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Podcast: Timesuck with Dan Cummins
Episode: 234 - The Elan School, the Cult of Synanon, and the Troubling Troubled Teen Industry
Description: Founded in 1974 by a man named Joe Ricci, the Elan School was supposed to be someplace where you could send your troubled teen so they could be rehabilitated and put back on the right track. But in reality, it was a cruel and chaotic nightmare where students were constantly being pressured to confess to things they’d done “wrong,” called “guilts,” which often were things as silly and not-wrong as having a crush on someone or smiling too much. At Elan, student was pitted against student in insane psychological mind-games and also pitted against each other physically. And most all of thi...