SYNANON FOUNDATION—A RADICAL APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF ADDICTION
MARSHALL S. CHERKAS M.D.1
1 Consulting Psychiatrist, Los Angeles County Dept. of Mental Health, Calif.
Synanon is a relatively new, voluntary, private and non-profit experimental organization which has created a therapeutic program for narcotic addicts with limited goals. In a sense, a kind of unique, separate and transient society is provided for the addict wherein he can live and mature free from drugs. Struggling for existence and status, it has nevertheless provided some interesting concepts and techniques for dealing with the problems of narcotics addiction. Although Synanon has sought to maintain its identity by sometimes overlooking the efforts of other researchers in this area, it nevertheless merits considerable attention for its own methods and theoretical constructions which may hopefully evolve through scientific research.
