Daytop Philosophy

Daytop, or Daytop Village, is a drug addiction treatment organization with facilities in New York and New Jersey. It was founded in 1963 by Dr. Daniel Casriel M.D along with Monsignor William B. O'Brien a Roman Catholic priest and founder and the president of the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities. According to Dr. Casriel its name was originally an acronym for 'Drug Addicts Treated on Probation' as Daytop was originally a kind of "halfway house" for convicted addicts. Another account gives the name to be an acronym for "Drug Addicts Yield to Persuasion". The Daytop program, one of the oldest drug-treatment programs in the United States, emphasizes the role of peer interaction in their modes of treatment. Considered one of the most successful programs of its kind, it is described as "a supportive emotional community in which people feel secure but at the same time are held strictly accountable for their behavior". (from Wikipedia)

Today, the Daytop Philosophy has been adapted by various Therapeutic Communities in the Philippines as TC Philosophy and has been widely accepted not only by different drug rehabilitation centers but by the Parole and Probation Office and even the different detention facilities in the country like jails manned by the BuCor and the BJMP. In fact the Theraputic Community Modality Program has been adapted by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology as a model in the implementation of its Inmates Welfare and Development Program.

I would like to share the Daytop Philosophy or TC Philosophy to you, who is reading this blog right now, and I hope that you could get some inspiration from it, as much as I did.

I am here because there is no refuge,

finally from myself.

Until I confront myself in the eyes

and hearts of others, I am running.

Until I suffer them to know my secrets,

I have no safety from them.

Afraid to be known,

I can know neither myself nor any other,

I will be alone.

Where else but in our common ground,

can I find such a mirror?

Here, together, I can at last appear clearly to myself,

not as a giant of my dreams, nor the dwarf of my fears,

but as a person, part of the whole,

with my share in its purpose.

In this ground I can take root and grow,

not alone any more, as in death,

but alive to myself and to others.

by Richard Beauvais

Photo