Born in Synanon Shows How the Infamous Cult Weaponized Substance Abuse Treatment

Synanon, the self-help rehabilitation center turned notorious cult that operated from the 1960s through the 1980s, was initially pitched as a refuge for people with substance abuse disorder. Back then, people in recovery didn't have many options for getting genuine treatment. As the interviewees for the new Paramount+ documentary series Born in Synanon recall, the alternatives were either jail or an asylum.

Like many (though not all) cults, there was a germ of virtue in Synanon's origin story. The group’s rise in the 1960s coincided with a time of great upheaval in American society, and its origins as a drug treatment program pointed to an honest desire to help people. And, as director Geeta Gandbhir and former Synanon member Cassidy Arkin learn through their many interviews, many former members do credit the organization and its founder Chuck Dederich with getting them clean.

Synanon's members handed over their life savings to the organization; they altered their bodies (in this case by shaving their heads and, for the men, getting vasectomies); they were coerced into romantic and sexual situations like group weddings and forced separations/remarriages. Over the course of several decades, the cult's grasp grew tighter and more threatening.

Whether it's sex cults like NXIVM or the pseudo-utopian Rajneeshpuram community depicted in Netflix's Wild Wild Country, the patterns of manipulation and abuse all start to echo one another. But each cult zeroed in on specific groups of vulnerable people. NXIVM and Scientology approached Type-A success junkies and status seekers, with a particular appeal to actors and creatives. New Age-y conspiracy theorists were drawn to Love Has Won. Twin Flames targeted lonely people online.

Cassidy Arkin, who was born inside the cult and experienced its lifestyle from the earliest of ages, embarks upon a series of interviews with former Synanon members, many of whom she grew up alongside, with a particular focus on her mother, Sandra Rogers-Hare. In these interviews, several former members speak candidly about what Synanon did to help them stay off drugs. "It wasn't a cult at all when I got involved. Basically it was a hardworking bunch of people who were trying to get dope fiends clean."

Dederich, who founded Synanon in 1958, offered a residential treatment program that helped people quit drugs cold turkey, then put them through a variety of therapeutic methods — some that veered closer to talk therapy, some that more confrontational, and all of which had various mantras. Dederich is said to have coined the phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your life," for example. Regardless of how things ended up, several of the people Arkin interviews express appreciation for the efforts. "I needed to be brainwashed," is how one man puts it. "My brain needed washing. A lot of brains needed washing."

People of color, as well as interracial couples (like Arkin's parents), were able to take refuge from a country that was rife with political and racial tensions. Several of Arkin's interview subjects talk about how, for all of the cult's flaws, they didn't face racist threats or have a home loan denied or get called racist slurs, the way they did in a supposedly polite society.

These more positive aspects of Synanon only make the victimization of its members more tragic. Jim Jones and the People's Temple operated within the same general sphere as Synanon in the Bay Area, and Jones too saw his organization as a kind of racially diverse utopia, only to in the end betray those values to self-serving and ultimately murderous ends.

Dederich’s tactics echoed those of many other cult leaders, including Jones, his 1960s California contemporary — taking advantage of people who genuinely sought self-improvement and a supportive community, and perverting those desires into fraud, predation, and abuse.

Synanon employed classic cult procedures, including dehumanization through regimented terminology (categorizing members as "squares" or "dope fiends”). And then there was the Game, which came to be Synanon's signature feature. A round-robin bull session which allowed members to hurl verbal abuse at each other in order to air out differences or confront members on their shortcomings, is recalled by the former members with a kind of wide-eyed wonder. You can almost imagine how such a practice could be a kind of extreme attack-therapy that could yield some good results. But the more the film gets into how the Game was used — including sessions that ran as long as 72 hours and some involving children — it all just circles back to abuse.

Gandbhir and Arkin hang back and let their interview subjects arrive at their own conclusions about their own lives. There are no attempts to lean into one particular thesis about Synanon. As a result, the docuseries comes across as a well-considered memory piece. The filmmakers get real insight from their interview subjects, who all seem to still be processing that time of their lives and how it impacted them. The documentary also benefits from archival film footage of Synanon activities, including the Game, which (as is the case in some many cult documentaries) makes you wonder why these organizations seem to insist on providing the most damning evidence against themselves.

What was not always so apparent, even to the former members of Synanon themselves, was how dark things got with the children. Arkin speaks to several other people who grew up, like she did, within the confines of Synanon, and through these discussions, as well as printed records from the organization, Synanon's practices of corporal punishment come to light. It's hard to watch some of the parents who had children within Synanon reckon with the abuse their kids suffered at the hands of the cult, abuse which included spankings, verbal abuse, humiliation, and in certain cases injury. It's in these moments that Born in Synanon feels like therapy for the interviewees, while at the same time making the audience feel like uncomfortable voyeurs. It's good that these wounds are being examined, but it's painful too.

Born in Synanon premieres December 12th on Paramount+. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.