Allowing for the filter, how wrong is he?
craig
At 12:41 31/01/2006, you wrote:
>Hi
>
>Just come across this old posting to another list. It's mainly
>attacking me about an earlier posting to that list regarding the
>roots of TCs. For some rewason, I don't think i saw it at the
>time. I think it's quite interesting though (even if he is a bit
>rude to me!). Deiner, the author is apparently that rare beast in
>the USA, a Marxist. He clearly doesn't know I'm an ex-Communist
>Party member myself! If nothing else, it tells us something about
>where the opposition positions us:
>
> Maia criticizes the European-model TC, and reports a case of
>'vomit-eating therapy'. Yates casts doubt on the truth of this anecdote,
>and points to inaccuracy in Maia's account. But he promises to check the
>facts.
>
> Tabloid-journalistic controversies of this sort are reactionary in
>nature, regardless of how the facts check out.
>
> True or false (and it would not be the first time that an angry
>ex-patient had exaggerated the abuse he/she was subjected to), National
>Enquirer-type exposes only lead to the conclusion that EXCESSES should be
>prevented.
>
> But Yates does not approve of excesses. (At least, 'vomit-eating
>therapy' is not listed in the index of his book, co-edited with Barbara
>Rawlings, Therapeutic Communities for the Treatment of Drug Users).
>
> Like Geraldo, Maia makes a big splash that signifies very little. Yates
>and others are willingly to denounce such abuses, and we end up with joint
>approval for 'responsible' TCs. Sensationalism always has this status-quo
>endorsing effect. By criticizing 'extremists', yellow-journalism endorses
>the mainstream. The National Enquirer, like Maia, is really reactionary.
>
> The real issue isn't 'abuse' in a few TCs. The issue is the nature of
>the GOOD TC. What is this movement all about? What are its cultural
>origins? What social and economic interests does it represent?
>
> In the U.S., the early tie of Synanon to the broader TC movement is
>interesting, NOT because of specific abuses, but rather because this tie
>reveals the underlying cultural values and assumptions of the whole TC
>movement. The widespread, early admiration for Synanon shows the
>TOTALITARIAN potential inherent in all TCs. Synanon indicates where TC
>values can lead.
>
> Yates denies that Synanon was the original model for the European TC.
>True enough. But he errs when he claims that the AMERICAN TC movement
>originated with Synanon. Though Synanon was influential in the U.S. fairly
>early on, the real origin of the American TC was the BRITISH
>military-psychiatry example. That is, American TCs and British TCS grow out
>of the same cultural roots.
>
> Yates dissembles, surely intentionally, when he claims that the European
>TC had a "democratic" origin.. This is pure bullshit, and Yates must know
>it. His own book is part of a series which includes Tom Harrison's Bion,
>Rickman, Foulkes and the Northfield Experiments: Advancing on a Different
>Front (1999, Jessica Kingsley Publishers), and also the edited volume by
>Penelope Campling and Rex Haigh (1999), Therapeutic Communities: Past,
>Present and Future, which contains an historical-summary article by Tom
>Harrison.
>
> I feel sure Yates knows this material.
>
> The European TC had its roots in BRITISH MILITARY psychiatry, during WW
>II. The TC model was part of a 'war against mental illness', which itself
>was thought of as an integral part of the larger war effort. The goal was
>NEVER a democratic one. Instead, the goal was always to indoctrinate with
>patriotic, traditional values those youths who had failed to 'do their
>duty'. The goal was to shore up, and juice up, the cannon fodder, and get
>it back out on the front lines. 'Democracy'??? Pshaw!
>
> Today, the 'community unity/productive work/moral values' rhetoric of
>Yates, and his TC buddies, is part of a broader neo-conservative upsurge in
>the U.K. This is the rhetoric of the reborn British right, with its call
>for 'spiritual values' and 'cultural unity' (imposed by neo-totalitarian
>means, such as the TC). E.g.:
>
> "Mrs. Thatcher wants her grandson Michael to grow up in a world where
>'people accept their responsibilities to others. After all you are here to
>use your talents and abilities, and you really only use them as part of a
>community' [she said]."
>
> "Thatcher said. . . that she yearned for the return of traditional
>values of fairness, integrity, honesty and courtesy. She was particularly
>worried about young people, who were 'crying out' for a code of behaviour by
>which they could live their lives."
>
> (both quotations from P. Heelas, 1991, "Reforming the Self:
>Enterprise and the Character of Thatcherism," in Enterprise Culture, ed. by
>R. Keat and N. Abercrombie, London, Routledge).
>
> Neo-conservative politicians and paymasters are wanting a mechanism by
>which to teach the youth a 'code of conduct'. This code must conform to
>neo-conservative values. Yates and his buddies have a 'code of conduct',
>and a mechanism for inculcating the code into restive youths, to sell.
>
> Of course, the TC advocates in the U.K. are in competition with others
>moral entrepreneurs. And some of the others promise more 'bang for the
>Pound'.
>
> TC indoctrination centers have to compete with punishment advocates,
>with short-term 'therapy' afficiandos, with the 'drug-'em-up' crowd, and
>even with the New Religious Right. Each 'therapeutic alternative' tries to
>capture market share. Government-corporate money and support decides who
>wins, who loses. This jockeying for political-economic influence is not
>'democracy at work'.
>
> The decay of the British economy, and the dismantling of the British
>welfare state, has resulted in a massive fallout of 'mental health
>problems'. 'Addiction' is one such problem. The TC is a totalitarian
>means of indoctrinating reactionary values into disaffected persons, as a
>means of overcoming resistance to reactionary social changes.
>
> TC indoctrination, drugging the poor, jails and punishments, and other
>mechanisms of social control all form part of a SINGLE process. The British
>rush to join the U.S. in its global 'War on Drugs/Terrorism' is part of this
>same process. And 'addiction' is a core myth at the heart of this upsurge
>in international political reaction.
>
> To understand this complex cultural and political event requires more
>than a yellow-journalistic rants about 'vomit-eating therapy'. What is
>needed is a serious and careful inquiry into the historical, cultural, and
>political-economic bases of the 'anti-addiction' crusade.
>
> Cultural-historical inquiry has much to tell us about where we are
>today, and where our societies are headed. Unfortunately, on Addict-L,
>there seems to be little interest in where the anti-addiction crusade, or
>the TC, has come from.
>
>
>
>Rowdy Yates
>Senior Research Fellow
>Scottish Addiction Studies
>Department of Applied Social Science
>University of Stirling
>
>E: [log in to unmask]
>
>T: 01786 - 467737
>
>W:
><http://www.dass.stir.ac.uk/sections/scot-ad/>http://www.dass.stir.ac.uk/sections/scot-ad/
>
>--
>
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Dr. Craig Fees
Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre
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