casriel did not operate nor influence in a vacuum.

You're right.  They're all interrelated.  Let's just stay focused; that's all I am saying.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 09:39:44 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Bitte  Gast,
Have you read Crazy Therapies (Singer/Lalich)?
 
I’m not sure why so many Germans seem to embrace the primal scream n’ snuggle bit, but I noticed that too. Kinky ?
The ISBP “Bonding psychotherapy” conference was held in Bad Grönenbach, last may.

There seems to be no dearth of reference material out there on the interthingy about Casriel’s contributions.
Some articles are vituperative and others praise loud Quacks of approval.

More info. re: Casriel and New Identity Process (basically build your own personality disorder, IMO).
http://www.skepdic.com/therapy.html (http://www.skepdic.com/therapy.html) -From Abracadabra to Zombies (See also Janov for NIP)
:shamrock:  :shamrock:  :shamrock:
If you look at the last sentence here above in the parentheses you will see the name Janov, that is where my whole post started. I had not seen that name in years and I was instantly motivated to write.
Joe Ricca was in Daytop during this time of Casreil and The Primal Therapy, I know this from conversations with Joe concerning Primal Screams (as we called them). Long story to much for my head right now. Just wanted to give a reason why I went ahead and posted here. Yet the idea put forth by Inculcate is valid also. Sekto I hope this helps you to understand where this all started. Thanks Bro.....
 :shamrock:  :shamrock: ...........Danny
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: SEKTO on February 25, 2010, 09:42:07 PM
You're welcome.  Isn't it, Joe Ricci?
Title: Janov and Casriel
Post by: Ursus on February 25, 2010, 09:50:08 PM
Janov and Casriel are both mentioned in this document, albeit not for the non-paying viewer (purchase of full-length download available from link):

Integrating Intensely Emotional Methods with Psychodynamic, Gestalt, Cognitive, and Behavioral Therapeutic Elements Part One: (http://http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a904840752&db=all)
Emotional Freedom versus Emotional Control


Author: Nolan Saltzman a
Affiliation:      a Director, Bio Psychology Institute, New York, NY, 10028,
DOI: 10.1300/J294v07n01_08
Published in: journal Psychotherapy in Private Practice, Volume 7, Issue 1 June 1989 , pages 57 - 65
Formats available: PDF (English)

Abstract
Part One: Emotional Freedom versus Emotional Control describes Bio Psychotherapy as an integration of intensely emotional methods with techniques of many therapies, also involving a few endogenous techniques. Intense emotions are elicited in a setting where they meet with validating responses (EEVR). Clinicians can adopt similar procedures to intensify and/or complement their own approaches. Indications and counterindications are given for the use of intensely emotional methods. Part Two: Anthony Goes Public is a case treatment integrating psychodynamic, intensely emotional, Gestalt, cognitive, and behavioral therapeutic components. The role of transference is discussed.[/list]
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2010, 09:52:15 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
You're welcome.  Isn't it, Joe Ricci?
:shamrock:  :shamrock:
LOL....Yes it is, sorry.........
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:...........Danny
Hey I went back and looked and we did start to get off on a Elan thing there.
Got'cha.....
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: SEKTO on February 25, 2010, 09:57:02 PM
Quote
Hey I went back and looked and we did start to get off on a Elan thing there.
Got'cha.....
Indeed.  Thank you, Danny.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on February 26, 2010, 12:21:17 AM
Janov  is just as much a quack as Casriel I think, but they each do express how they are separate in their philosophies. Janov’s theory of ‘primaling’ is virtually identical to hypnotherapy’s use of abreactive therapy and  Bleuler and Freud’s development of the Cathartic Method. The difference is that hypnotherapy would view it as entering a subject into a deep trance and modifying or installing new beliefs into their deep unconscious structuring of reality, and Janov believes that the age-regressed, sobbing, screaming individuals ARE their ‘primals’, or ‘those little children’, like there is a person literally trapped inside that has been let out. These days you are more likely to see that this view of Primal therapy has been pretty much abandoned but still is paired with any other number of therapies under the name “Primal Integration”.

One thing about Casriel is that he stressed (in his book, A Scream Away from Happiness) the philosophy of ‘as if’. If you are (‘are’ meaning ‘ your symptom is’) a homosexual, addict, not-sexually flirtatious enough for your husband, etc. you are supposed to act ‘as if’ you are(n’t). This philosophy of ‘as if’ is not his own. I have read this exact phrasing ‘as if’ within Chales Diedrichs (Synanon’s) philosophy also. The popularity of the Philosophy of ‘As If” can be traced to ...

“Kelly, George A. (1905-1967), American psychologist. Kelly developed a theory of personality known as personal construct psychology, whose focus is on the distinctive ways in which individuals construct and reconstruct the meanings of their lives.
http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/kelly.html (http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/kelly.html)

“Personal Construct Theory (PCT) represents a coherent, comprehensive psychology of personality that has special relevance for psychotherapy. Originally drafted by the American psychologist George Kelly in 1955, PCT has been extended to a variety of domains, including organizational development, education, business and marketing, and cognitive science. However, its predominant focus remains on the study of individuals, families, and social groups, with particular emphasis on how people organize and change their views of self and world in the counseling context.

Philosophy of "as if"  
 
George Kelly (1964/1969) advocated adopting an "as if" position towards knowledge. That is, he encouraged people to try out different constructions of events in order to see what might happen when they act "as if" these constructions are so. This "as if" position nicely complements Kelly’s seminal notion of constructive alternativism, which holds that there are an infinite number of ways to construe the world. In order to gain a fresh and potentially transforming perspective, all people need to do is loosen their constructions of something, entertain novel possibilities for construing it another way, and then test out these new possibilities by acting "as if" these new constructions are true.
http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/as-if.html (http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/as-if.html)

Janov, in The Primal Scream P. 229, has a section...

“Psychodrama

A technique used widely in group therapy by a variety of therapists is Psychodrama. I would term Psychodrama the ‘As If’ game. The patient takes a role designated by the therapist and acts ‘as if’ he were someone else or himself in a special role such as talking back to his boss. The patient may take the role of his mother, father, brother, or teacher....”
Although I think Janov is no different than the other therapies he criticizes for precisely the same reasons (basically re-routing the neurosis). Ultimately I side with hypnosis on this one.  

(He wrote a book about the various therapies he was contending with here (hypnotherapy, behaviorism, humanism, Rational Emotive Therapy, Transactional Analysis etc). Actually I thought this was a really interesting read, again I would evaluate him under his own microscope. GRAND DELUSIONS Psychotherapies Without Feeling by Dr. Arthur Janov Posted June 2005 on primaltherapy.com http://www.primaltherapy.com/GrandDelus ... ntents.htm (http://www.primaltherapy.com/GrandDelusions/GDcontents.htm) )

One more important point on Janov is that he viewed all defenses as neurotic. He would see many successful people in society who’s successful behavior is actually neurotic, or derived out of a neurotic defense (i.e. repression, dissociation). But traditional psychotherapy would view that as healthy development.

“Freud bequeathed us with the notion that the person with the strongest defense system is necessarily the one who can best function in society. Primal theory indicates that the healthiest people are those who are defense free. Anything that builds a stronger defense system deepens the neurosis.” – The Primal Scream, Arthur Janov 1970 p.20

There is alot more about Casriel and his book that are interesting, in terms of the historical connections that can be made with other methods, therapies, and philosophies, but when comparing to Janov, I think these are important distictions.

Compare this.:

“Janov distinguishes the "primal" from emotional catharsis or abreaction, an abreaction being (according to Janov) a "pseudo-primal" [18]. A primal may be referred to as a "connected feeling" but a complete connected feeling will usually take months or even years to feel, in many primals.[15] It should be noted that "abreaction" or "catharsis" as used by other psychologists does not mean a false or unconnected feeling. Psychiatrist Anthony Storr claimed that Primal Therapy techniques have much in common with abreaction [19].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_therapy)

And this application is comparable to Janov also.

"Hypnotherapy in Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD)
Ph. D. Irina Holdevici
Bucharest "Titu Maiorescu" University, Romania
Department of Psychology

In the present paper a short term eclectic psychotherapy model, based on clinical
hypnosys, for patients suffering from PTSD, is presented.

The rationale for using hypnosis in PTSD consists in the analogy between trance state
and the spontaneous state produced by psychological defence mechanisms activated in
trauma victims: dissociation, increased suggestibility and narrow focused attention
(Spiegel, 1993).

The model includes the following strategies:

??inducing and deepening of the trance state;
??age-regression and abreaction (catharsis) of the traumatic event;
??suggested amnezia;
??memory modifications;
??relabelling (the traumatic event receives a positive connotation - a destiny trial);
??ego-strengthening and specific suggestions aimed at symptom reduction;
??guided imagery technique focused on relaxing scripts;
??post-hypnotic suggestions;
??mental restructuring;
??self-regulation techniques.

The aim of the psychotherapy consists in regaining a controlled access to the traumatic
memories and modifying them in a less stressful form.”
-
And look at some more recent viewpoints from Primal therapy.

“If we believe, as Michael Broder (1976) suggests, that the primal process consists of five phases: Commitment, Abreaction (catharsis); Insight (cognitive-affective restructuring); Counter-action (fresh behaviour in the world); and Pro-action (making real changes); then it must be the case that the later phases are just as important as the earlier ones. In other words, working through is just as significant as breaking through.

The glamorous part, and the controversial part, of our work is the 'primal', the cathartic breakthrough; but in reality the process of integration is necessary and equally exciting in its quieter way. For example, it is a great thing to get to the cathartic point of forgiving one's mother; it is another thing to start treating women decently in daily life, as a result of this.

http://primal-page.com/johnr-1c.htm (http://primal-page.com/johnr-1c.htm)
--
And this is an article about Casriels’s New Identity Process that COMES FROM THE PRIMAL PAGE! (I think this is like Primal therapy, in terms of Janov’s vision, has accepted it’s own failure.)

The New Identify Process (NIP) and other forms of emotive psychotherapy embrace the healing tradition of catharsis--intense emotional expression is elicited within a contained therapeutic environment. This emotive therapy follows in a direct line from the earliest forms of ancient healing arts through recent scientific studies exploring the link between body and mind. The challenge for clinicians in answering the criticism about the use of catharsis is to conceptually bridge past and present in evaluating emotive methods…..

First, a bit of history. Although the use of catharsis was a key element of treatment during the first 200 years of early psychotherapy (with Mesmer, Charcot, Janet, and Bruer), Freud's rejection of this cathartic method within psychoanalysis and his reliance on free association, "The talking cure" as a sufficient form of abreaction, spread until dominating the field. By 1920, methods of emotive psychotherapy moved to the fringes of conventional psychological practice. Freud gave as one of his reasons for rejecting emotive methods his frustration as a neurologist in trying to theorize about the workings of emotion. Although some of his colleagues continued to rely on methods of catharsis (notably Ferenczi, Brown and Reich) and although a second wave of interest sparked the development of additional methods in the early 1950's (by Janov, Lowen, Perls, Casriel and Jackins) the academic literature continues to reject catharsis, following Freud. Methods of emotive psychotherapy, when mentioned, are usually discounted as unproved and ineffective at best, or counterproductive and harmful at worst. Currently, the criticism of emotive therapy is based on the results of often flawed, past research about catharsis.
http://primal-page.com/pert.htm (http://primal-page.com/pert.htm)"

Now compare that with a more modern approach from the hypnotherapeutic tradition.

Journal of Heart-Centered Therapies, 2003, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 105-122
? 2003 Heart-Centered Therapies Association
105

Hypnotic Trance in Heart-Centered Therapies
David Hartman, MSW and Diane Zimberoff, M.A.

Abstract: This article traces the roots of the use of trance states in Heart-Centered therapies.
A discussion of traditional hypnosis includes Brown and Fromm’s (1986) proposed four
treatment approaches with hypnosis: symptomatic hypnotherapy, supportive egostrengthening
hypnotherapy, dynamic hypnotherapy, and hypnotherapy of developmental
deficits. We review several ways of defining hypnosis, and Holroyd’s (1990) nine trance
characteristics. Ericksonian and NLP techniques that fit well with the Heart-Centered
approach are calling to awareness senses within the body, which encourage the client to
exclude external stimuli and focus on internal realities; stating permission to the
unconscious mind either for searching memory archives or for expression of unaccustomed
feelings and experiences; and nonverbal cues such as changing voice patterns and modeling
appropriate trance behaviors. We also review some of the hypnobehavioral approaches and
behavior modification techniques utilized in Heart-Centered therapies, including systematic
desensitization, modeling, anchoring, sensitization or aversion, flooding and implosion,
role-playing (behavioral rehearsal), assertive training, and observational learning.

Primary topics
1. Traditional hypnosis
2. Ericksonian and NLP techniques
3. Hypnobehavioral approach and behavior modification

Utilizing an altered state of consciousness in psychotherapy provides a
powerful added dimension to the process. Hypnotic age regression
accesses a much deeper level of material than cognitive psychotherapy can
by following an affect bridge from a current intense emotion back to earlier
and more traumatic antecedents of that emotion (Watkins, 1971). The
experience is one of re-living, releasing and integrating the memory, not
just remembering and analyzing it. Experimental evidence verifies that the
most effective age regressions are those associated with highly affective
events (Nash et al., 1979).
http://www.heartcenteredtherapies.org/g ... Trance.pdf (http://www.heartcenteredtherapies.org/go/docs/HCTA%20Journal%206-1%20Hypnotic%20Trance.pdf)

And probably the oldest know usages of catharsis in psychotherapy.

“The so-called "cathartic method" was a treatment for psychiatric disorders developed during 1881-1882 by Joseph Breuer with his patient "Anna O." The aim was to enable the hypnotized patient to recollect the traumatic event at the root of a particular symptom and thereby eliminate the associated pathogenic memory through "catharsis."
Reading the case history of Anna O., one sees that the method developed gradually. At first, Breuer limited himself to making use of the patient's self-induced hypnotic states in which she would strive to express what she preferred to avoid talking about when normally conscious.

To move the treatment along faster, Breuer began use hypnosis, which he had not regularly employed previously.
Freud and Breuer filled out the notion of catharsis with the concept of "abreaction"—a quantity of affect that was linked to memory of a traumatic and pathogenic event that could not be evacuated through normal physical and organic processes ….

Tired of poor results and of the monotony of hypnotic suggestion, by 1889 Freud appears to have decided, in treating Emmy von N., to employ "the cathartic method of J. Breuer." But failure to regularly induce hypnotic states inclined him by 1892 to give up hypnosis, which his patient Elisabeth von R. disliked. He asked her to lay down and close her eyes but allowed her to move about or open her eyes as she wished, and he experimented with a "pressure technique": "I placed my hand on the patient's forehead or took her head between my hands and said: 'You will think of it [a symptom or its origin] under the pressure of my hand. At the moment at which I relax my pressure you will see something in front of you or something will come into your head. Catch hold of it. It will be what we are looking for.—Well, what have you seen or what has occurred to you?" (Freud 1895d, p. 110). This procedure "has scarcely ever left me in the lurch since then," (p. 111) Freud added, claiming that this was the case to such an extent that he told patients that it could not possibly fail but invariably enabled him to "at last [extract] the information" (p. 111)

His explanation of the difficulties that patients experienced during treatment to defend themselves against pathogenic memories would come to be known as "resistance," while the concept of "transference" would emerge from his understanding of Breuer's sudden termination of Anna O., or the time that a patient, upon waking from hypnosis, threw her arms around his neck.

Catharsis and abreaction, even while still observed during psychoanalytic treatment, no longer constitute therapeutic aims as in 1895. However, they remain prominent in several psychotherapeutic techniques, such as in "Primal Scream" therapy and certain types of psychodrama.

http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-en ... tic-method (http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/cathartic-method)

.... So I guess you have to ask yourself why you think THEY are doing it to you.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on February 26, 2010, 12:41:24 AM
-Here are some parts of Casriels transcript of therapy from A Scream Away From Happiness. I found them hauntingly resemblant of my experience, maybe some of you will think so. One thing to keep in mind is in Casriel’s book the subjects lived in their own homes, didn’t share their full names with each other (first names only unless by choice), and were there by choice. -

p. 15“Casriel: Ok, who has a feeling? Who wants to work?

Vilma: I do. I don’t feel good. I don’t feel sexual at all. When I don’t want to screw, my boyfriend gets mad and stomps out. It happens twice a week.

Nancy: Happened last last month too didn’t it?

(There’s no response. Vilma nods yes.)

Nancy: What did the group tell you Vilma?

Vilma: That I was angry, because Mitchell wouldn’t marry me. And that I didn’t want to screw because I was angry.

Casriel: Is it true? What do you think?

Vilma: But I’ve told him several times I’m angry. It doesn’t do any good. He doesn’t pay attention to me.

Casriel: You don’t seem angry. Are you angry right now?

Cathy: (Screaming) Vilma, I can’t stand your turned off tone- you never get to a feeling. Scream you bitch! If your angry get angry.

Vilma: (standing up to scream) I’m angry.  I’m angry. I’m ANGRY.

(Vilma continues to scream for thirty five seconds. She is performing an exercise she has seen others do in group.)

Peter: The hell you’re angry! Your about as angry as a pussycat! If you’re angry, sound angry like this!

(Peter let’s out an intense scream that last for ten seconds…..)

Cathy: That’s not all ,Peter. Go on.

(Peter continues to scream….)

Casriel: Go on, scream it all out Peter.
(Peter screams again, this time with some tears in his eyes. Cathy rises and takes him in her arms and he begins to scream with pain. Finally, there is only the sound of his sobs.)

Casriel: That’s your pain, Peter. It’s okay. It brings people close to you when you show it. Look around the room and see for yourself. All your life you felt alone because you couldn’t show your real feelings. Now you’re not alone.

(There is a pause of thirty seconds while Peter checks the eyes of everyone in the group…..)

Casriel: What do you see Peter?

Peter: I Don’t know. People feel close to me I guess.

Nancy: Try again!

Peter: People feel what I feel, I mean.

Casriel: How about that they love you? Can you say that?

Peter: (after a pause) Well, I guess some of the people do.  Nancy does, I think. But not everybody.

Casriel: Who doesn’t feel close to you?

Peter: Vilma.

Casriel: Vilma, how do you feel about Peter?

Vilma: (Looking at Casriel.) I feel close to him. I felt his anger and his pain.

Casriel: Tell Peter

Vilma: I feel close to you Peter

Peter: (Looking into her eyes) Okay, I have a little trouble believing that, but I trust what you say.

Casriel: You CAN trust it Peter. People want to share your feelings with you. Your openness is a pleasurable thing for people to experience.
( as the goup continues, Peter goes to a few people who embrace him.)

Casriel: You seem angry, Cathy. What’s going on with you?

Cathy: I am angry, Dan.

Casriel: What are you angry about?

Cathy: I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to scream. I’m angry. I’m Angry. I’m ANGRY! I’m AANNGRYYYEE!

( Cathy screams for more than a minute… She stops out of breath)

Casriel: What are you angry at Cathy? Try to talk about it. I think it’s important.

Cathy: I don’t know. I’m just angry. At my parents. At my brother. At the principal of my school. At the turned off people I had as friends. At the whole damned world!

Casriel: I feel your anger. It is very real. But who is hurting you?

Peter: (interrupting) My god damn parents pushing me and nagging me and lecturing me!...
….
Casriel: Push it out Nancy.

Nancy: (Sobbing) What’ll I yell?

Casriel:  Just make a louder sound. Push it out. Hold her Barry.

(Nancy’s scream is a loud screech of pain.)

Casriel: More louder.

(Nancy begins to sound like a wounded animal. She continues to scream five, six, seven times and then there is quiet.)……

Casriel: Why don’t you get down on the mat, Nancy – get those historical feelings out.

(Mats are placed on the floor during some non verbal emotional excercises……

….Roger:Work Nancy. You’ve been choked up about Patricia and your mother for weeks….

Casriel: Get to the mat and work!

Nancy: All right , I’ll try

(the mats are brought out. When an individual is working on the mat, group members gather around the person to provide emotional and sometimes physical help.)

Nancy: What do I do?

Casriel: What do you feel like doing?

Nancy: I feel a bit silly.

Cathy: You Damn Bitch!

(She gets up and leaves the group of people kneeling around Nancy on the mats.)

Casriel: Begin by expressing a sound, Nancy. Just yell! The sound will get to the feelings.
(
Nancy screams three times)

Casriel: I can feel your anger in that sound.

Peter: I do too.

Barry : I agree there’s  anger in your yells.

Casriel: What do you feel (about this), Gretchen?

Gretchen: I’m not sure I qualify as judge. But I sense your anger too Nancy.

Casriel: Why don’t you try really letting go of the anger, Nancy? You’ll enjoy feeling free.

(Nancy is now given instructions on how to relax and let out a sound….. Now the temper tantrum begins. Nancy is screaming wildly and thrashing all over the mat.)……

Cathy: (From the far corner of the room) You’re a no good, controlling cunt! I knew you couldn’t get to that feeling!

Nancy: (sitting up) And you’re a bratty adolescent girl with a nasty tongue….
….
Casriel: Yell out what you need. Allow that little girl to express her need full measure!

Nancy: I need you! I need you!

Casriel: How old do you feel when you say that?

Nancy: Six, Seven, maybe eight

Casriel: What did you call your mother then?

Nancy: Mommy.

Casriel: Say: Mommy I need you.

Nancy: I need you mommy. I NEED you. Mommy, I need you!.....MOMMMMMYYY!.......(The room is frozen in silence. Cathy is crying. Nancy is oblivious to her surroundings….. She cries again. Now the emotional barriers between many members of the group dissolve.)

….Casriel: Let’s work on that anger….Peter: Stop thinking – and work!

Casriel: Just scream cathy. Your feelings will come out in the scream. Come on – Yell! The sound will find the feeling and the feeling will uncover your thoughts.

(Cathy begins to scream…. After nine screams Cathy is breathing deeply, but is still very much aware of herself and her environment.)….

Peter: Stop controlling and let go.

(Cathy screams…. Cathy is now sobbing)

Peter: (Hugging Cathy) It’s OK Cath, It’s OK. It’s your pain that you feel.

Casriel: It really is Cathy…..

Cathy: ( Laughing as she cries) It’s good to feel my pain, and not to be frightened by it…..

(Cathy now goes over to Nancy, hugs her, and kisses her on the cheek.)…..


A SCREAM AWAY FROM HAPPINESS, DANIEL CASRIEL M.D. : “SCREAM THERAPY” –THE GROUP PROCESS THAT PROMISES TH REVOLUTIONIZE THE TREATMENT OF MENTAL DISORDERS. 1972.

Contents:
1.   A Scream away from Happiness …1
2.   Group in action …11
3.   An analysts journey from couch to encounter: Synanon and encounter goups… introduction of the marathon… screaming…
4.   Emotional health
5.   Beyond the symptom: The New Identity Group approach to symptoms… Survival based feelings.
6.   The Human need for Bondedness

7.   A character disordered society …120

8.   Neurosis and Character disorder: (dissociative reaction… “fight, flight or freeze” reactions to pain and danger… “freeze” and “secondary encapsulation”, Psychosis (R.D.Laing: The Divided Self- false self)

9.   The limitations of psychoanalysis and individual psychotherapy

10.   Triangular man: Behaviors, feelings and attitudes: Behavior (Gestalt Therapy, Perls, Synanon), Feelings, Attitudes (“AS IF” behavior)

11.   Acceptors and Rejectors: … 202 (Identity development of the Child, The Rejector Personality (Thinker), The Acceptor Personality (Feelers), Rejectors vs. Acceptors, Neurotics or Character Disorders.)

12.   The Process : breaking Tabboos, Structure, Leaders, Marathons : (Basic Rules, Structure and Dynamic, Projection and transference, Peer Group Leaders (Catalysts), Marathons, Being Responsible to ones feelings)

13.   Signals: The Foundation Of The Group Therapy Process: (Perls, Esalen (Human Potential Movement)

14.   The Process: Excercises : (Fear excercises( confession, the ‘secret’),  Anger Excercises, Pain excercises, Love excercises (learning to ask for love), Pleasure excercises (giving love freely, spontaneously)

15.   From Now On: (Dangers of group therapy, Can group embracing get out of hand? Can group become a way of life? The possibility of cultism?)… 276
Title: Hans Vaihinger - Philosopy of As If
Post by: Ursus on February 26, 2010, 01:57:08 AM
Quote from: "Awake"
One thing about Casriel is that he stressed (in his book, A Scream Away from Happiness) the philosophy of 'as if'. If you are ('are' meaning ' your symptom is') a homosexual, addict, not-sexually flirtatious enough for your husband, etc. you are supposed to act ‘as if’ you are(n’t). This philosophy of 'as if' is not his own. I have read this exact phrasing 'as if' within Chales Diedrichs (Synanon's) philosophy also. The popularity of the Philosophy of 'As If" can be traced to ...

"Kelly, George A. (1905-1967), American psychologist.
Kelly developed a theory of personality known as personal construct psychology, whose focus is on the distinctive ways in which individuals construct and reconstruct the meanings of their lives.
http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/kelly.html (http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/kelly.html)"
Mmmm. I would beg to differ with you on George Kelly being the source. He published very little during his lifetime, and what he published was so dense it was almost unreadable for any but the very dedicated. Moreover, if I read correctly, it required all sorts of mathematical modeling to understand from a theoretical POV. He had very little influence on the trends in psychology during his time save perhaps the most esoteric circles of academia. He certainly did not have influence to speak of when it came to popular culture.

Rather, I propose the construct/philosophy of "as if" came from the German Kantian scholar Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933). In fact, Vaihinger wrote the book on it, literally -- Philosophie des Als Ob (Philosophy of As If), which was published in 1911, although allegedly written in the late 1870s.

George Kelly himself wrote, "...Vaihinger began to develop a system of philosophy he called the "philosophy of 'as if' ". In it he offered a system of thought in which God and reality might best be represented as paradigms. This was not to say that either God or reality was any less certain than anything else in the realm of man's awareness, but only that all matters confronting man might best be regarded in hypothetical ways." *

Vaihinger, in turn, credits numerous predecessors, in particular the influence of Jeremy Bentham's Theory of Fictions.

One of the more important initial conduits through which the concept of "as if" eventually reached the masses through the Human Potential movement may well have been Alfred Adler, who apparently was quite influenced by Vaihinger, though I doubt he was the only one in said position.

I also doubt that Charles Dederich read much philosophy or psychology (I could be wrong!), but I'm sure he paid some attention to what was going on at Esalen.


* Kelly, G. A. (1969). The language of hypothesis: Man's psychological instrument. In B. Maher (Ed.), Clinical psychology and personality: The selected papers of George Kelly (p 149). New York: John Wiley. (Original work published 1964)
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Matt C. Hoffman on February 26, 2010, 07:17:20 AM
Hello,

The act "as if" philosophy had such a major role in the program that those little words had their own little placque on the diningroom wall.

Act "as if" and eventually it becomes real, know it well.

Mr./Mrs, Inculated thank you for answering my question pertaing to the whether or not Daytop did or didn't have primal scream groups in its particular brand of program.

I am also wondering if there should simply be a chapter (not thread) for this program over lap.Since I find it to be very interesting how programs all employed very similar ways of breaking down the individual and building them back up. Comparing and contrasting  the progams, examining the overlap, gives me knowledge and a better understanding of my particular program. Where these ideas of behavior  modifacation came from  etc,etc.

It doesn't make me feel as isolated , by my paticular program.

Again the" as if" philosophy really all the way from synanaon. Makes me also feel that all the riccis and other program leaders weren't all that creative, having to copy synonon,(and it is certainly appearing to really look like the mother of them all)

thanks

Matt
Title: Re: Hans Vaihinger - Philosopy of As If
Post by: Awake on February 26, 2010, 11:12:32 AM
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "Awake"
One thing about Casriel is that he stressed (in his book, A Scream Away from Happiness) the philosophy of 'as if'. If you are ('are' meaning ' your symptom is') a homosexual, addict, not-sexually flirtatious enough for your husband, etc. you are supposed to act ‘as if’ you are(n’t). This philosophy of 'as if' is not his own. I have read this exact phrasing 'as if' within Chales Diedrichs (Synanon's) philosophy also. The popularity of the Philosophy of 'As If" can be traced to ...

"Kelly, George A. (1905-1967), American psychologist.
Kelly developed a theory of personality known as personal construct psychology, whose focus is on the distinctive ways in which individuals construct and reconstruct the meanings of their lives.
http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/kelly.html (http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/kelly.html)"

Mmmm. I would beg to differ with you on George Kelly being the source.

Rather, I propose the construct/philosophy of "as if" came from the German Kantian scholar Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933). In fact, Vaihinger wrote the book on it, literally -- Philosophie des Als Ob (Philosophy of As If), which was published in 1911, although allegedly written in the late 1870s.

Vaihinger, in turn, credits numerous predecessors, in particular the influence of Jeremy Bentham's Theory of Fictions.

One of the more important initial conduits through which the concept of "as if" eventually reached the masses through the Human Potential movement may well have been Alfred Adler, who apparently was quite influenced by Vaihinger, though I doubt he was the only one in said position.

I also doubt that Charles Dederich read much philosophy or psychology (I could be wrong!), but I'm sure he paid some attention to what was going on at Esalen.
]

Yep it can be traced back to Vaihinger. I was supposed to get to him but was on cut and paste overload. I actually have his book, The Philosophy of AS IF: A system of the theoretical, practical, and religious fictions of mankind. But I haven't done more than skim through it, from what I can tell it is pretty interesting but not pertinent enough to put at the top of my reading list.

In his book he does reffer to Immanuel Kant often. Not sure how much that matters, but overall the 'as if'  gives perspective on Casriel I think .

“Part 3: Historical Confirmations: A. Kants use of the ‘AS IF’ Method… 271-362
1.- The Fundamental Elements in the Principal Critical Works of Kant”
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on February 26, 2010, 06:17:47 PM
I also thought there was another point of interest in Casriels book that I grit my teeth over. He mentions R.D. Laing and his book ‘The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness’. He calls it ‘enormously interesting’ (I also think so, pretty sure you can download a copy free at scribd.com), but I think he has misinterpreted Laing, is not factually correct in defining Schizophrenia. The real point that he does not talk about here is the danger of actually producing Schizophrenia AS A RESULT of his process. He Writes…

“Many clinicians find Schizophrenia to be primarily a physical illness caused by specific metabolic enzymatic-genetic imbalances…. My clinical experience concurs with this metabolic view. I no longer accept Schizophrenics into my practice.”

I disagree. From what I can tell, the genetic connection to Schizophrenia is still unproven. The majority seem to think there is, but there is no doubt that even those who support the genetic theory also overwhelmingly agree that genetics only accounts for a pre-disposition. The actual development of Schizophrenia is a result of dissociation from what basically what amounts to repetive, bizarre, or traumatic interactions within the family system that the subject grew up in, and the symptoms are late onset usually not occurring until someone is in their 20’s.

I think it is very important to examine the Double Bind Theory of Schizophrenia to expose just how blind he appears to be concerning the dangers his groups could pose.

“TOWARDS A THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA (1956) Gregory Bateson, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley, and John Weakland

This is a report on a research project which has been formulating and testing a broad systematic view of the nature, etiology, and therapy of Schizophrenia…… We have now reached common agreement on broad outlines of a communicational theory of the origin and nature of Schizophrenia; this paper is a preliminary report on our continuing research.

THE BASE IN COMMUNICATIONS THEORY

Our approach is based on that part of communications theory which Russel called the Theory of Logical Types (Whitehead, Russel 1910). The central thesis of this theory is a discontinuity between a class and its members…..

Illustrations of how human beings handle communication involving multiple logical types can be derived from the following fields:

1.   The use of various communication modes in human communication.- Examples are play, non-play, fantasy, sacrament, metaphor, etc…..

2.   Humor.- This seems to be a way of exploring the implicit themes in thought or in a relationship.

3.   The falsification of mode-identifying signals.- …we have the artificial laugh, the manipulative situation of friendliness, the confidence trick, kidding and the like.

4.   Learning

5.   Multiple levels of learning and the logical typing of signals.- These are two inseparable sets of phenomena- inseparable because the ability to handle the multiple types of signals is itself a learned skill and therefore a function of the multiple levels of learning. According to our hypothesis, the term “ego function” (as this term is used when a schizophrenic is described as having “weak ego function” ) is precisely the process OF DISCRIMINATING COMMUNICATIONAL MODES EITHER WITHIN THE SELF OR BETWEEN THE SELF AND OTHERS. The schizophrenic exhibits weaknesses in three areas of such function: (a) He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational modeto the messages he receives from other persons. (b) He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to those messages which he himself utters or emits non-verbally. (c) He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to his own thoughts, sensations, and perceptions.

…. Therefore we must look NOT for some specific traumatic experience in the infantile etiology but rather for characteristic sequential patterns…. The sequences MUST have this characteristic:  that from that the patient will aquire the mental habits which are exemplified in schizophrenic communication. That is to say, HE MUST LIVE IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS ARE SUCH THAT HIS UNCONVENTIONAL COMMUNICATION HABITS WILL BE IN SOME SENSE APPROPRIATE.
   
The hypothesis that we offer is that sequences of this kind in the external experience of the patient are responsible for the inner conflicts of Logical Typing. For such unresolvable sequences of experiences, we use the term DOUBLE BIND.

THE DOUBLE BIND

The necessary ingredients for a Double Bind situation, as we see it, are:

1.   Two or more persons.- Of these we designate one, for purposes of our definition, as the “Victim”…..

2.   Repeated experience.- …. The Double Bind structure comes to be an habitual expectation.

3.   A primary negative injunction.- This may have either of two forms: ( a) Do not do so and so or I will punish you, or (b) If you do not do so and so, I will punish you…. We assume that punishment may either be the withdrawal of love or the expression of hate or anger- or, most devastating, the kind of abandonment that results from the parent’s expression of extreme helplessness.

4.   A secondary injunction conflicting with the first at a more abstract level, and like the first enforced by punishments or signals which threaten survival.- This secondary injunction is more difficult to describe than the primary for two reasons. First, the secondary injunctionis commonly communicated to the child through non-verbal means. Posture, gesture, tone of voice, meaningful action, and the implications concealed in verbal comment may all be used to convey this more abstract message. Second, the secondary injunction may, therefore, include a wide variety of forms; for example, “Do not see this as punishment” ; “Do not see me as a punishing agent”; “Do not submit to my prohibitions”: “Do not think of what you must not do”; Do not question my love of which the primary prohibition is (or is not) an example” and so on….

5.   A tertiary negative injunction prohibiting the victim from escaping from the field.- …. It seems that in some cases the escape from the field is made impossible by certain devices which are not purely negative, e.g. capricious promises of love, and the like.

6.   Finally the complete set of ingredients is no longer necessary when the victim has learned to perceive his universe in Double Bind patterns. Almost any part of the Double Bind sequence may then be sufficient to precipitate panic or rage. The pattern of conflicting injunctions may even be taken over by hallucinatory voices.”

So this is the basic theory of Schizophrenia proposed here. It requires a social microcosm (family system) on which the victim is dependent and cannot leave, or feels he can’t leave. The victim is placed in a situation where he must make a choice, but cannot be right, or essentially the right choice is ‘crazy’ behavior in any other context. This survival behavior is repeatedly reinforced until fewer and fewer ingredients of the Double Bind are needed to trigger the defensive reaction of the Schizophrenic.

A double bind in an inescapable situation might simply be something like, “you need to do this, but you have to want to do it.” Or in the situation of a child being sent to a program a parent, or counselor may say, “I’m only doing this (punishing) because I want to help and I love you. It hurts me that you won’t accept my love.”  In the first situation the person will be punished if they don’t do it, but if they do do it they are falsely stating that they want to do it, or essentially learn to want to do it to avoid social pressure. In the second if the victim does not accept help he is rejecting love and is perceived as ungrateful. If he does he is accepting that he is supposed to see punishment as a type of loving communication.

Casriel himself recognizes the dangers of Schizophrenics in groups.

“There also can be some real dangers to having schizophrenics in groups. The intensity of the process can cause deterioration of a compensated schizophrenic condition. What’s more, the histories of some schizophrenics indicate they could be homicidal in such a setting. “

One thing I will say that is that since, in this particular book, Casriels patients were there by choice and most of the patients were into their adulthood, his setting may not qualify to contain all the ingredients of Double Binding, but transfer to the TTI and his method is a perfect match.

There is one study that is applicable to his book though. In Casriels book,” After a person has been in groups for a few weeks we usually suggest a Marathon….. Marathons usually lasted 30 hours, generally from a Friday evening to a Sunday morning, with an interlude of four or five hours on a Saturday afternoon for sleep.”

Here’s one long term study on Marathon therapy sessions.

"The Japanese Journal of Psychiatry
and Neurology, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1991

Follow-Up Study of Camp Marathon Group Psychotherapy for Adolescents with Emotional Disturbances Ryoji Nishimura, M.D., Satoshi Tsutsumi, M.D.,* Katsumi Okamura, Ph.D.,* Tatsuki Tsutsumi, M.D.* and Masahisa Nishizono, M.D. * Department of Behavioral Sciences, Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima
*Department of Psychiatry, Fukuoka University School of Medicine, Fukuoka

Abstract: Every summer since 1972, the Department of Psychiatry at Fukuoka University has been holding the Camp Marathon Group Psychotherapy (MGP) for adolescents with emotional disturbances. This time we conducted a follow-up survey on 114 camp attendees from 1978 to 1985. Questionnaires were mailed out and we received 56 replies, that is a response rate of 49.1%. The average observation period of the follow- up was 4 years. The results were as follows: Thirty-six cases or 64.3% were making satisfactory progress at the time of the survey. Eight or 14.3% showed no change or showed worsening conditions. Seven or 12.5% cases developed into schizophrenia. Based on these results, we studied roughly what role MGP plays in the therapy of adolescents with emotional disturbances.

….. MGP is characterized by time extended sessions (traditionally 90 minutes) of several hours, sometimes, 12 or more….. MGP provides the adolescent group with a special opportunity for free role experimentation, heightening emotional experiencing of repressed feelings, working through defensive maneuvers and characteriological facades, and so on.

….. The obszrvation period of the patients for this survey ranged from 1 and 1/2 years to 6 and 1/2 years with an average of 4 years.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi- ... 2/PDFSTART (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119995472/PDFSTART)"

I’m sure if you read the study you’ll find it quite similar to aspect of other programs. In fact many parts of it look just like what you would see on todays programs’ homepages. The point though is that the study showed a significant portion of the patients developed schizophrenia.
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Eliscu2 on May 02, 2010, 08:36:27 PM
On that Schitzo note.....

http://http://www.moshersoteria.com/

-snip
Loren Mosher (1933-2004) was chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from 1968 to 1980. Mosher wanted to create an effective and more humane way to help psychiatry's most seriously troubled patients. Using National Institute of Mental Health funds, Mosher opened the first Soteria House in Santa Clara, California in 1971.

Mosher's Soteria House experiment is detailed by former Boston Globe reporter Robert Whitaker in Mad in America. In Soteria House, newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients lived medication-free with a young, nonprofessional staff trained to listen to and understand them and provide companionship. Mosher tested his idea that "schizophrenia can often be overcome with the help of meaningful relationships rather than with drugs, and that such treatment would eventually lead to unquestionably healthier lives."

The Soteria House experiment worked better than Mosher had expected. Over the initial six weeks, patients recovered as quickly as those treated with medication in hospitals. Whitaker notes, "Even more striking, the Soteria patients were staying well longer. Relapse rates were lower for the Soteria group at both one-year and two-year follow-ups. The Soteria patients were also functioning better socially -- better able to hold jobs and attend schools."

Mosher's success with nonprofessional caregivers and without drugs embarrassed establishment psychiatry. The National Institute of Mental Health choked off funding causing Soteria House to close down. By 1998 Mosher was so disgusted with establishment psychiatry that he wrote a widely publicized letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. Establishment psychiatry, which in recent times usually ignores anti-establishment psychiatrists such as Mosher, had to respond and did so by accusing Mosher of wanting to abolish drug treatments. However, abolishing the option of drug treatment was never Mosher's goal.

Loren Mosher remains a hero for many anti-establishment consumer- and patient-rights organizations such as MindFreedom. MindFreedom also does not advocate for abolishing the option of drug treatment but instead advocates for truly informed choice as well as for alternatives beyond establishment psychiatric treatments -- alternatives such as Soteria House. I recently spoke with two members of MindFreedom, a married couple. Both wife and husband had been diagnosed in the past with schizophrenia. The wife chose to stay on psychiatric drugs, while the husband -- who had especially debilitating adverse effects with his psychiatric drugs -- chose to go without drugs. Their different paths initially created tension in the marriage but both ultimately quite graciously accepted each other's decision.

These are the true issues: Do Americans have mental health treatment choices that are informed choices? Why, when Big Pharma corruption has long been known, does it take Congressional investigations for the mainstream media to inform Americans of the financial relationships that drug companies have with high-profile psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions? And most importantly, when will Americans get real choices when it comes to their mental health?

A real choice is not a choice between Prozac or Zoloft, not between Zyprexa or Risperdal. One example of a real choice is the choice between establishment psychiatry or Soteria House.


Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green, 2007).
-end snip
http://http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/psych-drug-corp/pharma-levine
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on June 07, 2010, 12:49:49 AM
Interesting post on schizophrenia. I do want to stress how there is also a relationship with the Double Bind and Schizophrenia, AND the Double Bind as a context that CREATES THE IDENTIFIABLE SYMPTOMS of schizophrenia or mental illness, as it can be easily misdiagnosed by anyone reading from the DSM, including the most highly esteemed licensed psychologists.


I also want to note that it looks like i was wrong about the origins of ' the philosophy of as if', ursus was right. I noted at least 3 lenghty quotes from Vaihinger's 'Philosophy of As If' in the original work that inspired Neuro Linguistic Programming, The Structure of Magic Vol I, Bandler and Grinder.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30591&p=364699&hilit=nlp#p364699 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30591&p=364699&hilit=nlp#p364699)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30423&p=364700&hilit=nlp#p364700 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30423&p=364700&hilit=nlp#p364700)


Not to mention, Casriel and the New Identity Process, Bonding and Attachment therapy, still big business in TC's


viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30647 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30647)


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Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on August 14, 2010, 10:45:01 PM
Casriel has recently been added to wikepedia for those interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Harold_Casriel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Harold_Casriel)
Title: Re: Dr. Dan Casriel “A scream away from happiness”
Post by: Awake on January 15, 2011, 03:57:39 PM
(This was in response to a conversation on this thread ‘Where did ‘the game’ come from  viewtopic.php?f=9&t=32589 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=32589)  ‘ ,but I thought it was more relevant here)

I have some background on where Casriel got some of his influence, however, I am no expert on him. He is really quite mysterious imo and certain stylistic aspects of his approach are suspiciously hard to trace. Casreil developed the New Identity Process, which is now called Bonding Therapy, which is based on the Attachment Theory of John Bowlby and others. I find it interesting that the Attachment Therapy (also based on attachment theory) of Robert Zaslow, and Primal Therapy by Arthur Janov all emerged at right around the same time, but despite the VERY similar approaches they seem to have developed independently of each other.  A common emphasis in all of them is acting out, or catharting, over childhood trauma. This undoubtedly has it’s roots in the Cathartic Method, as old as psychotherapy itself. http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis ... erapy.html (http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/cathartic_therapy.html)

 The Cathartic Method  was a common practice in Freud’s early career, due to Breuer,  to employ a model of hypnosis, age regression, and achievement of catharsis over a repressed childhood trauma (abreaction). He ended up abandoning this process because he concluded that the therapeutic results were due to what he termed ‘transference’ and didn’t provide a lasting cure (as exampled by Anna O.’s falling in love with Breuer). So he abandoned it in favor of ‘free association’.

More recently Jacob Moreno and psychodrama also focused on catharsis. He felt that catharsis needed to be acted out even more deeply and in more ways.  Humanistic Psychiatry and the Human Potential Movement was all the rage leading up to and during Casriels time in the spotlight, Carl Rogers was largely responsible for the widespread use of sensitivity training which he called ‘encounter groups’. Some pretty marked changes showed up in Synanon that were resemblant of humanism. Human potential groups also focused heavily on inducing cathartic states, it was a held belief that the point of catharsis is the point at which a person is de-programmed and ready to accept new programming. Today ‘age regression’ and ‘abreaction’ are often terms heard in relation to the area of hypnosis. There is a commonly reffered to ‘trick’ in this area called the ‘affect bridge’ technique, which is just following a particular feeling back to when someone first remembers feeling it and focusing on that as the source of current problems. All in all what seems to be Casriels goal is to not just stop with age regression and catharsis, but to also ‘re-parent’ the individual from that point in development by applying attachment theory principles. This seems to be utilized by Casriel and a unique flare he adds to the Synanon group dynamic. So anyways, it is hard to get a clear reading on Casriel. Since Bowlby is the respected figure in this area it is probably important to note HIS perspective on the validity of Age Regression.


“Bowlby explicitly rejected the notion of regression stating "present knowledge of infant and child development requires that a theory of developmental pathways should replace theories that invoke specific phases of development in which it is held a person may become fixated and/or to which he may regress." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_therapy)

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