25 VOLUME 7 |ISSUE 3 |2016
of putting it behind him. I, and most of the authors who
contribute to ICSA Today, can identify.
In Chapter Three, the author details his investigation into the
origins of Straight. The approach to recovery Straight used
was directly based on those of The Seed, which was based
largely on those of Synanon. The founder, a Douglas Aircraft
employee, Charles Dederich, found recovery in AA until
researchers from Douglas’ subsidiary, the RAND corporation,
came to a meeting and asked for volunteers for a study
using LSD to help alcoholics. The author mentions the
large-group awareness training (LGAT) research pioneered
by Edgar Schein. Schein reverse engineered the principles
of behavior change he learned from interviews with POWs
who experienced thought reform during the Korean conflict.
The interviews were conducted after the conflict. The goal
of Schein’s research was to use thought reform to do good,
to make better employees, and to reform prisoners, addicts,
and alcoholics. The author infers by association that Dederich
was influenced by Schein in the development of the Synanon
program, but his own citations refute this association.
Chatfield states that Dederich was leader of Synanon 6
months after having participated in the research on LSD.
Schein published his LGAT research in 1962 (Schein, 1962),
4 years after the founding of Synanon in 1958. Dederich
himself said Synanon’s methods were “brainwashing.” If
Dederich was influenced by Schein’s work before he founded
Synanon, we will have to wait to find out.
Chatfield used the Freedom of Information Act to seek out
connections between research and funding of Straight and
its predecessors. Schein’s funding, supposedly through
the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), was
actually provided by the CIA. The CIA’s files on the founder
of Synanon, Charles Dederich, Sr., a former employer of
the parent company of the RAND Corporation, one of the
intellectual foundations of the “military industrial complex,”
remain classified to this day.
Straight, a direct descendent of Synanon, was formed by two
substance-abuse amateurs with political connections. When
two of Straight’s centers were sued by the American Civil
Liberties Union, in the middle of an $18 million expansion
fundraising campaign, their medical director, Dr. Richard
Schwartz, designed outcome research, which was conducted
on minors who were clearly under duress. The minors said
at the time they were satisfied with their treatment and
the program saved their lives. Years later, they revealed to
the author that they feared if they were negative about the
program they would not be able to leave.
This “research,” covered next in Chapter Four, duped a
governor, two presidents, Lady Diana, and beloved First
Lady Nancy Reagan, who will always be remembered for
her earnest but deeply flawed campaign for “Just Say No.”
Political influence exercised by the founders of Straight, and
the organizations on which Straight was based, managed
to get regulatory rules rewritten around Straight’s practices,
practices that had been condemned long before by the
larger substance-abuse treatment community. When a
surveyor from what is now Florida’s Department of Children
and Families resisted then Governor Reuben Askew’s
pressure to be favorable to Straight, he was replaced by the
local sheriff.
The founders of Straight developed programs, and when
the unflattering reports alleging abuse mentioned above
began to appear in the media, the founders hired Dr. Donald
MacDonald, who later became the first Bush’s director
of the Office of National Drug Abuse Policy, to conduct
research. (The author used the term drug czar in referring to
MacDonald, but that was the term applied to the director
of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.) The author
located the letter from the national director that the goal
of publishing research was to “enhance the reputation of
Straight,” (p. 84). The author cites numerous critical reviews
of the research that went unheeded by regulators and by the
principal source of funding for the research, National Institute
of Drug Abuse (NIDA). How a for-profit corporation managed
to get a NIDA grant to research its own program is a subject
of another study. One of the most damning critiques was a
study indicating that most of Straight’s clients over the years
actually did not have the disease of addiction, and many had
never used drugs. In short, if clients got better, it was because
they were not sick.
In Chapter Five, the author uses Straight’s own literature
from the 1980s that describes the manipulative tactics he
experienced. The programs hid the abusive methods in plain
sight using platitudes that the uninitiated reader would
never associate with the abuse. Chatfield then reviews a
sample of program descriptions from among the hundreds of
current programs that use the same language and, according
to his research, use essentially the same methods.
Chapter Six is a review of primary thought-reform sources
that could stand alone as a primer for those new to the world
of cults and unethical influence. In Chapter Seven, the author
skillfully synthesizes theories of thought reform using the
work of Frank Salter (1998) to compare Straight’s and other
programs’ methods to those used in cults.
He then uses insights from Singer and Ofshe’s (1990) work
on first- and second-generation-of-interest thought-reform
programs. First-generation programs used a primarily
adversarial approach that became more complex over time.
Second-generation programs, the approach of cults, are
primarily subtly and gradually applied. Chatfield identifies
Straight-style programs as first-generation programs, more
like prisoner-of-war interrogation and conversion than like
most of today’s cultic groups.
Using a carefully worded questionnaire that follows the same
form as the Group Psychological Abuse (GPA) Scale, Chapter
Eight details the pilot study of experiences of former clients
of residential teen treatment centers. Chatfield asked, “Did
this happen and to what extent?” He sent the questionnaire
to a small number of former clients of similar programs
around North America. Their “treatment” experiences
of putting it behind him. I, and most of the authors who
contribute to ICSA Today, can identify.
In Chapter Three, the author details his investigation into the
origins of Straight. The approach to recovery Straight used
was directly based on those of The Seed, which was based
largely on those of Synanon. The founder, a Douglas Aircraft
employee, Charles Dederich, found recovery in AA until
researchers from Douglas’ subsidiary, the RAND corporation,
came to a meeting and asked for volunteers for a study
using LSD to help alcoholics. The author mentions the
large-group awareness training (LGAT) research pioneered
by Edgar Schein. Schein reverse engineered the principles
of behavior change he learned from interviews with POWs
who experienced thought reform during the Korean conflict.
The interviews were conducted after the conflict. The goal
of Schein’s research was to use thought reform to do good,
to make better employees, and to reform prisoners, addicts,
and alcoholics. The author infers by association that Dederich
was influenced by Schein in the development of the Synanon
program, but his own citations refute this association.
Chatfield states that Dederich was leader of Synanon 6
months after having participated in the research on LSD.
Schein published his LGAT research in 1962 (Schein, 1962),
4 years after the founding of Synanon in 1958. Dederich
himself said Synanon’s methods were “brainwashing.” If
Dederich was influenced by Schein’s work before he founded
Synanon, we will have to wait to find out.
Chatfield used the Freedom of Information Act to seek out
connections between research and funding of Straight and
its predecessors. Schein’s funding, supposedly through
the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), was
actually provided by the CIA. The CIA’s files on the founder
of Synanon, Charles Dederich, Sr., a former employer of
the parent company of the RAND Corporation, one of the
intellectual foundations of the “military industrial complex,”
remain classified to this day.
Straight, a direct descendent of Synanon, was formed by two
substance-abuse amateurs with political connections. When
two of Straight’s centers were sued by the American Civil
Liberties Union, in the middle of an $18 million expansion
fundraising campaign, their medical director, Dr. Richard
Schwartz, designed outcome research, which was conducted
on minors who were clearly under duress. The minors said
at the time they were satisfied with their treatment and
the program saved their lives. Years later, they revealed to
the author that they feared if they were negative about the
program they would not be able to leave.
This “research,” covered next in Chapter Four, duped a
governor, two presidents, Lady Diana, and beloved First
Lady Nancy Reagan, who will always be remembered for
her earnest but deeply flawed campaign for “Just Say No.”
Political influence exercised by the founders of Straight, and
the organizations on which Straight was based, managed
to get regulatory rules rewritten around Straight’s practices,
practices that had been condemned long before by the
larger substance-abuse treatment community. When a
surveyor from what is now Florida’s Department of Children
and Families resisted then Governor Reuben Askew’s
pressure to be favorable to Straight, he was replaced by the
local sheriff.
The founders of Straight developed programs, and when
the unflattering reports alleging abuse mentioned above
began to appear in the media, the founders hired Dr. Donald
MacDonald, who later became the first Bush’s director
of the Office of National Drug Abuse Policy, to conduct
research. (The author used the term drug czar in referring to
MacDonald, but that was the term applied to the director
of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.) The author
located the letter from the national director that the goal
of publishing research was to “enhance the reputation of
Straight,” (p. 84). The author cites numerous critical reviews
of the research that went unheeded by regulators and by the
principal source of funding for the research, National Institute
of Drug Abuse (NIDA). How a for-profit corporation managed
to get a NIDA grant to research its own program is a subject
of another study. One of the most damning critiques was a
study indicating that most of Straight’s clients over the years
actually did not have the disease of addiction, and many had
never used drugs. In short, if clients got better, it was because
they were not sick.
In Chapter Five, the author uses Straight’s own literature
from the 1980s that describes the manipulative tactics he
experienced. The programs hid the abusive methods in plain
sight using platitudes that the uninitiated reader would
never associate with the abuse. Chatfield then reviews a
sample of program descriptions from among the hundreds of
current programs that use the same language and, according
to his research, use essentially the same methods.
Chapter Six is a review of primary thought-reform sources
that could stand alone as a primer for those new to the world
of cults and unethical influence. In Chapter Seven, the author
skillfully synthesizes theories of thought reform using the
work of Frank Salter (1998) to compare Straight’s and other
programs’ methods to those used in cults.
He then uses insights from Singer and Ofshe’s (1990) work
on first- and second-generation-of-interest thought-reform
programs. First-generation programs used a primarily
adversarial approach that became more complex over time.
Second-generation programs, the approach of cults, are
primarily subtly and gradually applied. Chatfield identifies
Straight-style programs as first-generation programs, more
like prisoner-of-war interrogation and conversion than like
most of today’s cultic groups.
Using a carefully worded questionnaire that follows the same
form as the Group Psychological Abuse (GPA) Scale, Chapter
Eight details the pilot study of experiences of former clients
of residential teen treatment centers. Chatfield asked, “Did
this happen and to what extent?” He sent the questionnaire
to a small number of former clients of similar programs
around North America. Their “treatment” experiences
