This sounds like a job for Salvatore and the special action group! Anthony _____ From: Therapeutic Communities [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rowdy Yates Sent: 31. januar 2006 13:41 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: The Totalitarian TC 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/ -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind.