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.



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