David Oaks, SCI, and the cult connection
CARECLIENT
David Oaks, Dendron, Support Coalition and the Cult Connection.
INTRODUCTION
PDXS, a prestigous Oregon newspaper ran a two part 11,000 word investigative
report on a cult called Re-evaluation Counseling. It showed how members of
this cult which is a spin off from Scientology infiltrate progressive
organizations and use their positions in these organizations to sell the
teachings of Harvey Jackins, Re-evaluation Counseling's founder. These
teachings, like those of Scientology are positioned as an alternative to
psychiatry. Like Scientology, Re-evaluation Counseling opposes the use of
medicines for mental illness. Like Scientology, Re-evaluation Counseling
charges members. The cost of participating in Re-evaluation Counseling,
"starts off low"- around $50. More advanced training, however, is much more
expensive, and "gets up to $200 to $500."
The second half of the article focused a lot of attention on how Support
Coalition International functions as a sales tool for Re-evaluation Counseling.
The article notes that, Janet Forner, a leading member of Re-evaluation
Counseling is co-coordinator, with David Oaks of Support Coalition. The story
details Re-evalution Counseling's funding of Support Coalition and how Support
Coalition's newspaper Dendron, which is edited by Mr. Oaks, works to funnel
recipients of mental health services away from using medicines and towards the
cult which funds his organization. The article did an excellent job of
showing the financial ties and interlocking relationships between SCI and
Re-evaluation Counseling.
People interested in the entire report are referred to the PDXS issues of
August 28 and September 11, 1998.
===========================
PSYCHOTHERAPY CONSPIRACY:
INSIDE THE STRANGE WORLD OF RE-EVALUATION COUNSELING
by Margaret Deirdre O' Hartigan
The Pacific Northwest seems to have more than its share of cults. But if
success is measured by longevity and organizational skills rather than
notoriety, then a Seattle resident named Harvey Jackins makes the founder of
Heaven' s Gate look like rank amateurs.
Welcome to the world of The International Re-evaluation Counseling
Communities.
Exploring the world of Re-evaluation Counseling, is like a jaunt
through Jonestown before the Kool-Aid was mixed. Chances are you' ve never
heard of either Jackins or Re-evaluation Counseling - a fact which has
contributed to RC' s success by allowing its adherents to promote their agenda
undetected.
Nor does Jackins preach a recognizable religion. Instead he teaches
pseudo-psychological theories. Mental health - rather than the soul or
enlightenment - is the focus. As a result, RC is more accurately referred to
as a "psychotherapeutic cult."
RCers - who refer to themselves with the professional-sounding term of
"Co-Counselors"- not only believe that their own psychological well-being is
dependent upon correctly applying Jackins' techniques to themselves, but
subscribe to the notion that the world's ills, including racism, sexism and
war, can be eradicated if humanity as a whole undergoes Re-evaluation
Counseling.
Not content with openly promoting their peculiar form of secular
salvation, however, RCers have utilized the political side of their training to
infiltrate and co-opt civil rights organizations - including Portland
institutions such as the Metropolitan Human Rights Center - to do their
proselytizing for them. At first RCers began by taking key positions in gay
and lesbian advocacy organizations, including the Rural Organizing Project.
This is ironic, since Jackins contends that homosexuality can and should be
"cured."
More recently, RCers have taken key positions Jobs with Justice and
Oregon Action, two groups that frequently work with mainstream liberal
organizations on labor and social justice issues. These alliances are odd,
since Jackins has been repeatedly accused of sexually assaulting female
Co-Counselors.
But the strangest thing is what happens when RCers get involved with
political activists. Because RC places primary emphasis upon the psychology of
the individual, activists and their organizations are quickly diverted from
their original goals into examining their internal processes at the expense of
effecting any real change in the conditions of the people they are supposed to
be helping.
A curious distillation of Leftist rhetoric and primal scream therapy,
Co-Counseling promises to free individuals "from the effects of past distress
experiences"in order to make them "more capable of acting successfully against
injustice."RC terminology is reminiscent of "est" with a dose of Marxism
thrown in for good measure. Terms like "owning class" can be found in the same
sentence as "emotional discharge."
But RC is more than a theraputic technique. As described in the last
issue of "PDXS" , Jackins and his followers are aggressively infliltrating
progressive organizations, diverting volunteer time and funds away from outside
political activities to endless rounds of personal self-examinations. In the
end, the quasi-psychiatric technique of RC is taking precendence over real
social change.
A labor organizer black-listed in the 1940s, Harvey Jackins established
"Personal Counselors, Inc."in Seattle in 1952 after breaking from Scientology -
and there are more than a few similarities to L. Ron Hubbard' s store-front
religion. Hubbard proposed that Scientology would lead to " clearing the
planet" of war and other social ills; Jackins portrays Co-Counselors as
"inhabitants of a 'rational island' of humans whom they are helping to pull up
out of the sea of irrationality in which people and civilization are
struggling."And just as Hubbard' s writing comprises the bulk of the
Scientology canon, Jackins has penned the majority of RC tracts.
In addition to founding Re-evaluation Counseling and authoring most of
its texts, Harvey Jackins serves as its guru. Actually, his official role is
that of "International Reference Person". As such, any divergence or variation
from RC Guidelines must be approved by him - or his son, Tim, who is the
designated Alternate International Reference Person.
In the world according to Jackins, even "the mental decrepitude, the increasing
amount of irrational behavior which we associate with old age is simply the
pile-up of distress patterns."
So much for recent scientific discoveries concerning the etiology of
Alzheimer' s.
Among Re-evaluation Counseling' s long-range goals - (as) stated in the
RC pamphlet "What' s Wrong with the ' Mental Health' System" - is: "To
ensure that all people, everywhere, use the natural recovery process we call
Re-evaluation Counseling, whatever it be called".
What Jackins refers to as his "Fundamental Theorem"is that "Almost everything
that any one of us has assumed to be natural or inherent in the area of our
sexuality is recorded distress experience patterns." Jackins bases his
"theorem"on his belief that "almost every woman" and "a very large proportion
of all men have been abused sexually as small children. Jackins has also
claimed that "homosexuality (as distinct from the desire to touch or be close)
is the result of distress patterns (often very early in origin and chronic) and
will disappear by the free choice of the individual with sufficient discharge
and re-evaluation."
Jackin' s stance that homosexuality is amenable to reparative therapy -
together with his denial that a same-sex orientation is innate - is in stark
contrast to the American Psychiatric Association, which in 1973 removed
homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
ELIMINATING THE COMPETITION
Like Scientology, Re-evaluation Counseling is vehemently anti-psychiatry. But
that is because both Scientology and RC offer themselves as "alternatives " to
psychiatry - based on nothing more than the claims of their founders, Hubbard
and Jackins.
Co-Counseling is as loathe to accept the existence of mental illness as
it is skeptical of senility and mortality. "What' s Wrong with the 'Mental
Health' System" - co-authored by Janet Foner and Jamie Alexander and issued
in 1991 by Rational Island Publishers - characterizes the concept of "mental
health"as "pseudo-medical and pseudo-scientific theories" and proposes as a
long-range goal to assist 'mental health' workers to learn to use the tools of
Co-Counseling in place of their current theories and practices.
In addition to being a member of Re-evaluation Counseling, Foner is on
the International Board of Directors - and one of two co-coordinators - of an
organization based in Eugene, Oregon, called Support Coalition International.
David Oaks is SCI' s other co-coordinator as well as the editor of
"Dendron" . In response to a query about connections between SCI and RC posed
in a recent telephone interview, Oaks was adamant that "We' re utterly and
totally independent from Re-evaluation Counseling. And the people in RC will
also tell you that we' re 100 percent independent."
Oaks admits that "Janet is very much involved in RC - she' s the
International Reference Person for RC on psychiatric survivors."But he
emphasizes that " we psychiatric survivors organize on our own. We' re not
controlled by Scientology - which is what most people ask" and adds "I am
definitely not a member of RC."
Member or not, under Oaks' editorship "Dendron" shamelessly promotes
Foner' s writings and workshops. Foner' s RC booklet, for example, is offered
for sale through SCI: "Written as an official position of the peer support
network called Re-Evaluation Counseling, this is an important handbook for
everyone." "Dendron" also lists Foner as the editor of the RC journal,
"Recovery & Re-emergence", which "Dendron" touts " is geared for people who use
an international peer support network called ' Re-Evaluation Counseling,' but
there's lots to interest anyone."
As an SCI co-coordinator it is hardly remarkable that articles by Foner would
be found scattered throughout "Dendron" - but the publication consistently
advertises Foner' s workshops which are clearly RC in nature although variously
entitled "Crisis Prevention Workshops"or "The Exchange Listening Process" . In
one ad - prefaced by Oaks' endorsement as " an engine for revolutionary
change"- Foner promotes a thinly-disguised Co-Counseling replete with
tell-tale RC terminology including references to "zest,"" rigid behavior
patterns"and "distress" .
(SUPPORT COALITION INTERNATIONAL GETS FUNDING FROM THE CULT IT PROMOTES)
Foner was in Portland on August 3 teaching the mentally ill how to do
Co-counseling, courtesy of Multnomah County taxpayers. SCI' s Oaks was given
$2,600 from a county-contracted mental health agency - Network Behavioral
Health - to provide "scholarships"to the mentally ill to attend Foner' s "Take
Charge of Your Mind" workshop.
Another important RC connection to SCI is the McKenzie River Gathering,
a funding organization that includes several RCers - including Teresa Enrico
and Cliff Jones - on its board of directors. According to "The Oregon
Foundation Databook" , the SCI received $5,000 from MRG in the form of a "donor
advised grant," meaning that the money was given to McKenzie River Gathering
by a donor - shielded by anonymity under MRG rules - who specifically
directed that the money go to Oaks' organization.
Support Coalition also received $2,000 through McKenzie River
Gathering' s regular funding cycle for 1996-97, and an additional $2,500 was
awarded Support Coalition for the funding period of 1997-98 - based upon a
decision of MRG' s activist committee which included none other than Teresa
Enrico.
Kris Yates is another Co-Counselor who is heavily involved with SCI
activities, at one point in the early 90s serving as SCI Regional Coordinator.
"Dendron " features a full page article by Yates entitled "My Self-help
Program." RC' s website lists Yates as the editor of "Recovery and
Re-emergence" , which bills itself as being for "mental health system survivors
and others interested in mental health issues"- the same journal which
"Dendron" lists Foner as editing.
"Dendron " is primarily comprised of articles, ads and letters
denouncing psychiatric medicines, psychiatric hospitalization and psychiatry in
general. Patients are encouraged to go off their medications. A two-page spread
in the latest issue is entitled "An Introduction to Psychiatry" and proclaims:
"Psychiatry has one prognosis - agonized hopelessness and death guaranteed by
its deadly verbal and physical abuse. Psychiatry continues to torture, maim,
and kill millions of people."
In a letter published in "Psychiatric Services" and co-authored by
David Oaks and three others, RC's Janet Foner castigated (Dr. E. Fuller) Torrey
for his role in promoting psychiatric treatment. Although Foner identified
herself as a "psychiatric survivor,"she made no mention of her involvement with
Re-evaluation Counseling or the fact that she proposes that Co-Counseling
supplant all of psychiatry' s "current theories and practices".
When asked if he was aware of Foner' s involvement with Co-Counseling,
Torrey replied, "No. I just vaguely know her name."
Twenty-eight years old, blonde, tall and ethereally thin, Ashley
Sinclaire of Portland identifies herself as a psychiatric survivor and makes no
bones about the fact that she has an intense disliking for the psychiatric
profession. She is also extremely critical about both RC and SCI. The term she
uses is "evil."
"I first got into Support Coalition a couple of years ago, like late '
96,"Sinclaire recounts, "and they mention RC in the Support Coalition
materials. I was actually coming out of the mental health system. I went off
psychiatric drugs entirely all by myself; told absolutely no one until six
months later."
Initially impressed by SCI, Sinclaire arranged for David Oaks to speak
in Corvallis where she lived at the time. " Oaks actually offered to do some
peer-support counseling and I assumed he meant RC."She turned him down because
of her aversion to therapy of any kind.
Not everyone who comes into contact with RC is permanently ensnared. Sven
Bonnichsen is one young man who has rejected RC.
The 27-year-old president of the Portland Bisexual Alliance, Bonnichsen
is a graduate of Reed College with a degree in psychology. Bonnichsen' s
response to being asked about Re-evaluation Counseling is a surprisingly
forceful "Don' t get me started!" Bonnichsen became involved in RC while a
student at Reed College in Portland back in 1991 and 1992. He describes his
senior year in high school in Maine as " hell year"because of a series of
painful experiences which included the break-up of his parents' marriage.
Bonnichsen was looking for a way to resolve those issues when Co-Counselors
presented a workshop at Reed.
Bonnichsen was initially intrigued, then involved - and ultimately,
put off.
Part of RC' s attractiveness, according to Bonnichsen, is that it seems
to offer so much. "You have whole communities set up - phone lists,
appointments for Co-Counseling - you get a whole social circle."He also
asserts that RC "preys on people who are emotionally weak or needing others."
Bonnichsen can explain Co-Counseling in less than ten seconds. The
basic idea, he explains, is that "as you go through experiences in life you
experience \lquote distress,' and your mind gets a little less flexible, you
need to 'quote discharge' to be 'quote rational' . Emotional things like
raging, crying, trembling hands - sometimes it's very, very blatant, they just
sort of shake or yawn. They're discharging."
Then there' s the aspect of "charging" - money. According to
Bonnichsen, the initial workshop for training in Co-Counseling "starts off
low"- around $50. More advanced training, however, is much more expensive, and
"gets up to $200 to $500."
In 1993 Bonnischen came across an expose of Jackins and RC published a year
earlier by a Belgian organization called the Study Group on Psychotherapy
Cults.
Entitled "A Documentary History of the Career of Harvey Jackins and
Re-evaluation Counseling,"this 90-page report chronicles Jackins' involvement
in Dianetics in the early 50s as well as nearly two decades of accusations made
by former RCers that Jackins had sexually abused hundreds of female
Co-Counselors. Other publications have also reported these allegations, for
example, the September 2, 1981, "Seattle Sun" . The March 25, 1984, Sunday
"Seattle Times & Post Intelligencer" not only repeated the allegations but
cited specific followers of Jackins by name as "among the most vocal opponents
of recent efforts to license counselors"in Washington State.
Bonnischen' s contempt for Jackins' alleged behavior is obvious from
the expression on his face as he talks about it.
The lesbian and gay newsmagazine "Lavender Network" - based in the same town
of Eugene, Oregon as SCI - published an August issue edited by the SCI' s
Sarah Douglas entitled " Psychiatric Survivors: Embracing the Crazy in Queer."
In her article entitled "Milestones in Psychiatric Homophobia," Douglas
claimed 50,000 surgical sterilizations in the United States in the 1950s
"mostly applied to gay men."
Portland's Tom Cook is an independent gay historian and president of
the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest. He takes issue with
Douglas' claim as "a gross overstatement of the number of homosexuals
sterilized. In fact, most were the mentally retarded." Cook bases his
assessment on the fact that he conducted a thorough search of state and
hospital records specifically looking for evidence of sterilization.
Out of the anti-psychiatric issue of "Lavender Network " emerged a key
figure in the alliance between the anti-psychiatry and homosexual movements -
in the form of a lesbian and former mental patient named Lyn Duff.
Duff protested the National Women' s Studies Association conference in Saratoga
Springs, New York, alleging that the association received financial assistance
from a psychiatric hospital which the protesters claimed attempts to cure
homosexuality. The protest fell upon deaf ears, but that didn' t keep the
summer 1996 issue of "Dendron" from accusing the hospital of "numerous human
and civil rights abuses including forced drugging, overuse of seclusion rooms
and restraints, and homophobic treatment of gay inmates."
The tactic of denouncing the psychiatric profession for supposedly
waging war against one or another minority isn't unique to Re-evaluation
Counseling and SCI. Scientology' s anti-psychiatric Citizens Commission on
Human Rights, for example, distributes a booklet entitled "Creating Racism:
Psychiatry's Betrayal, "which features on its cover a full-color drawing of a
Black man bent beneath the weight of a giant ball-and-chain shackled to his
head. But organizations such as the NAACP haven't responded to such
heavy-handed propaganda.
(End of excerpt)
===============
Commentary:
The article did an excellent job of showing the financial ties between Support
Coalition and Re-evaluation Counseling, the off-shoot of Scientology. It showed
that Re-evaluation Counseling is not only funding Support Coalition, but
providing a co-director. The quid pro quo appears to be SCI's support of
Re-evaluation Counseling and the encouragment of consumers to join it.
Support Coalition is often correct when it points to the short-comings of the
mental health system, but is wrong when it proposes cults or going off
medicines as an alternative. Not only wrong, but dangerous. The suicide and
violence rates among people with mental illness off treatment far exceeds those
on it. Appropriate psychopharmacology, and a comprehensive range of continuous
consumer-centered support services offers a better, safer alternative to the
'stop medicine, join Re-evaluation Counseling' approach being advertised by
Support Coalition, Dendron, Mr. Oaks, and Re-evaluation Counseling.
We hope this information is useful to you as you evaluate your own future
treatments or advocacy efforts and as you evaluate the pronouncements of those
organizations. To improve the mental health system and/or for more information
on the treatment of mental illness call the National Alliance for the Mentally
Ill at 1 800 950 NAMI.
SHADOWDEMON
I work at Support Coalition International's main office in Eugene, Oregon,
and I'm here to respond to these allegations.
We are a human rights organization with 75 branches and sponsoring groups
all over the U.S. and in several other countries, led by psychiatric
survivors. We fight for the right to not be forcibly treated with
psychiatric drugs, ECT, etc.
We have absolutely no connection whatsoever to Scientology or the
Citizen's Commission on Human Rights.
Our organization is funded entirely by members and by grants from various
organizations; we receive no government funding.
In article <19980925214049...@ng49.aol.com>,
CARECLIENT <carec...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>David Oaks, Dendron, Support Coalition and the Cult Connection.
>
>INTRODUCTION
>
>PDXS, a prestigous Oregon newspaper ran a two part 11,000 word investigative
>report on a cult called Re-evaluation Counseling. It showed how members of
First of all, PDXS is hardly a prestigous newspaper. It is a weekly paper
with circulation limited, for the most part, to the Portland area.
>this cult which is a spin off from Scientology infiltrate progressive
Secondly, Re-evaluation Counseling is hardly a cult. It is simply a way
for people to meet together and express their feelings in a safe way.
The founder of RC has some strange ideas about homosexuality et al, but we
at SCI believe that each person is free to believe whatever they want.
I personally do not use RC or believe in its tenets, but I respect those
who do. SCI has members that are Christian, Jewish, Pagan, Buddhist,
Athiest, Moslem, et al.
We overlook our differences so that we can focus on what we agree on: that
forced drugging and shock are always wrong.
This article is merely an ad hominem attack on the beliefs of one board
member. The reason we print her articles and advertise her books is that
she finds re-evaluation counseling helpful, and so do several other
people. Why should we censor something that might save someone's life
because we don't neccessarily agree with all the facets of it?
No one in RC is forcing people to take part - unlike psychiatry. There are
no hospitals, no needles, no straitjackets, no solitary confinement, no
five-point restraints, or being dragged down the hall. If you don't like
RC, you can just get up, say "This fucking sucks", and leave. If you
decide you don't like psychiatry after being admitted to the hospital, you
can't leave - there are guards and magnetically locked doors and
restraints to keep you there so you WILL get "better."
>organizations and use their positions in these organizations to sell the
>teachings of Harvey Jackins, Re-evaluation Counseling's founder. These
>teachings, like those of Scientology are positioned as an alternative to
>psychiatry. Like Scientology, Re-evaluation Counseling opposes the use of
>medicines for mental illness. Like Scientology, Re-evaluation Counseling
>charges members. The cost of participating in Re-evaluation Counseling,
>"starts off low"- around $50. More advanced training, however, is much more
>expensive, and "gets up to $200 to $500."
Keep in mind, this is -training-, for people that are interested in
running an RC group. Taking part in one, e.g. talking with people,
basically peer support, is free.
>
>The second half of the article focused a lot of attention on how Support
>Coalition International functions as a sales tool for Re-evaluation Counseling.
You might more successfully argue that the National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill functions as a sales tool for the drug companies, who fund
NAMI extensively.
> The article notes that, Janet Forner, a leading member of Re-evaluation
>Counseling is co-coordinator, with David Oaks of Support Coalition. The story
>details Re-evalution Counseling's funding of Support Coalition and how Support
>Coalition's newspaper Dendron, which is edited by Mr. Oaks, works to funnel
This is an out-and-out lie. Support Coalition International has not
received one cent whatsoever from Re-evaluation Counseling. We have,
however, received grants from the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation,
which has some RC members. Their overall focus, however, is not
re-evaluation counseling.
>recipients of mental health services away from using medicines and towards the
>cult which funds his organization. The article did an excellent job of
>showing the financial ties and interlocking relationships between SCI and
>Re-evaluation Counseling.
We are pro-choice about psychiatric drugs. That is, if someone voluntarily
wishes to take a drug, that is their perogative. If they do not, they
should not be forced to.
David Oaks will post a more thorough response when he is finished writing
it.
David James
Managing Editor
Dendron
Support Coalition International
P.O. Box 11284
Eugene, OR
Support Coalition - David Oaks
RUMOR FOLLOW-UP
See the new thread:
"David Oaks, SCI & resisting psychiatry's force"
... for our response to the bizarre article flaming me
and our non-profit group, Support Coalition International.
Someone using the fake e-mail address <carec...@aol.com>
posted to this newsgroup with an article from a small
Portland paper, PDXS. As bad as the article is, the
poster twisted it even more, claiming it proves Support
Coalition gets funding directly from a group called RC.
(We do not and the article doesn't even bother to claim
this, read our response.)
Also, the anonymous poster claimed PDXS is "prestigious."
Actually, it's mainly a conspiracy zine that carries ads
for the sex industry, which is okay, but not exactly
"prestigious"!
The bottom line is that the actual article was by a person
who supports the current "mental health" system. We're
the group who broke the silence about forced electroshock,
forced psychiatric drugging, deaths from forced psychiatry,
and a WHOLE RANGE of alternatives to the mainstream
psychiatric system (nutritional, spiritual, wilderness,
peer support, etc.) That bugs some people.
We're open to the public, but led by survivors of the
psychiatric system, some of whom have been fighting for
human rights for more than two decades.
So check out our response on the subject line:
"David Oaks, SCI and RESISTING forced Psychiatry"
Or better, check out our organization yourself by getting a free
sample of our newsjournal Dendron, or signing up for our free
e-mailed human rights alerts. To get our occasional one-way human
rights alerts about the "mental health system," which we call
DENDRITE simply e-mail to List...@efn.org with the two words
subscribe dendrite
Sincerely in support,
David Oaks, co-coordinator
Support Coalition International
454 Willamette, Suite 216
PO Box 11284
Eugene, OR 97440-3484 USA
e-mail: den...@efn.org
ph: (541) 345-9106 fax: (541) 345-3737
web: www.efn.org/~dendron
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Support Coalition International is a non-profit alliance of 75
grassroots groups in 11 countries united to WIN campaigns for
for human rights & alternatives in the "mental health system."