The Synanon Game

The Tarzana Family was a Synanon clone program. It was supported by taxpayer money. A Synanon Clone program is one modeled after the infamous Synanon program in Santa Monica.. Many people know a little about the Synanon program and certainly a large number of people went through it.

When I was in The TarzanaFamily (1972) synanon clone programs were still popular , but seem to be more replaced by 12 step programs these days. Tarzana itself still exists and now hosts 12 step programs at their facility .How their current program is run I do not know. Tarzana was run by former drug addicts who were graduates from the Camarillo Family program. Therapies were varied but it was basically confrontational group therapy. The Synanon Game which was developed at Synanon was used there and I believe it is still used as therapy in some drug treatment programs.

Briefly, the Synanon game is a combination group confrontation and group therapy. One person is placed on the “hot seat” or probe and verbally attacked by other people in the game. Much truth is said but since we are talking about corrupted drug addicts it is mostly or entirely without love (at least in my experience). Much non-truth is also said. There were certain theraupuetic rules regarding the game. No threats of violence were tolerated. What was said in the game was supposed to stay in the game (although sometimes it did not).No theruapuetic contracts were allowed which meant you could not have secret verbal contracts outside the game to not confront someone about their behaviour and secrets inside the game .We were taught techniques like engrossing a person problems (making them seem bigger than they actually were). Except for a staff member everyone playing the game was a drug addict and a drug addict fairly new in recovery at that. Of course if any of them had really had insight on how to overcome a drug problem they would not have been in Tarzana in the first place (with the possible exception of a senior paid staff member). So in a sense it was a case of the inmates running the asylum. One current website says “playing the Game can accomplish a unification and healing of the personality, an appreciation and acceptance of new and more constructive forms of behavior -- or so they say –". At any rate the purpose of the game was supposed to be therapeutic and in some mysterious way not understood by me to help us solve our drug problems. Of course, Synanon had become wildly popular and endorsed as effective in some mental health circles and thus its techniques had spread and become popular, and that’s why they existed at Tarzana. Despite Synanons popularity and noteriety I dont believe any studies were ever done on its efficacy. I have known a handful of people who were at Synanon and they were all pretty screwed up, some still on drugs, and none who really understood addiction.



I found myself projecting my faults onto others in the Synanon
Game. I remember verbably attacking one fellow after he said he
loved his girlfriend. “ If you loved her , then why did you give her
drugs,” I screamed. It turned out he never had given his girlfriend
drugs. I was the one who had given my girlfriend, paulette, drugs.
Another time I told the group there was a lot of “underground
hostility” in the room; it was not until many,many years later that I
realized the full extent of that particular projection. The purpose of
the game is therapeutic but how effective is it to have of sick
criminal,drug addicts acting like psychiatrists to one another?



The point is that the throughout the '50's, 60's, and 70's the "experts" in charge of the "treatment" of drug addicts didnt have the foggiest idea of what to do about addiction. It was true then and its true now. Its just easier to see with a lttle hindsight.
The people back then swore up and down their program worked.
Some of these techiniques still being used. The Straight program made liberal use of Synanon methods I believe




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