Rowdy & all,

 

On a more serious note, I have looked at this old posting once again, and tried to discover the e-mail address (s) of the authors. My search (not very long I admit) took me to something called Addict-L, but I was not prepared to spend more time looking. If you or anyone else has the e-mail addresses of these people who are so misinformed about the quality of treatment, standards of practice which exist in bona fide European therapeutic communities, then please do send it to me.

 

The European Federation of Therapeutic Communities has members in 20 (now 21, new aspirant member) countries throughout the European continent. The codes of practice are shown on our web site at www.eftc-europe.com , we have clear expectations regarding resident’s rights and codes of conduct, and we demand the highest level of professionalism from all members.  

 

I and I’m sure my colleagues are more than willing to meet with these persons and they can explain to me / us, and or if they would care to send to me the address and names of the totalitarian “vomit eating” therapeutic communities & directors, I would be more than willing to visit these places and play my part on behalf of the EFTC to expose this “vomit” methodology for what it is.

 

However, if these persons are just throwing slander, so to speak, then this is a waste of space. In the event that the authors are based in the USA, then I will be available to hear something more than gossip, in September in New York.

 

I cannot for one moment accept that within the 21^st century, in regulated European therapeutic communities that this practice takes place.

 

 Anthony Slater

 

 

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

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T: 01786 - 467737

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