Re: Synanon


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Posted by Wesley Fager (208.58.198.13) on April 02, 2000 at 11:43:55:

In Reply to: Re: Synanon posted by julie on April 01, 2000 at 18:10:42:

Julie writes:

: I never knew about the follow on programs although for many of the years that I lived there, I observed governmental people, probation officer types, social workers and psych types from major universities observing the school, observing the treatment program for problem kids

Sociologist Lewis Yablonsky at UCLA married a Synanite woman and was on the board of directors of Synanon. He often had Synanites speak to his graduate classes. One of his graduate students Vicky Volkman moved into Synanon and did her master's thesis on Synanon--she went on to become a college professor. Her thesis became a standard collegiate text book on rehabilitation. Psychiatrist Dan Casriel visited Synanon and his work had much to do with the development of Synanon-look alikes on the east coast. Synanite Steven I. Simon received a Phd in Psychology from Harvard in 1973 for his paper, The Synanon Game. (political psychiatrist Robert DuPont is a graduate of Harvard Medical School). Elliott Lee Markoff received his MS in Psychiatry from UCLA on his paper The Dynanics of Synanon: A Study of Methods in the Modification of Behavioral Disorders. Sociologist Dr. Richard Ofshe of the University of California at Berkley was a frequent and welcomed guest at the Synanon faciltiy in Tomales Bay. He was the first academician to forsee and warn on the potential for violence at Synanon. Synanon tried to sue him out of existence, but he prevailed and was eventually awarded himself something like $500,000 from Synanon.

: We were told that a "newcomer" was trying to pronounce anonymous and seminars or something like that. It had something to do though with misprononciation of two words so could have been other words as you suggested in your email.

PointA
Originally, the program had been called TLC for Tender Loving Care, but quickly changed to Synanon. Sociologists and former Synanon board member Dr. Lewis Yablonski says the word "Synanon" is a "coined" word. Former Synanist and author Guy Endore says that Synanon was a coined malapropism used by an early Synanist named Grahm Thompson, but that no one knew at first how they would spell it. "Cynanon" was an early try, Endore wrote. Chuck Dederich tells the story that one of his �dope fiends' got tongue twisted in using, [I think it was the word] "symposium" and that's where the name came from. But in January 1959, reporter R. D. Fox, writing for the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, wrote a favorable, two-day series on the just starting Synanon and he wrote that Synanon means "Sin Anonymous." Why would Mr. Fox have been so irresponsible as to call the program Sin Anonymous unless someone had told him that is what it stood for? When Mr. Fox wrote his series--which did a lot to help the struggling program along--Synanon was just a little rinky-dink program located in a store-front on the poor side of town. Just a few years later Synanon was trying to gain acceptance by occupying prime waterfront real estate in beautiful Santa Monica. In 1958 it might have been cute to be called Sin Anonymous but by 1961 a name like Sin Anonymous would have been a disaster for a program that was already growing beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Whatever. If you were to look in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language in the mid 1960s you would find the following noun:

Syn-a-non (sin a non ), n., a private organization assisting those who wish to be cured of narcotics addiction.
Point B
(c) 1999 by Wesley M. Fager, All rights reserved, (from Point A to PointB)

The above is the first public quote ever of my book-in progress on the Straight cult.
Wes Fager




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