Synanon: The Game

A game to overcome addiction, cult brainwashing and the links to the Troubled Teen Industry

Synanon was an experimental community that aspired to create a utopian society where everyone was welcomed. On January 15th, 2025, we published an article covering its salacious history. Charles Dederich started Synanon to save drug addicts and alcoholics because he thought alternative programs were not sufficiently helpful. In a short time, Synanon changed and sought to become a utopia where former addicts and non-addicts could live in harmony. This week, we will explore Synanon’s Game and this center’s legacy.

Rod Janzen has argued that Dederich managed “to provide help to thousands of people who were searching for a more meaningful life. But he wreaked havoc on the lives of thousands of others–sometimes the same people.” (Janzen, 2001). 

The Game

Dederich was an alcoholic who was allegedly saved by Alcoholics Anonymous. When he moved to San Diego, he found there was no AA group and decided to start one. He was quickly disillusioned because he felt that the traditional AA approach allowed attendees to avoid addressing the root cause of their addiction by hiding their problems. Thus, he devised what would eventually be known as Synanon: The Game.

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The Game from Synanon.com

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“Regardless of when they were there, former members believed almost universally that the game had transformative effects. Although many disliked alterations instituted in later years, and many came to believe it was detrimental to the human spirit, most felt that the game was remarkably powerful” (Janzen, p. 15, 2001)

Dederich sought to modify AA’s approach and create an environment that would encourage honesty and indictments to “attack hypocrisy and fraud” (Janzen, 2001). He experimented quite a bit. The game was meant to be played three times a week by eight to fifteen people for two to three hours. During these sessions, players would be encouraged to share stories, and open themselves to analysis. The game was about  “interpersonal issues, work patterns, and individual’s emotions and idiosyncrasies” (Janzen, 2001). 

During the game participants were encouraged to attack each other’s specific behaviors rather than an individual (Janzen, 2001). The game was characterized by “attack and defense” which  “were the primary modus operandi” (Janzen, p. 13, 2001). During the game, everyone could attack and everyone could defend. The idea was that participants would no longer be able to lie and hide their issues. 

The confrontational nature of the game and the use of peer pressure to break players down, is a salient feature of Synanon. Some observers, including Janzen, have argued that this innovative therapeutic tool birthed the troubled teen industry and similar treatment centers for adults. Some Synanite members would go on and start their own treatment programs. Marcus Chatfield (2024), a historian, has convincingly demonstrated that this kind of confrontational therapy predates Synanon and was known as Guided Group Therapy. 

Dederich allowed himself to be gamed by Synanites for almost all of Synanon’s history. He boasted about playing for hours, and would encourage others to listen to taped games where he endured. However, in the 1970s, he also started to dole out consequences for statements made during the game (Janzen, 2001). Near Synanon’s end, Dederich forbade others from gaming him (Janzen, 2001). 

Cult Brainwashing? & Fears of Mind Control

Synanon was admittedly weird, and when it applied to become a religious institution, the public quickly began seeing it as a brainwashing cult. Dederich’s response was unexpected, he said, “brainwashing is a very apt term. We get very dirty brains”. In effect, Synanon required the slow replacement of individual value systems for communal ones (Janzen, 2001). At other times, Dederich claimed to offer “psychic surgery” (Janzen, 2001). 

Janzen has argued that Synanon’s claim to be religious was more about maintaining their tax exempt status than about religion. When Synanon began they only treated addicts and thus were able to successfully apply for a tax exemption. As its membership grew and expanded to others, the Government became suspicious of its status. Synanon lawyers felt that becoming a religion would allow them to avoid tax exposure. This was ultimately unsuccessful and the Government levied back taxes. It also harmed Synanon’s reputation because it was easier for the public to see them as a cult.

In the 1950s there was widespread belief that psychiatry was on the cusp of developing tools by which one person could dominate another. These concerns were aggravated by American prisoners of war who publicly supported North Korea (Janzen, 2001). Some Americans even chose to remain in North Korea after their release. Seeing this kind of alleged betrayal, and American soldiers admitting to engaging in fictional war crimes, sent shock waves through the nation. Even those who were skeptical of the psychiatrist's arsenal, thought that the field was on the verge of making mind control possible. On the other hand there were strong critics like Elliot Valenstein who argued that these fears were unwarranted, and the mental sciences were nowhere close to being able to control other people’s minds.

Synanon women with shaved heads. Source.

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Ties to the Troubled Teen Industry

Even today, there are many places that claim to transform troubled individuals into healthy citizens. Synanon was among the first and continues to be one of the most notorious of such places. Maia Salavitz and others have argued that Synanon spawned the troubled teen industry (Salavitz). Like Chatfield, we think that both Synanon and these other institutions have deeper roots which we have explored elsewhere. 

There are some undeniable connections to the Troubled Teen Industry, as several institutions were founded by former Synanites. For example, NYC Daytop Lodge, Phoenix House, San Francisco’s Delaney Street, Walden House, and Amity, Inc all have direct connections to Synanon. John Stallone, a former Synanite, instituted a version of Synanon’s Game that is more strongly focused on peacemaking. Stallone directed a program at Corcoran State Prison established through a collaboration of Walden House and Phoenix House. Janzen argued that Synanon still has an effect on therapeutic communities (Janzen, 2001). 

It is also significant to note that these centers enacted modifications of Synanon’s approach. There are also stark differences between how these places operated, and what their goal was. Most troubled teen centers continued to argue that teens under their care will be able to go back into the world, whereas Synanon sought to establish more permanent residency. These kinds of programs were successful because, as we have argued elsewhere, they offered sciency solutions to social problems at a time where these kinds of solutions seemed plausible. 

Conclusions

Dederich sustained that some brains needed washing. We think that this is a dangerous position to take, as who makes these determinations, and how do we even begin to determine if a brain is dirty. More saliently, the allure of Synanon and other behavior modification programs reveals that we are starved for solutions to perceived social problems. The accusations of brainwashing and the nervousness about groups like Synanon, suggests that the public thought such interventions could potentially succeed in remaking people. Dederich seemed to have had good intentions, at least at first. Slowly, Synanon turned into a money making machine and its leader grew more despotic.

Much of what happened at Synanon II and much of what is remembered stains Synanon’s origins and complex history. The return of violence and alcohol were decisions that harmed Synanites. The attacks and the conspiracy to murder a lawyer for investigating them are rightly condemnable. Nevertheless, these later decisions should not fully erase the “amazing accomplishment, rarely duplicated, to create a mini society in which thousands of addicts and nonaddicts, loved together peacefully and productively” (Janzen, 2001). This success does not excuse Synanon’s descend into chaos. When Synanon was falling, American society had grown “less tolerant of social and religious experiments”  (Janzen, 2001).

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There is one more thing… 

Dederich had Synanon create thousands of hours of recordings because he insisted that “Synanon’s gives significant attention to the spoken word and to visual representations of the community’s people and properties. Many of the written pieces are transcriptions of taped experiences or reactions to them. This is because Chuck Dederich thought ideas transferred to print lost their sense of immediacy and power; they were dried out, over intellectualized, and fossilized human thought.” (Janzen, p.8, 2001). These archives can be found at UCLA. 

Sources

Rod Janzen. The Rise and Fall of Synanon: A California Utopia. 2001. Johns Hopkins University Press. 

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