TeenScreen's PR machine got an article published in
the Las Vegas Sun newspaper. The fine people of Las
Vegas have thus been deluged with false data on
TeenScreen, screening in general and the opposition to
it.
It's now our responsibility to set it right.
Need some letters.
This is a pretty crappy article with really no
redeeming qualities. If you'd rather not read it, then
don't. Write your letter using any one of the points
of this petition to prove that TeenScreen is bad news:
www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html
If your last name ends in T, put the petition link in
your letter.
Send your letter to letters@lasvegassun.com
If you do read the letter, then pick out some huge
outpoint and attack it very thoroughly. Use documents
if you have them. Don't cut them any slack at all. And
if I were you I would personally attack and insult the
reporter who is just a TeenScreen stooge.
If your last name ends in M-P, I suggest that you
attack this point, the final statement in the letter,
"The alternative is doing nothing, and how many
children has that helped?"
You can attack that a dozen ways. First off, doing
nothing is not the only choice. You can get kids
healthy, give them a safe school environment, keep
them away from drugs, and put in some good instruction
so they will actually learn. Also, doing nothing has
helped billions, I'd say. Children grew up and lived
productive lives long before psychiatry's intrusive
ways. And curiously, only the ones treated by
psychiatry ever seem to commit suicide. I'd say "doing
nothing" is a fine alterative to TeenScreen.
Have fun with this one.
Report compliance by email.
Thank you,
Doyle
_____________________
THE ARTICLE:

Las Vegas Sun
Should schools be testing students' mental health?
August 07, 2006
By Emily Richmond
Is there room in our classrooms for what health
experts argue is the most important of all tests? One
that might tell a parent that a child is depressed,
maybe suicidal?
Those tests are being given now in Clark County. The
answers students give are considered indicators of a
problem, not hard evidence. But health professionals -
and even students - say the tests could be invaluable.
Mark Johnson, a junior at Green Valley High School,
said while he considers himself well adjusted, some of
his peers may be struggling. If a questionnaire could
direct them to help, he said it's worth
inconveniencing him with filling out yet another form.
"There's probably people walking around our school
depressed every day, and I don't even know it," he
said. "They may not even know they have a problem."
To some advocates, it's no different than checking a
child's eyesight with a wall chart in the nurse's
office, or demanding a student athlete have a physical
exam before football tryouts.
But some critics wonder whether the questionnaire
crosses the line. Are schools responsible for teaching
teenagers how to drive? How to not get pregnant?
How about whether schools should identify which
children are quietly suffocating in depression?
Joe Enge, a Nevada teacher since 1988, doesn't think
that's a school's business.
Screening teenagers in school for mental health
problems can backfire, he says. What if a healthy
student is misidentified as at risk of suicide,
wrongly stigmatized as mentally ill? What then?
That's why schools have no business allowing students
to be asked questions about their mental health.
And that's his argument - even as Clark County is
about to expand - to double - the number of schools
that do just that.
Clark County is the largest district in the nation
that subscribes to Columbia TeenScreen, which uses
questionnaires as the first step toward evaluating an
adolescent's mental health.
Parents must give permission for their children to
participate in mental health screening, which was
administered to ninth graders in Clark County last
year. Questions include, "How often have you felt sad
or depressed? Have you often felt grouchy or
irritable? Have you thought seriously about killing
yourself?"
The Clark County School District allowed the screening
in 10 high schools last year as part of a pilot study.
With a $1.2 million federal grant, the number of
participating schools will double this year.
Nevada has one of the nation's highest rates of
suicide for young adults. Of high schoolers who took
part in a statewide survey, 16 percent said they had
seriously considered killing themselves.
But Enge, chairman of the activist group EdWatch
Nevada, said mental health screenings don't work for
teenagers. He is particularly opposed to the
TeenScreen program , which was developed by Columbia
University.
"Schools should be in the business of educating our
children instead of probing each for unscientific
mental disorders that will lead to false diagnoses,"
Enge wrote to the State Board of Education about a
week ago.
The false diagnoses will lead to a lifetime stigma and
"treatment with dangerous and ineffective psychiatric
medications," Enge said.
Education and health officials say the criticism is
misguided. Gary Waters, a member of the state Board of
Education, said the purpose of the screenings is to
identify students who may be floundering emotionally.
"This is a catch-and-release program - it's not about
diagnosis or treatment," said Waters, a licensed
therapist who holds a master's degree in social work.
"Participation is voluntary, and it's entirely up to
parents whether or not they choose to act on the
information we provide them."
Parents are provided with a list of social services
that offer counseling and clinical intervention, but
the TeenScreen program does not provide services
beyond the initial questionnaire and follow-up
interviews.
In the 2005-06 academic year, 7,743 freshmen at 10
high schools were screened with parental approval, an
84 percent participation rate. Of the students
screened, 621 came up "positive," indicating a
possible need for mental health services, and were
assessed individually. Of those students, 357 were
recommended for further mental health services.
Of the 219 parents surveyed after their child took
part in the screening, all but 45 said they
appreciated the heads-up. Of the parents who declined
to give permission for the screening, the majority
said they did not believe their child needed the
service, or their child did not want to participate.
Dylan Frantz, a senior at Boulder City High School,
said he doubted he would have taken the questionnaire
seriously as a freshman. But he had no problem with
screening students, provided the results weren't
shared with classroom teachers.
"If kids think their teacher's going to give them
special attention, they're not going to answer
honestly," Frantz said. "But maybe if you actually
need help, this way you could get it."
Nevada is one of 12 states to receive the nation's
first-ever suicide prevention grants. They received
bipartisan support in Congress, and infuriated
conservative groups like the Rutherford Institute and
the Eagle Forum.
Columbia TeenScreen says it has no ties to
pharmaceutical companies, one of the chief rallying
cries of its detractors. (Several years ago a
Tennessee agency took a $7,500 donation from industry
giant Eli Lilly to pay for screenings, something
that's no longer allowed by the national program.)
Enge, a fellow with the Nevada Policy Research
Institute, filed a complaint with the state ethics
commission against the Board of Education, claiming
TeenScreen exceeds the limits of the state's standards
for health curriculum.
"If a kid has problems, a teacher knows the kid best
and can refer them to a counselor where, with the
parent's consent, something can be done," said Enge,
who has most recently taught at Carson City High
School.
Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles-based child
psychologist who specializes in adolescent trauma,
disagreed.
"Teachers see 40 kids in one class, five times a day.
We can't expect them to catch every warning sign, or
even to know what all of them are," said Butterworth,
whose wife teaches in public school. "With depression
there can be problems sleeping, low energy and loss of
appetite - all things that show up long after the
school day's over."
And sometimes there are no outward signs of trouble,
which is what makes screenings even more valuable,
mental health experts say.
"When a kid kills themselves, the parents say, 'We had
no idea,' " Butterworth said.
Bruce Johnson, who has three daughters in addition to
son Ryan, said he would probably support screenings,
provided the information was not used by the district
to label or stigmatize students.
He questioned whether the results were going to the
right people.
"Some of these kids are troubled because of an unhappy
home life," Johnson said. "You're giving the results
to parents who may be the source of the problems and
saying, 'Fix it.' "
Enge says at best programs like TeenScreen are
intrusive, and at worst, inaccurate.
They cite a study several years ago that quoted David
Shaffer, the Columbia researcher who developed the
program's questionnaire, as saying it incorrectly
identified teens as suicidal 84 percent of the time.
"There's no way you can test for suicide, particularly
with teenagers," Enge said. "It's the end of the world
one day when they break up with a boyfriend, and
they're on top of the world the next day."
While a high percentage of students might erroneously
be flagged as having suicidal tendencies, the
screening is designed to catch warning signs of other
disorders as well, said Leslie McGuire, executive
director of Columbia TeenScreen. When the screening
results are expanded to include depression and drug
abuse, the "false positive" rate drops to 19 percent.
That means in 81 percent of the cases, warnings that
showed up in the student's written questionnaire bore
out in follow-up interviews with counselors.
"This is not just about suicide prevention, it's a
broad mental health checkup," McGuire said. "We give
kids a voluntary, safe and confidential way to talk
about these things, and then connect their parents
with someone who can help them."
Butterworth said the success and failure rates are
beside the point.
"Even if it's a low number, isn't it worth it?"
Butterworth said. "The alternative is doing nothing,
and how many children has that helped?"
++
Letters to the editor: letters@lasvegassun.com
Petition:

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This is another pretty good article. It does have some
false data but it definitely forwards the true data as
well.
Your assignment is to read the article and send a
clear, concise letter to the editor at
letters@projo.com
You can write what you want but I suggest that you
pick out one true datum and write about how much you
agree with it or pick out one false datum and prove
that it is wrong. If you need more info about
TeenScreen, click on
www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html
If your last name ends in J-N, put the link to the
TeenScreen petition in your letter -

Here's the article:

TEXT AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE
And, as always, report compliance by email.
Best,
Doyle
___________________
ARTICLE TEXT:
Debate heats up over screening teens for suicide risk
A growing number of U.S. schools are screening
teenagers for suicidal tendencies or signs of mental
illness, triggering a debate between those who seek to
reduce the toll of youthful suicides and others who
say the tests are unreliable and intrude on family
privacy.
The trend is being aggressively promoted by those who
say screening can reduce the tragedy of the more than
1,700 suicides committed by children and adolescents
each year in the United States. Many of the most
passionate supporters have lost children to suicide --
among them Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., whose son
Garrett died in 2003.
One screening program, TeenScreen, has been
administered to more than 150,000 children in 42
states. New York plans to start screening 400,000
children a year, and the federal government is
directing tens of millions of dollars to expand
screening nationwide.
Use of the psychological evaluations is growing even
though there is little hard evidence that they prevent
suicides. A panel of government experts concluded two
years ago that the evidence to justify suicide
screening was weak.
The growing use of screening has coincided with a
rapid increase in the number of youngsters being
prescribed powerful anti-psychotic medications such as
Risperdal and Zyprexa that have not been specifically
approved for use by children.
Proponents say screening is no different from having
health checkups or visiting a dentist, and that the
potential benefits are incalculable. After Smith's son
killed himself, the Republican bucked the objections
of conservative groups to push into a law an $82
million effort to expand programs such as TeenScreen.
Because suicide victims often turn out to have had
mental disorders such as depression and bipolar
disorder, David Shaffer of Columbia University, who
developed the TeenScreen questionnaire, and other
specialists say identifying and treating youngsters
with such disorders may reduce the number of suicides.
__________________________________________________
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Crew,
This is actually a pretty good article. The subject of
the article is the controversy of TeenScreen. And who
forwards the controversy? We do! So take a win on what
we've done so far and resolve to keep up the fight
until TeenScreen is a side note in the history books
alongside apartheid, slavery, and bloodletting.
Heres your assignment:
1. Read the article at

29/-1/NEWS
(Text at the bottom of this email)
2. Write a letter to the editor and send it to
letters@poconorecord.com
You can write what you want but I have some
suggestions:
- Pick out one part of the article that you strongly
agree with or strongly disagree with and write your
letter on just that one subject. Dont try to
summarize everything thats bad with TeenScreen in one
letter.
- If you need more hatting on why TeenScreen is bad
news, click on www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html
- A few of us should viciously attack this one point:
Dr. Camaerei states, we don't diagnose, treat or
medicate anyone or recommend any treatment but then
in the next paragraph she states, we suggest to the
students and their families that they be referred to
other MENTAL HEALTH experts... They clearly do
recommend treatment, as they channel the kids toward
mental health treatment, omitting any other
beneficial treatment such as medical doctors,
nutritionists, allergists, tutoring, or religious
programs.
- If your last name ends in A-B, J-M, or S-T, I would
like you to send a copy to newsroom@poconorecord.com
- If your last name ends in B-E, or T-Z, put the link
to the TeenScreen petition in your letter.

3. Report compliance by email.
Thank you!
Doyle
______________________
ARTICLE TEXT:
Eburg TeenScreen program faces backlash
Andrew Scott
Pocono Record Writer
August 05, 2006
STROUDSBURG  Monroe County coordinators of
TeenScreen, a program started by Columbia University
to offer screenings to high school students for
symptoms of problems that can lead to suicide, are not
immune to organized national opposition to the
program.
Many parents, some mental health experts and others
across the country say TeenScreen falsely diagnoses
children with depression and other problems leading to
suicide. They say the program then prescribes or
"pushes" ineffective antidepressants and other drugs
on these children so that pharmaceutical companies can
profit.
Also prevalent is concern over whether TeenScreen
actually helps put self-destructive thoughts in
children's heads with screening questionnaires
reportedly asking, "Have you ever tried or thought
about trying suicide?"
continued below
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Created last year, the "Stop TeenScreen's Unscientific
and Experimental 'Mental Health Screening' of American
School Children" online petition so far has collected
more than 8,000 signatures nationwide. The petition
can be found at

"It would be more beneficial for parents to actually
talk to their teenagers on a daily basis....and make
them feel like they have a family than to screen these
kids like test subjects," Judy Aron of Connecticut
wrote this week in an e-mail to the Pocono Record,
echoing public observation that there is no concrete
proof of the program successfully reducing the suicide
rate among teens.
The e-mail was in response to a recent article about a
17-year-old Pocono Mountain High School graduate who
apparently shot and killed herself in her Canadensis
home. The article mentioned that Sara Camaerei, a
Stroudsburg doctor of psychology, and others brought
TeenScreen to Monroe County in response to a rash of
earlier student suicides at that same school.
Pocono Mountain, Pleasant Valley, Stroudsburg and East
Stroudsburg high schools and the Monroe Career and
Technical Institute last year took part in TeenScreen.
So far, East Stroudsburg and MCTI, the two most active
participants, are the only schools continuing with the
program this fall. East Stroudsburg has entered a
contract with program coordinators while MCTI has
received grant money to continue for another year.
"We want to clear up a lot of public misconception
about what the program does and how it operates,"
Camaerei said.
The program is aimed at ninth-graders, since that's
the age at which children are most likely to start
showing symptoms of depression, anxiety and other
problems that can lead to suicide, Camaerei said.
"First, we're not affiliated with the pharmaceutical
industry," she said. "Second, we don't 'screen.' We
'offer screenings.'
"The screenings are voluntary, not mandatory,"
Camaerei said. "We need both the signed consent of the
parent and the signed assent of the student before we
administer a screening. And we double-check signatures
that look forged by verifying with the parents."
There are various versions of screening questionnaires
with different questions on each version, but all are
confidential, she said. No one in the public is
supposed to know what any of the questions are unless
the information is spread by those administering the
screenings which is illegal or by students who have
been through the process.
"Third and probably most important, we don't diagnose,
treat or medicate anyone or recommend any treatment,"
Camaerei said. "We look for symptoms of depression,
anxiety and other problems that can lead to suicide.
"If we find what we believe to be such symptoms, we
suggest to the students and their families that they
be referred to other mental health experts out in the
community for further evaluation," she said. "Those
other experts will then make the final determination
on whether a student does have problems and how to
treat them. If medication is needed, only a licensed
psychiatrist can prescribe it."
She added that experts are willing to work on a
sliding-scale basis with families based on their
finances and that uninsured families are referred to
Monroe County Mental Health Resources.
"We researched TeenScreen when it was introduced to us
and our staff did an excellent job in laying the
groundwork for our students to understand what it is
and how it works," said Dr. Douglas Arnold, assistant
superintendent of the East Stroudsburg School
District. "We're very supportive of anything that
seems like it can genuinely benefit our students.
That's why we've entered the contract with Dr.
Camaerei and her staff."
The East Stroudsburg district will pay TeenScreen
coordinators to offer screenings on a quarterly basis
to ninth-graders at its South and North high schools.
The cost to the district is not to exceed $3,200 a
year, Arnold said.
"I'm not sure how all the public misconception got
started," Camaerei said. "The rules are pretty clear
as to how the program is supposed to be run. It might
be that school districts in other counties or states
vary in how they do it, but we here in Monroe go
pretty much by the book."
__________________________________________________
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This one is for California residents only. Sorry to
leave the rest of you out.
Our subject this time is Narconon, a little off the
usual operating basis.
Here's the article we're writing about:
DATE: Sunday, 7/23/2006
URL:
HEADLINE: Proposed drug center raises concern
Other Narconon treatment sites have been cited for
violations BY ALEX DOBUZINSKIS, Staff Writer
In your letter, do not mention Scientology or
religion.
What you want to do is give them a bigger story, like
the widespread drug AND alcohol abuse are in Santa
Clarita and surrounding areas, or questioning why
anyone would try and stop someone from dealing with
the drug problem. In other words turn the attention
elsewhere.
Here is one fact for you: Palmdale (the nearest city
to the proposed Narconon) was recently referred to in
the British press as "known for its meth labs".  (URL:
 The
region is rife with drug abuse and could use not one
but many Narconons.
You can search the net for "Palmdale drug abuse" if
you need more to write about.
Send your letter to dnforum@dailynews.com. Flip a
coin. If it comes out heads, send a copy to the
reporter at alex.dobuzinskis@dailynews.com
And report compliance by email.
Thanks,
Doyle
__________________________
ARTICLE TEXT:
Proposed drug center raises concern
Other Narconon treatment sites have been cited for
violations
BY ALEX DOBUZINSKIS, Staff Writer
LEONA VALLEY - An organization with ties to the Church
of Scientology that wants to open a drug treatment
center in Bouquet Canyon was cited for dozens of
violations by state inspectors within the last five
years, according to documents.
The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will vote
on whether to allow Narconon International to open a
66-bed facility near Leona Valley.
Narconon runs four treatment facilities in the state.
At the Newport Beach facility, state inspectors found
in January 2003 that staff members administered
medication to residents without authorization and had
alcohol on the premises. In February 2003, state
inspectors found two staff members at Narconon's
Watsonville facility went drinking with a graduating
resident from the program.
Clark Carr, the head of Narconon, said the two were
fired and his organization has corrected the other
problems and violations that have been found at
Narconon facilities.
"We completely agree with strict standards and
unannounced surprise inspections," Carr said. "We're
glad to have them."
Another violation state Department of Alcohol and Drug
Programs inspectors found at Narconon facilities was
beds without mattress pads, including an inspection at
the Newport Beach facility in November 2004, that
found 24 beds without pads.
Carr said he was unsure why the pads might have been
missing, but he said that problem had been corrected
as well.
Narconon was created 40 years ago and uses the
writings of L. Ron Hubbard, late founder of the Church
of Scientology, to treat addicts. Instead of
administering drugs, the program puts addicts on a
regimen of vitamins, including niacin, and has them
"sweat out" toxins with time in the sauna.
"We've been doing it for decades in California and
throughout the United States and the world, and we
have a very good record," Carr said.
Sheriff Lee Baca has expressed support for Narconon
going into the Bouquet Canyon site. Although the
sheriff said he has not visited a Narconon facility,
he has been briefed on the program and he liked what
he heard.
"This is America's No. 1 health problem, illegal drug
use, and to a certain extent legal drug use, including
alcohol," Baca said. "So I'm an advocate for any
program that can help people get away from drugs and
their addiction to drugs. That's why I support it."
But the Narconon approach to fighting drugs has been
questioned by outside experts. Narconon has a program
to educate schoolchildren about drugs, which the
California Department of Education evaluated last year
and found wasn't based on science or medicine.
Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public
instruction, asked that schools not use the Narconon
program, but Carr said the program is still taught at
schools at the request of on-site administrators.
Advertisement
The inaccurate information given to students included
that drugs burn up vitamins and nutrients, and that
small amounts of drugs are stored in fat and are
released at a later time, making the person want to
use the drug again, according to the education
department report.
"The materials I've seen in their brochures would
suggest to me that the treatment that they provide
certainly is not in line with current scientific
thinking about addiction," said professor Richard
Rawson, associate director of Integrated Substance
Abuse Programs at the University of California, Los
Angeles.
"Some of the use of vitamins and saunas and all of
those things certainly may be good general health
practices, but they have nothing to do with the
effective treatment of addiction as far as any
literature has ever demonstrated."
If the county Board of Supervisors approves the
Narconon facility for Bouquet Canyon, it would be the
largest Narconon facility in California.
The county Regional Planning Commission in March
approved the project, but Supervisor Michael D.
Antonovich called for the Board of Supervisors to hear
the matter after hearing concerns about the project.
Several residents in the rural area oppose the
project, citing safety concerns from addicts going in
and out. Residents also feel that Narconon has tried
to bully them to drop their opposition.
Ron and Sherry Howell, who live near the former
boarding school site that would be used for the
project, received a letter from an attorney for
Narconon in January telling them to stop attacking the
project or face legal consequences. They received the
letter after submitting their written opposition to
the project to the county Department of Regional
Planning, and after Sherry Howell had written a letter
to a local newspaper.
"It tells us that we're dealing with somebody that
doesn't care what they do to people to intimidate
them, to shut them up," Ron Howell said.
Alice Benoit, who would be living near the facility,
also feels that Narconon has targeted opponents of the
project, including herself.
"They kind of like invade our Town Council meetings
and shout us down," she said.
alex.dobuzinskis@dailynews.com
(661) 257-5253
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Need a quick TeenScreen comment.

01/610070349/1983
Click on the above link and read the short article
which mentions TeenScreen.
Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and write
your comments.
You can write what you want. If you need hatting go to
www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html
I do have a request though. If your last name ends in
A-B, J-M or T-Z, include the TeenScreen petition link
in your letter. Here's the link

And if your last name ends in C, H or S, I'd like you
to also write an email to the reporter. Tell him to
dig a little deeper next time, to find out the full
truth about TeenScreen or something like that.
And report compliance by email.
Thank you,
Doyle
__________________________________________________
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Crew,
This petition is really going like gangbusters! Almost
6000 names and growing, in just over two weeks!
We have to keep that momentum going.
Send this link to everyone you know:

Tell them all to sign it and pass it on! Thank them
for signing it if they already have.
Yes, I know you've done it before but I promise you
that many of them have not signed it yet.
This petition will be a huge tool in the war for human
rights if we keep growing those numbers!
Also, find some new addresses to send this to. You
must have some other friends, relatives, co-workers or
acquaintences who you haven't communicated with
lately.
Get onto a local "forum" or "message board" in your
area and post the petition. Here's how you do that: Go
to www.yahoo.com and search for FORUM and YOUR TOWN. I
searched FORUM and POUGHKEEPSIE and got this
 just
to show you an example. Sign up as a member and start
a new topic about "Parental rights" or "Stop mental
health screening" and tell your neighbors about the
petition. Take a look at whether there have been
postings on the board recently. If no one has written
anything on it in a month, move on and find a better
one.
If you're in the San Franscisco area, I would like you
to get on this message board, if you can:

It may only be for alumni of Columbia University, not
sure if you can get on it.
And report compliance by email.
Much love,
Doyle
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I hope all of you know what the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is. If
not, go to www.cchr.org, search for the term and get
hatted.
You may also want to read:

It has an interesting perspective on the DSM.
The DSM is the perfect target for attack. It is the
stable datum of all psychiatry as practiced today. If
we discredit and eventually eliminate the DSM,
psychiatry itself is on very shaky ground.
A very good article was published this week in the
Baltimore Sun. See link and text below.
Write a powerful letter to the editor and send it to
letters@baltsun.com
Applaud them for getting out the truth. Or just use
the opportunity to make some true statements about how
psychiatry is not scientific, not a branch of
medicine, or about how their disorders are fraudulent.
If your last name begins with C or P, mention Tom
Cruise, in passing. Don't make your letter about
Cruise but throw in a phrase like "just like Tom
Cruise said" or a sentence like "Tom Cruise is right".
It's very good that articles like this are telling the
truth. It's unheard of. We should celebrate and
contribute to the motion!
Once you've written and sent your letter, report
compliance by email.
Thank you!
Doyle
____________________
ARTICLE:

tory
The Baltimore Sun
July 17, 2006 Monday
Behaving badly has disorder to call its own;
Ever-growing list of mental illnesses met by
skepticism
CHRIS EMERY, SUN REPORTER
When researchers announced that 16 million Americans
who fly into occasional fits of unwarranted rage may
suffer from a mental illness called "intermittent
explosive disorder," the diagnosis drew its share of
hoots and howls.
"Your grandmother would say these are bad folks who
can't control their temper, and she would be right,"
said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, an outspoken schizophrenia
expert alarmed by the ever-expanding list of behaviors
and attitudes branded as illnesses.
Torrey and other critics point to the volume that
doctors use to determine mental illness, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
as evidence that the world is out of control.
When it was first published in 1952, the DSM
identified about 100 official mental disorders. Today,
it certifies roughly 375.
Intermittent explosive disorder became the latest of
those to reach the public consciousness in June, when
a study of the syndrome, funded by the National
Institutes of Health, was released.
Newspaper columnists and others around the country
exploded in skepticism at its conclusions.
"Is it me, or does it seem like good old-fashioned bad
behavior - rudeness, obsession, violence - is being
increasingly explained away by doctors and
pharmaceutical companies as some kind of mental
illness du jour?" asked columnist Daniel Vasquez in
the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
In Georgia, a headline in The Augusta Chronicle read,
"Jerks get disorder of their own."
While many critics echoed the derision historically
reserved for mental illness, some mental health
experts - including Torrey - are also skeptical.
"It's not a well-defined entity," Torrey said of IED.
At the heart of his concern is a question mental
health providers have long debated: When does a
behavior or emotion cross the line from normal -
however eccentric or undesirable - to become an
illness?
What they decide affects many aspects of American
life, ranging from criminal trials to decisions on who
gets treatment and disability benefits for mental
illness.
The most visible venue for that debate is the DSM, the
primary reference for mental health professionals.
When the American Psychiatric Association revises the
manual every few years, doctors have to decide what
disorders will be included.
Although the DSM's definitions of mental disorders are
only guidelines, they influence courts, insurance
companies and government agencies.
Although it was virtually unknown to the public before
the June report, IED has been used as a legal defense
in murder, assault and intimidation cases.
In a 1993 trial, an Oregon man who attacked his
dentist during a tooth extraction appealed his assault
conviction by blaming the outburst on IED. A federal
court rejected the appeal, ruling that the disorder
did not qualify as an insanity defense under Oregon
law.
Elsewhere, patients have used the diagnosis to claim
disability income from the Social Security
Administration. And insurance companies are likely to
pay for medications used to treat IED and other
disorders listed in the manual.
Critics argue that the professionals who rule on what
goes into the manual too often have ties to the
pharmaceutical industry.
"The people who make these decision range from those
with very good intentions ... to people who care about
power, money and territory, and work hand in hand with
the drug companies," said Paula J. Caplan, a
psychologist and author of a book critical of the DSM.
Dr. William Narrow, the associate director of the
American Psychiatric Association's Division of
Research, said he was not familiar with how the DSM's
1994 edition was produced, but he noted that in 2001,
five lawsuits accusing the APA of conspiring with
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. were either dropped or
dismissed.
The suits were filed by parents of children diagnosed
with attention deficit disorder and attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder. They claimed the disorders
were created and put into the DSM to stimulate sales
of the Novartis drug Ritalin, a common treatment for
both conditions.
Narrow said the APA is taking precautions to prevent
therapists with ties to drug companies from providing
input on the DSM's next revision. "We want the DSM to
be a scientific document that won't be questioned for
conflicts of interest," he said. "There has been no
overt pressure from the pharmaceutical companies."
Some psychiatrists worry that the credibility of their
profession will be undermined if the guidelines are
expanded too far or become too specific. In
particular, they worry that fracturing well-documented
disorders into sub-disorders based on flimsy evidence
could prevent patients from getting appropriate
treatment.
Those concerns alarmed critics when several
controversial disorders were added to the manual's
fourth edition, typically referred to as the DSM-IV.
"Many of us thought they went overboard," Torrey said.
He joked that the range of disorders in the DSM-IV is
so wide "you can fit almost everybody you know into
one."
Much of the controversy surrounded personality
disorders and mental illness among children. Among the
most recently defined mental ailments, several drew
particular scorn: mathematics disorder, reading
disorder and disorder of written _expression.
Based on definitions in the DSM-IV, naughty children
can be diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder
and cigarette smokers with nicotine dependence. "If
You're Breathing, You're In The Book," a 1994
newspaper headline in the Greensboro, N.C., News &
Record declared. Another newspaper asked, "Is it True?
Are We All Crazy?"
More recently, doctors have begun suggesting disorders
that should be included in the next revision of the
manual, due in 2011.
Caplan said one doctor is proposing a new diagnosis,
relational disorder, which she summarizes as a
dysfunctional relationship in which "neither person is
mentally ill but the relationship is."
She said she wonders what would happen when an
afflicted couple visits the doctor's office for help.
"The psychiatrist takes out a pill. ... Where does the
psychiatrist put it?" she asked. Other doctors have
suggested broadening the definition of bipolar
disorder, an illness once known as manic depression,
characterized by extreme mood swings from elation to
deep despair.
Under the proposed changes in the DSM, "everyone who's
had any kind of mood swings in their life becomes
bipolar," Torrey said. "And because of that, the
concept loses meaning."
While the APA's Narrow agrees the jury is out on
expanding the definition of bipolar disorder -
particularly when it would enrich the drug
manufacturers whose medicines are used to treat it -
he argues that refining the definition of old
disorders and identifying new ones is important. "It
means patients are more likely to get better treatment
for their disorders," he said. "An accurate diagnosis
leads to an accurate treatment."
The findings of the IED study released in June support
that view, according to Ronald C. Kessler, the Harvard
scientist who led the research team. The researchers
found that IED often appears in adolescence but is
later compounded by other problems such as alcoholism
and depression. Identifying and treating the anger
attacks early on might help prevent the problems that
boil up, he said.
The study found that over a lifetime, people with IED
averaged 43 rage attacks resulting in $1,359 in
property damage. "The question is, can you make them
into regular people, and there is evidence we can,"
Kessler said.
Part of the reason for public skepticism about
psychological disorders is a long-standing stigma
surrounding mental illness, said Bob Corolla, a
spokesman for the National Alliance for the Mentally
Ill.
"There are still people who believe mental illnesses
are a function of character and not illness," he said.
"If you interview Tom Cruise, he might tell you that."
The movie star is a member of the Church of
Scientology, which eschews psychiatric treatment, and
he publicly criticized actress Brooke Shields in 2005
for taking medication for postpartum depression.
Corolla said he first learned of IED from a
short-lived Fox comedy called Head Cases, in which one
character, a lawyer, had the disorder.
"In a trial, he hit the other attorney in the head
with a law book, and I wondered if it was even a
disorder," Corolla said.
A scientist with the alliance later confirmed to him
that IED was legitimate. In fact, researchers have
found that the propensity for angry outbursts might be
inherited - and regarded as a kind of epilepsy.
"We are not as concerned about what they call it,"
Corolla said. "Take the name away, you're still
dealing with a set of symptoms that need treatment."
chris.emery@baltsun.com
Disorders of note
Here are some disorders officially identified by the
American Psychiatric Association and a few symptoms of
each.
Narcissistic personality disorder: Grandiose sense of
self-importance; arrogant or haughty behaviors;
believes that he or she is "special"; sense of
entitlement.
Disorder of written _expression: Writing skills that
are substantially below those expected, given the
person's chronological age, measured intelligence and
age-appropriate education.
Factious disorder: Intentional production or feigning
of physical or psychological signs or symptoms but for
no apparent reason.
Nightmare disorder: Extended and extremely frightening
dreams, usually involving threats to survival,
security or self-esteem.
Avoidant personality disorder: Reluctance to take
personal risks or to engage in any new activities
because they may prove embarrassing.
Antisocial personality disorder: Failure to conform to
social norms; deceitfulness; irritability; lack of
remorse.
Conduct disorder: Physically cruelty to people and
animals; staying out at night despite parental
prohibitions, beginning before age 13; lying to obtain
goods or favors or to avoid obligations.
General anxiety disorder: Excessive anxiety and worry,
occurring for at least 6 months, about a number of
events or activities; muscle tension; difficulty
concentrating or mind going blank.[Source: Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth
Edition]
__________________________________________________
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Crew,
An article in the Washington Post mentions mental
health screening. The whole article is basically an
appeal for more money by the grubby mental health
industry.
See the article below. Write a letter to the editor
and send it to letters@washpost.com.
You can write what you want. My suggestion is just to
use this opportunity to forward any true message about
psychiatry and the mental health system. You can write
about the false labels, lack of science, the dangers
of drugs, the evils of screening.
Don't mention TeenScreen by name but you can use all
the standard messages to point out that screening
systems are bad.
Report compliance by email.
Best,
Doyle
___________________________
ARTICLE TEXT:
The Washington Post
July 18, 2006 Tuesday
HEADLINE: Many Face Long Waits for Mental Health Care;
Report on Growing Backlog of Low-Income Patients
Worries Supervisors
BYLINE: Bill Turque, Washington Post Staff Writer
The number of low-income adults in Fairfax County
waiting to be seen by a mental health professional has
nearly doubled in the last three months, a result of
unfilled positions in county clinics, a new report
says.
The Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, the
agency that operates mental health, mental retardation
and substance abuse programs for the county, said 314
people were seeking an initial mental health screening
and assessment as of June 1, compared with 173 on
March 1.
The number of youths waiting for screening grew from
37 to 49 in the same period.
The Fairfax Board of Supervisors asked for the
progress report after Community Services Board
officials said at a March hearing that low-income
residents could wait as long as six months to begin
outpatient treatment. Those seeking spaces in group
homes can experience waits ranging from 10 months to
several years.
Board members expressed unhappiness with the growing
volume of people facing delays.
"That ain't in the right direction," said Supervisor
Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason), vice chairman of the
board's Human Services Committee. "The thing that
really frosts me is that people can't even get
assessed."
Agency officials say competition from the private
sector and other government agencies, combined with
the expense of housing in Fairfax, has hampered
recruitment of case managers, nurses and
psychotherapists. Since March, the agency has
intensified its advertising and increased some
starting salaries.
James A. Thur, executive director of the Community
Services Board, said the addition of seven staff
members who began working last week will begin to
improve services at outpatient clinics in Reston,
Annandale and the Alexandria area.
"We should be able to bring those wait lists down," he
said. Five vacancies remain, but beyond that, agency
officials said, the county will need to add positions
to deal with the increasing demand for treatment.
Gross said she was not convinced that more personnel
is the answer. "Mostly what the [Community Services
Board] needs to do is roll its sleeves up and do
things differently," she said.
Mental health services in Virginia are delivered
through a network of such boards. Fairfax County
provides about 55 percent of the funding; Medicaid
pays 22 percent. Advocates have long criticized the
size of the state's contribution, which is about 12
percent.
Fairfax's problems reflect what experts say is a
national crisis in mental health care. Growth in
population and changes in the health-care industry and
in the medical complexity of patients' problems have
strained agencies virtually everywhere. More than 83
percent of the 11,000 Fairfax residents who received
mental health care in 2005 have household incomes
below $25,000 a year. Most are either uninsured or
underinsured.
"The system is under significant strain almost
everywhere because of years of neglect of the issues,"
Thur said.
Earlier this year, the National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill released a state-by-state report card on
governments' performance in treating the seriously
mentally ill. The organization gave a grade of D to
Virginia and the nation as a whole.
"Virginia's public system has suffered from years of
deep cuts," the report said, "reductions that fell
disproportionately on local Community Services
Boards." The survey ranked Virginia 30th in per capita
spending on mental health care.
Maryland and the District fared somewhat better in the
study, receiving a C-plus and a C, respectively.
Dotti McKee, a Fairfax resident and longtime mental
health advocate, said her 36-year-old son has paid a
steep price for the deficiencies of Virginia's system.
McKee said her son, who is severely paranoid and
schizophrenic, was released from a state mental
hospital this year but was told it would be two years
before he could be placed in a group home.
Living at home wasn't an option, McKee said, because
his mood swings were too much for her to handle.
As a stopgap measure, she found him a room in a
private home, but he had trouble maintaining his
prescription medicine, and his behavior became
erratic.
McKee said she called the Community Services Board to
see whether he could be admitted as an inpatient but
was told there was no room.
Finally, she said, she found him space in a county
homeless shelter, where a mental health worker keeps
an eye on him.
"To me, it's a godsend," she said.
__________________________________________________
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One assignment is writing, one is signing and
forwarding the TeenScreen petition.
First, the petition:
Over 5000 people have spoken out against TeenScreen's
attempt to turn normal kids into lifelong mental
patients!
Want to see the list of names? Click on:

Many of them are directly due to your good work in
signing/forwarding this petition.
But the fight is far from over. We need 10,000 names
at the bare minimum. A better target is 250,000.
If you have not signed it yourself, click on

and sign it right now! If you have already signed and
forwarded it, then take these steps:
0. Sign up all your family members, including kids. No
pets - sorry.
1. Re-send it to everyone that you've sent it to
before.
DO NOT JUST FORWARD THIS EMAIL. YOU HAVE TO CREATE
YOUR OWN.
2. Send it to at least 20 people that you didn't send
it to before. Surely you know somebody new - an
acquaintence who sends joke emails, your co-workers,
relatives.
3. If you have a guest in your house, walk them right
over to the computer, have the read it and sign them
up.
4. If you cannot round up 20+ new addresses, then get
on the net and find a "forum" or "blog" in your town.
If you've never done this, you'll be fascinated. Go to
www.google.com and search for FORUM and YOUR TOWN. I
searched FORUM and POUGHKEEPSIE and got this
 just
to show you an example. Sign up as a member and start
a new topic about "Parental rights" or "Stop mental
health screening" and tell your neighbors about the
petition.
5. After all that is done, do the writing assignment
below and have a very nice day.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT:
The article is in the Peoria (Illinois) Journal-Star.
You can read it here:

or the text at the bottom of this message.
Write your letter to the editor and send it to
forum@pjstar.com. If your last name ends in C-M or
S-Z, send a copy to the reporter at
zquaintance@pjstar.com.
You'll see that the article is full of false data.
Pick something you strongly disagree with and write
your letter about it. Personally the part that riles
me is "...Jones has worked to install a depression
screening process in local schools..." I hope everyone
doesn't choose that one. I'd like some of you to point
out that it's the treated ones who commit suicide.
And finally, report compliance by email.
Much Love,
Doyle
________________
ARTICLE TEXT:
Event brings depression awareness
Whitney's Walk, started in memory of teen lost to
suicide, coming up July 29
Advertisement
Sunday, July 16, 2006
BY ZACK QUAINTANCE
OF THE JOURNAL STAR
BRIMFIELD - An annual suicide prevention fund raiser
has added depression awareness to its beneficiaries,
which in past years have received as much as $30,000
in donations.
For the past two years, hundreds have flocked to
Jubilee College State Park on the last weekend in July
for Whitney's Walk, named in honor of Whitney Grotts.
Teen suicide felled the Brimfield High School student
in March 2004. To keep others from the same fate,
Whitney's family and friends collaborated to hold the
first Whitney's Walk on July 31, 2004, the date of her
17th birthday.
Though the small group of family and friends have
ceded organizing duties to the Mental Health
Association of Illinois Valley, organizers remain
committed to the cause. They even expanded the event
to include depression awareness.
Katie Jones, the executive director of Mental Health
Association of Illinois Valley, said the two causes
complement one another. When doctors identify and
treat depression in teens, they often stop suicide
from happening, the director said.
"The No. 1 thing we want to get across right now is
one in five kids suffer from depression," Jones said.
"Depression is very treatable."
Children often confuse depression for anxiousness and
rarely tell parents when they are depressed. Jones
said even if a child complains of feeling melancholy,
parents often disregard it as teen angst.
To combat these misunderstandings, Jones has worked to
install a depression screening process in local
schools.
Princeville High School has received money raised by
Whitney's Walk and has used the funds to start
spreading awareness of teen suicide. Jeannie Jones, a
guidance counselor at Princeville, said the school has
undertaken several endeavors to fight suicide with
money raised by Whitney's Walk.
The school holds informational sessions for parents
and distributes pamphlets and other information, which
are paid for with money from the walk, the counselor
said.
"Because of these funds we were able to bring this
information to the parents in our community," she
said. "We've also given information to our teachers,
and even our service staff. Bus drivers and janitors
here know the signs of teen suicide."
This year's walk is scheduled for July 29 at Jubilee
park. Those interested can get more information or
sign up at The Shoppes at Grand Prairie, the Mental
Health Association of Illinois Valley or go online to
www.whitneyswalk.com.
The registration fee is $20, and all proceeds go
toward suicide prevention and depression awareness.
For more information about the Mental Health
Association's efforts, visit www.mhaiv.org.
Zack Quaintance can be reached at 686-3114 or
zquaintance@pjstar.com.
__________________________________________________
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I think I stated that we wouldn't be doing any writing
assignments because the petition was so important.
This is true, but a need for letters also came up.
There was an ugly article in the Tampa Tribune today
about Scientology. Basically it was criticising our
growth, which is what you'd expect the SPs to be upset
about.
The best thing to do in such a situation is to
flourish and prosper. So that's what we're going to
do.
I need letters but I'll have to get them qualed first.
The subject should point out that you are a
Scientologist, you love being in Scientology and a win
or two about being a Scientologist. Use real examples
and be totally honest.
DO NOT READ THE ARTICLE FROM THE TRIB. SITE. I'm told
that it has some squirrelly data that would not be
good for us to read. I do have a scanned version,
omitting the rough stuff, that can be emailed as an
attachment. If you need to read it, let me know and
I'll send it as an attachment.
If I were you I would just write your letter as above
and don't worry about what the article says. It's just
entheta and you're not going to Q and A with it
anyway.
So, please write your letters and send to me for qual.
Best,
Doyle
__________________________________________________
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This is not a writing assignment but is VITAL
nonetheless.
This takes like seconds to complete. Do it.
Step 1: Sign the petition at:

Step 2: Forward it to every single person in your
address book, (and tell them to forward it to the ends
of the earth)
Step 3: Make some new friends and send it to them.
Step 4: Don't stop until you've sent it to every
single man, woman, child, and reasonably intelligent
primate on earth
Step 5: Report compliance by email.
Step 6: Kick back, relax and enjoy a (insert libation
of your choice, like cigar, champagne, long walk on
the beach, vacation to Tahiti, fresh-squeezed beet
juice, etc.) in a TeenScreen-free world.
__________________________________________________
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Crew,
Happy 4th of July!
200+ years ago, the United States of America shook off
the suppression of English rule. The people named what
they wanted - freedom. They wanted freedom, they
demanded freedom, and they got freedom.
However, in today's world we have a new kind of
suppression, much more subtle and insidious,
psychiatry.
Psychiatric interests do not want you to live free.
Perhaps you are free of psych influence now and will
remain so, but can you stand by while millions are
denied that freedom?
In today's New Orleans Times-Picayune, there is a LONG
article. Read it if you must but I'll summarize it for
you in a few words, "Psychiatry and drug companies are
cashing in on Hurricane Katrina". The story is all
about how Katrina's victims are "stressed" and need
mental health treatment. You can translate that to
drugs, very expensive stays in psych hospitals and
ECT. Basically it's an appeal for more money.
Write a letter to the editor. You can put almost
anything in the letter provided that you tell the
truth about psychiatry.
I suggest you point out that no medical tests exists
for these "disorders", like post-traumatic stress
disorder, so that fraud will be rampant. I also
suggest that you point out there is no evidence that
treating people with drugs does any good in the long
run, and that the drugs themselves are KNOWN to cause
suicide.
And here's a good theme for a few of you - "Now is the
very wrong time to drug people out of consciousness,
awareness and ability. Right now they need to rebuild
their homes, businesses, and lives, not be turned into
disabled mental patient living on the dole".
You can also point out that even on the first page,
there is a demonstration that the drugs don't work.
Mr. Harrell can't sleep and has to add his "tonic" of
alcohol, very dangerous to mix with psychiatric drugs.
Write whatever you want; be creative.
Here is the link to the article if you want to read
it. Warning, it's 6 pages long. The first page is at
the bottom of this email.

50.xml&coll=1
Send your letter to letters@timespicayune.com.
And report compliance by email.
Thank you!
Enjoy your holiday!
Doyle
_______________________________
ARTICLE TEXT:
Stressed? No, we're OK, really, we are
Actually, we're on the edge, mental health experts say
Monday, July 03, 2006
By Michelle Hunter
When Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters submerged Joseph
Harrell's home, all his old nightmares came surging
back: the bad dreams about Hurricane Betsy's rampage
in 1965, and the horrific memories of watching a
drunken driver kill two of his brothers and a cousin
in 1975 while Harrell was crabbing with them on the
Paris Road-Bayou Bienvenue Bridge.
"It brought everything on," Harrell, 67, said. "I've
been through it all. I'm constantly worrying. If I
could just get some peace in my life . . ."
Getting a good night's sleep is especially difficult
for Harrell, a retired truck driver for the Sewerage &
Water Board who is living in a trailer in the Lower
9th Ward. He is on medication for post-traumatic
stress disorder, but that's not enough to guarantee
him a good night's rest.
"You know what I do to go to sleep? A fifth of brandy
and a couple of lemons, and I make me a tonic,"
Harrell said in a husky growl. "Then I go lay down and
go to sleep."
Harrell is one of an untold number of New Orleanians
who in the wake of Katrina are battling conditions
such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder,
or PTSD.
Although an exact number of diagnoses is impossible to
come by, an abundance of signs indicates a community
on edge, say health care professionals and others:
Sales of cigarettes and alcohol are up, people are
drinking more when they go out, and prescriptions for
antipsychotic drugs remain steady, even though the
area's population has dropped since Katrina roared
through.
"It's a combination: more prescriptions for
depression, more prescriptions for PTSD, anxiety and
sleep difficulties," said Dr. Howard Osofsky, chairman
of psychiatry at Louisiana State University Health
Sciences Center.
"There's so much uncertainty," he said. "People don't
have the supports they used to have, such as relatives
and neighbors, and they don't feel up to it."
Prediction comes true
Three days after Katrina, Dr. Julie Gerberding,
director of the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, said mental health would be a major
storm-related health issue for a long time to come.
Weeks later, a CDC team in New Orleans found that
nearly half the people they interviewed exhibited
emotional distress severe enough to warrant continued
attention.
CONTINUED   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Next
__________________________________________________
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Crew,
For those of you who responded to this already, thank
you! For the rest, especially Clearwater-area guys,
please take a few minutes to do this one. And I have a
slight modification of what's needed. See below.
-----------------
This is especially important for the Clearwater-area
guys but anyone can do it.
A very nasty article came out in the St. Petersburg
Times today. If you are not going to write this
letter, I would rather you not even read the article.
Even if you're doing the assignment, reading the
article is optional. It's basically just a pack of
falsehoods about how SPs are "victims" because they
have been declared and cut off from their friends and
families. The article neglects to mention the
horrendous suppressive acts that the SPs committed in
order to get declared. They also neglect to mention
that the doors remain open to these people if they
cease their suppressive acts, take responsibility for
what they've done, and make up the damage.
Here's your assignment.
Write a letter to the editor. What we want to do is
"fill the vacuum".
Here is the viewpoint I'd like you to write from:
-The SP Times is a paper distributed in a community
where there are thousands of Scientologists. We are
sick and tired of the misinterpretation of our beliefs
and practices. This is intended editorializing or
sensationilistic reporting for the purpose of
misinterpreting Church beliefs. The Church has a huge
presence here. Scientologists are more than a little
happy about what is happening in Scientology, our
involvement and the various things we are
doing to help Man - and the St. Pete Times articles
just have nothing to do with it.
Don't defend against what the article says, just tell
the truth about your experience in Scientology. You
can use specific positive examples of Scientology in
your life or in social betterment outreaches.
These letters have to be qualed. Send your letter only
to me and I'll get them approved and back to you in a
day or two.
Thank you,
Doyle
___________________
THE ARTICLE:

The unperson
Scientologists who cross their religion can be
declared suppressive persons, shunned by peers and
ostracized by family.
By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published June 25, 2006
"The only reason to declare someone a suppressive
person is to give them a road map to their own
salvation."- BEN SHAW, Scientology spokesman
Church spokesman says Times report is unfair
Some Scientology terms
SP profiles
"It's fun creating a new life. I just wish the ones I
love more than anyone in the world could be part of
it." - Caroline Brown, whose daughter no longer sees
or speaks to her
"It's the ultimate weapon for them because no one can
talk to you." - Randy Payne, on the threat of being
declared a suppressive person
"The hardest thing for me is explaining to my daughter
why she can't see her dad." - Astra Woodcraft, who
left Scientology, and split with her family
Kathy Feshbach reversed an invitation when she learned
her guest was labeled an SP.
Religions have always penalized those who betray the
cause.
Catholics excommunicate, barring the wayward from
church rites. The Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses and some
orthodox Jewish sects shun their nonconformists.
In the Tampa Bay area's burgeoning Scientology
community, members abide by a policy considered by
some religious experts extreme: Scientologists declare
their outcasts "suppressive persons."
Another Scientology policy - called "disconnection" -
forbids Scientologists from interacting with a
suppressive person. No calls, no letters, no contact.
An SP is a pariah. Anyone who communicates with an SP
risks being branded an SP himself.
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote the policies
four decades ago, church leaders say, not as a tool to
oust members but to provide those going astray with a
mechanism to return to the church's good graces. That
aligns with Scientology's tenets of improving
communication, strengthening relationships.
But SPs who have felt the sting and other church
critics say the suppressive person policy is a
sledgehammer to keep marginal members in line - and in
the flock.
Whatever Scientology's motivation, its suppressive
person policy results in wrenching pain, say a dozen
SPs interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times.
Some have gone years without seeing or talking with
sons, daughters, mothers, fathers - all of whom abide
by Scientology's no-contact requirement.
For a Scientologist thinking of forsaking the church,
the decision is grueling: stay in or risk being
ostracized from loved ones and friends.
It left Caroline Brown in Cincinnati, weeping at the
sight of a basketball court.
* * *
Like so many Scientologists, Caroline and her family
came to Clearwater in 1991 to escape the "wog"
non-Scientology world.
By 1998, she was divorced and living with her teenage
daughter, Darby Zoccali. Her ex-husband and son lived
together just a few miles away.
Caroline was unhappy, depressed. Her drinking strained
her relationship with Darby.
Mother and daughter agreed Caroline could give her
life new purpose by taking a Scientology job in Ohio.
As a church staffer, her Scientology counseling would
be free.
Darby, who just turned 18, stayed in Clearwater in her
own apartment.
But the counseling in Cincinnati didn't help, Caroline
said. Depressed and having anxiety attacks, she was
flat broke and crying herself to sleep.
Walking past a basketball court one day, she burst
into tears.
Her son played basketball. What was she doing in
Cincinnati, working 14 hours a day, seven days a week,
a thousand miles away from her son and daughter?
Caroline decided to bolt - from Cincinnati and from
Scientology - even though she knew she almost
certainly would be declared a suppressive person.
Hers was an "unauthorized departure," akin to going
AWOL. To leave church service in good standing,
Scientology staffers must complete "sec checks" -
short for security checks.
They are like confessionals. Scientologists spell out
transgressions to "feel better about them and take
responsibility for them," Clearwater church spokesman
Ben Shaw said. "It is one of the most invigorating
experiences you can imagine."
The process can take months. Fellow church staffers
pose questions to the outgoing member seeking to
discover "crimes" deemed to be the source of
suppressive acts.
Questions include whether an SP has made statements
against Scientology to friends or to the media, but
the sec checks can be extremely personal, according to
church documents obtained by the Times. Questions can
probe possible drug use, history of theft or
nonpayment of taxes, or ask about masturbation or
homosexuality.
A staffer who leaves without routing out through sec
checks violates a signed church contract, Shaw said,
and likely will be declared an SP.
That's what happened to Caroline. After she returned
to Clearwater, the Scientology community turned its
back.
She bumped into an old Scientology friend at a Dollar
Store. Without so much as a hello, the woman said, "Go
handle it. You go fix it. Handle it."
Darby wrote her mother a disconnection letter, and
helped her brother, then 14, write one too. The
letters are clear: Until you get back on good terms
with Scientology, Mom, we're disconnecting.
Darby says her decision to disconnect from her mother
had nothing to do with Scientology. She says her
mother doesn't need to become a Scientologist again
for them to have a relationship. But she needs to do
the sec checks to remove the SP label.
Her message for her mother: "All you have to do is fix
it. So do it. It's not that horrible."
Now 23, Darby is a Pilates instructor and a service
broker for her boyfriend's telecom company. She took
her first Scientology class when her mother was in
Cincinnati.
"Every time I used it, my life got better," she said.
"I'm not going to give that up for someone who created
so much pain."
Her mother knew the consequences of walking away.
"It's more like she disconnected from me," Darby said.
When Caroline got her son's disconnection letter, she
called a lawyer. Her parental rights trumped
Scientology's disconnection doctrine. She and the boy
met at Cody's Roadhouse in Clearwater.
"I love you more than any other human being on the
planet," she told her son.
He lit up, she said. She now sees him regularly. But
not Darby.
"My heart is still broken about not having my family,"
Caroline said. "I'm the one who got her (Darby) in it,
I'd like to be the one who gets her out."
Remarried now, Caroline attends St. Petersburg
College, hoping to become an art teacher.
"It's fun creating a new life," she said. "I just wish
the ones I love more than anyone in the world could be
part of it."
* * *
The suppressive persons who spoke to the Times were
declared SPs because they publicly and repeatedly
challenged the church. They also faced the church's
regimented internal justice system.
The process typically begins with a Scientologist
writing a "knowledge report" about another church
member, outlining alleged transgressions. The accused
may be directed to undergo ethics counseling or
ordered to face a "committee of evidence," a tribunal
of church staff members who, acting as jurors,
determine if the person has committed suppressive
acts.
Suppressive acts must be renounced, and suppressive
persons must atone. Failing to comply carries heavy
consequences, as Randy Payne discovered.
* * *
For two decades, Payne, 53, was a dedicated
Scientologist. He and his wife published a Scientology
newspaper in Clearwater. He paid tens of thousands of
dollars for Scientology training.
He expanded his Clearwater private school, Lighthouse,
which incorporated L. Ron Hubbard's study techniques,
and opened sister schools in Scientology's target
markets of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Italy.
To use Hubbard's "tech" and materials, Payne agreed to
pay 10 percent of his schools' revenues. He paid the
fee initially, but stopped in 1997 because he said his
curriculum had evolved to a point where Hubbard's
techniques were used only marginally.
The church threatened to declare him an SP.
"It's the ultimate weapon for them because no one can
talk to you," Payne said.
He pleaded his case through four committees of
evidence - two held in Clearwater, two in Los Angeles.
He formally was declared a suppressive person on May
11, 2003. The order said Payne "spread false and
derogatory statements to others about Scientology and
Church staff."
Scientology agents sought to cut off Payne's ties to
the church community. A church ethics officer told an
employee at Payne's school that he needed to quit,
according to a note the employee wrote to Payne.
Church staffers informed Payne's students who were
Scientologists that Payne had been declared and that
they should leave the school, he said.
The suppressive person policy was used against him as
a form of extortion, Payne said, to get him to pay the
fees.
He wrote legislators and met with law enforcement
officials, asking they investigate his claim of
extortion.
Last October, Payne made a more public protest that
could happen only in Clearwater. During the opening
moments of a Clearwater City Council meeting, when
residents typically complain about parking problems
and potholes, Payne stood and with TV cameras
recording his every word, complained about the Church
of Scientology:
"It is my belief that this church's leadership has
created a corrupt internal justice system to enforce
its money-making scheme on individuals and
businesses."
Council members sat mute.
* * *
Extreme? Perhaps. Effective? Definitely.
That's the view of many religious scholars who say the
motive behind Scientology's suppressive person
doctrine is clear: keep members from breaking ranks.
"That's the way the church keeps discipline," said J.
Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study
of American Religion, a think tank in Santa Barbara,
Calif., that focuses on smaller groups. "For them,
that's an internal control mechanism."
Scientology's disconnection requirement is far more
extreme than the severing practices of most modern
religions, Melton said.
"I just think it would be better for all concerned if
they just let them go ahead and get out and everyone
goes their own way, and not make such a big deal of
it," said Melton. "The policy hurts everybody."
Church spokesman Shaw suggested the Times interview
two other professors who have testified in
Scientology's behalf in legal cases.
"It is rather strict," said the first, F.K. Flinn,
adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington
University in St. Louis. It also is characteristic of
a young religion, he said.
"It has to do with feeling threatened because you're
not that big. You do everything you can to keep unity
in the group."
Scientology is not as controlling as were the early
Christians, Flinn said. Its SP practices are akin to
the shunning of the Amish and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Some Amish communities allow contact with close
friends and families; Jehovah's Witnesses cut off all
communication except in cases of family business or
emergency.
The second expert Shaw suggested, Newton Maloney, a
professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary in
Pasadena, Calif., characterized Scientology's
disconnection policy as "too extreme," particularly as
it affects families.
"Some people I've talked to, they just wanted to go on
with their lives and they wanted to be in touch with
their daughter or son or parent. The shunning was just
painful. And I don't know what it was accomplishing.
"And the very terms they use are scary, aren't they?"
Shaw says the church's policy is far from extreme.
Doesn't everyone distance themselves from negative
influences?
"Prisoners are disconnected from society," Shaw said.
"Employees are fired, spouses scorned and divorced by
their partner."
Unethical lawyers are disbarred. Discriminatory
businesses are boycotted. Journalists who fabricate
stories are fired, he said.
"All of these actions represent the practice of
disconnection in cases where an antisocial person will
not reform or restrain their destructive actions."
The suppressive person and disconnection policies are
a last resort, Shaw said.
"The only reason to declare someone a suppressive
person is to give them a road map to their own
salvation."
And many SPs have returned.
Hubbard once wrote that SPs were "fair game," meaning
that they could be "tricked, sued or lied to or
destroyed." Hubbard canceled the "fair game" policy in
1976, saying it was never intended to authorize
"illegal or harassment type acts against anyone."
Church critics, however, remain wary.
* * *
Potential Trouble Source. No Scientologist wants to be
called that. PTSs can't take classes or get the
spiritual counseling called auditing. But if you
maintain contact with a suppressive person, that's
what you are.
Two recorded messages left last year on the answering
machine of Creed Pearson illustrate just how serious
this can be.
The caller: Scientologist Kathy Feshbach, a major
contributor and founder of a Scientology mission in
Belleair.
The first call was placed on March 2.
"Hi ... this is Kathy Feshbach. ... Ah, George Mariani
is running for mayor again in Belleair, called us;
wants us to have all our friends over on Sunday at our
house at 4 for him to talk. It's really important
because No.1, he is reaching for us, the
Scientologists. So that's really a good indicator. So
I really want to have a big showing for him. ... So,
anyway, it's a big deal that the mayor called us so I
really want you guys to come over."
What Feshbach did not know was that Pearson - a
Scientologist for 25 years and big church donor - had
been declared a suppressive person the previous month.
Pearson, 50, said he was declared because he told his
friends in Scientology that the religion was being
altered by current management. He also said L. Ron
Hubbard had lied while ticking off his accomplishments
during a speech.
Four days later Feshbach called Pearson back and left
a second message. It was clear she had learned he was
a suppressive.
"Hi, Creed, this is Kathy Feshbach. Sunday morning ...
I just heard that you were under some kind of ethics
cycle. So, you are not invited to our house today. I
am sure you understand. So, ah, thank you very much
for understanding. Please do not attend the event.
Thank you very much for understanding."
* * *
As the community of Scientologists has grown to an
estimated 10,000 in the Tampa Bay area, so too has the
number of declared SPs increased, according to church
officials and former members.
Shaw said there are only about 40 SPs in the bay area.
Former Scientologists say the number of suppressive
people is much higher.
Thousands of SP declare files are kept at the church's
administrative headquarters in California, said Astra
Woodcraft, who worked there for three years ending in
1998.
Now, she is in those files herself.
* * *
The Woodcrafts are a family divided. The mother, a son
and grandmother are Scientologists. The father and two
daughters left.
The two sides do not speak.
Raised with her brother and sister in Scientology,
Astra Woodcraft spent two years in Clearwater as a
teen, living in a church-owned motel on U.S. 19 and
serving as a Scientology cadet.
Her family later moved to Los Angeles and at 14 she
joined the Sea Org, the legion of church staffers who
dedicate their lives to church service. Woodcraft was
assigned to the ethics security team, which tried to
keep people from leaving Scientology.
One month after turning 15, she married a 22-year-old
fellow Sea Org member. A few years later, she traveled
to England to attend her grandmother's funeral.
Enthralled with "the outside world," she stayed on for
a time in England and decided to leave Scientology.
Her husband wrote her from Los Angeles: "What really
will happen if you decide not to come back and get
declared? I will have to disconnect from you, and so
will the rest of your family - your Mom, your Dad,
Grandma, Matt and Zoe. Or, you come back and
standardly handle the situation, with whatever
decision you have made."
Woodcraft, pregnant, filed for divorce. She was 20.
She returned to the church in L.A. in April 1998 and
did her sec checks. It took a month. She signed a
document admitting to trying marijuana at age 13 and
once stealing a pair of pantyhose.
Then she left. Scientology hit her with a
"freeloader's bill" for $80,000. Sea Org staffers get
Scientology courses and auditing for free. But leave,
and you are billed retroactively. She refused to pay.
Later, Woodcraft's younger sister, then 15, also left
Scientology. She was in the Cadet Org, living with her
mother, then a church staffer in Clearwater. She
called her father, who had been declared an SP years
earlier. He picked her up at the Clearwater Library
and spirited her away.
Shaw provided the Times a letter from Astra
Woodcraft's mother, Leslie Woodcraft.
"While not happy about it, I could have accepted her
(Astra's) decision to leave church staff," Leslie
Woodcraft wrote. "But what is very, very upsetting is
that she reverted to her old, dishonest ways."
Astra became a "puppet of vested interests and her
'story' - lies and false accusations really," Leslie
stated, likely made as a way to seek attention.
The letter ended, "Still, I have not given up hope
that one day Astra will realize that she made a
decision that, as final as it may appear to her now,
can be reverted."
Astra says she left "not hating Scientology," but the
church's reaction left her wanting nothing to do with
it.
"The hardest thing for me is explaining to my daughter
why she can't see her dad," who did not contest Astra
getting sole custody. "I don't want him to see her. I
don't want Scientology to touch her in any form."
But she wishes she could speak to her brother and
mother and grandmother, all of whom remain
Scientologists.
"I really love my mom and I miss her a lot," Astra
said. "I would love for her to see my daughter."
Robert Farley can be reached at farley@sptimes.com or
(727) 445-4159.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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This is especially important for the Clearwater-area
guys but anyone can do it.
A very nasty article came out in the St. Petersburg
Times today. If you are not going to write this
letter, I would rather you not even read the article.
Even if you're doing the assignment, reading the
article is optional. It's basically just a pack of
falsehoods about how SPs are "victims" because they
have been declared and cut off from their friends and
families. The article neglects to mention the
horrendous suppressive acts that the SPs committed in
order to get declared. They also neglect to mention
that the doors remain open to these people if they
cease their suppressive acts, take responsibility for
what they've done, and make up the damage.
Here's your assignment.
Write a letter to the editor. What we want to do is
"fill the vacuum".
The Times never writes about the Scientology we know,
where lives are saved and relationships are restored
and strengthened. If you have a "miracle" story, write
about that. If you used Scientology to help mend a
broken relationship, that's a good topic.
If you were ever declared an SP and then you recanted
and returned to good standing that is a very good
story.
Don't defend against what the article says, just tell
the truth about your experience in Scientology.
These letters have to be qualed. Send your letter only
to me and I'll get them approved and back to you in a
day or two.
Thank you,
Doyle
___________________
THE ARTICLE:

The unperson
Scientologists who cross their religion can be
declared suppressive persons, shunned by peers and
ostracized by family.
By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published June 25, 2006
"The only reason to declare someone a suppressive
person is to give them a road map to their own
salvation."- BEN SHAW, Scientology spokesman
Church spokesman says Times report is unfair
Some Scientology terms
SP profiles
"It's fun creating a new life. I just wish the ones I
love more than anyone in the world could be part of
it." - Caroline Brown, whose daughter no longer sees
or speaks to her
"It's the ultimate weapon for them because no one can
talk to you." - Randy Payne, on the threat of being
declared a suppressive person
"The hardest thing for me is explaining to my daughter
why she can't see her dad." - Astra Woodcraft, who
left Scientology, and split with her family
Kathy Feshbach reversed an invitation when she learned
her guest was labeled an SP.
Religions have always penalized those who betray the
cause.
Catholics excommunicate, barring the wayward from
church rites. The Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses and some
orthodox Jewish sects shun their nonconformists.
In the Tampa Bay area's burgeoning Scientology
community, members abide by a policy considered by
some religious experts extreme: Scientologists declare
their outcasts "suppressive persons."
Another Scientology policy - called "disconnection" -
forbids Scientologists from interacting with a
suppressive person. No calls, no letters, no contact.
An SP is a pariah. Anyone who communicates with an SP
risks being branded an SP himself.
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote the policies
four decades ago, church leaders say, not as a tool to
oust members but to provide those going astray with a
mechanism to return to the church's good graces. That
aligns with Scientology's tenets of improving
communication, strengthening relationships.
But SPs who have felt the sting and other church
critics say the suppressive person policy is a
sledgehammer to keep marginal members in line - and in
the flock.
Whatever Scientology's motivation, its suppressive
person policy results in wrenching pain, say a dozen
SPs interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times.
Some have gone years without seeing or talking with
sons, daughters, mothers, fathers - all of whom abide
by Scientology's no-contact requirement.
For a Scientologist thinking of forsaking the church,
the decision is grueling: stay in or risk being
ostracized from loved ones and friends.
It left Caroline Brown in Cincinnati, weeping at the
sight of a basketball court.
* * *
Like so many Scientologists, Caroline and her family
came to Clearwater in 1991 to escape the "wog"
non-Scientology world.
By 1998, she was divorced and living with her teenage
daughter, Darby Zoccali. Her ex-husband and son lived
together just a few miles away.
Caroline was unhappy, depressed. Her drinking strained
her relationship with Darby.
Mother and daughter agreed Caroline could give her
life new purpose by taking a Scientology job in Ohio.
As a church staffer, her Scientology counseling would
be free.
Darby, who just turned 18, stayed in Clearwater in her
own apartment.
But the counseling in Cincinnati didn't help, Caroline
said. Depressed and having anxiety attacks, she was
flat broke and crying herself to sleep.
Walking past a basketball court one day, she burst
into tears.
Her son played basketball. What was she doing in
Cincinnati, working 14 hours a day, seven days a week,
a thousand miles away from her son and daughter?
Caroline decided to bolt - from Cincinnati and from
Scientology - even though she knew she almost
certainly would be declared a suppressive person.
Hers was an "unauthorized departure," akin to going
AWOL. To leave church service in good standing,
Scientology staffers must complete "sec checks" -
short for security checks.
They are like confessionals. Scientologists spell out
transgressions to "feel better about them and take
responsibility for them," Clearwater church spokesman
Ben Shaw said. "It is one of the most invigorating
experiences you can imagine."
The process can take months. Fellow church staffers
pose questions to the outgoing member seeking to
discover "crimes" deemed to be the source of
suppressive acts.
Questions include whether an SP has made statements
against Scientology to friends or to the media, but
the sec checks can be extremely personal, according to
church documents obtained by the Times. Questions can
probe possible drug use, history of theft or
nonpayment of taxes, or ask about masturbation or
homosexuality.
A staffer who leaves without routing out through sec
checks violates a signed church contract, Shaw said,
and likely will be declared an SP.
That's what happened to Caroline. After she returned
to Clearwater, the Scientology community turned its
back.
She bumped into an old Scientology friend at a Dollar
Store. Without so much as a hello, the woman said, "Go
handle it. You go fix it. Handle it."
Darby wrote her mother a disconnection letter, and
helped her brother, then 14, write one too. The
letters are clear: Until you get back on good terms
with Scientology, Mom, we're disconnecting.
Darby says her decision to disconnect from her mother
had nothing to do with Scientology. She says her
mother doesn't need to become a Scientologist again
for them to have a relationship. But she needs to do
the sec checks to remove the SP label.
Her message for her mother: "All you have to do is fix
it. So do it. It's not that horrible."
Now 23, Darby is a Pilates instructor and a service
broker for her boyfriend's telecom company. She took
her first Scientology class when her mother was in
Cincinnati.
"Every time I used it, my life got better," she said.
"I'm not going to give that up for someone who created
so much pain."
Her mother knew the consequences of walking away.
"It's more like she disconnected from me," Darby said.
When Caroline got her son's disconnection letter, she
called a lawyer. Her parental rights trumped
Scientology's disconnection doctrine. She and the boy
met at Cody's Roadhouse in Clearwater.
"I love you more than any other human being on the
planet," she told her son.
He lit up, she said. She now sees him regularly. But
not Darby.
"My heart is still broken about not having my family,"
Caroline said. "I'm the one who got her (Darby) in it,
I'd like to be the one who gets her out."
Remarried now, Caroline attends St. Petersburg
College, hoping to become an art teacher.
"It's fun creating a new life," she said. "I just wish
the ones I love more than anyone in the world could be
part of it."
* * *
The suppressive persons who spoke to the Times were
declared SPs because they publicly and repeatedly
challenged the church. They also faced the church's
regimented internal justice system.
The process typically begins with a Scientologist
writing a "knowledge report" about another church
member, outlining alleged transgressions. The accused
may be directed to undergo ethics counseling or
ordered to face a "committee of evidence," a tribunal
of church staff members who, acting as jurors,
determine if the person has committed suppressive
acts.
Suppressive acts must be renounced, and suppressive
persons must atone. Failing to comply carries heavy
consequences, as Randy Payne discovered.
* * *
For two decades, Payne, 53, was a dedicated
Scientologist. He and his wife published a Scientology
newspaper in Clearwater. He paid tens of thousands of
dollars for Scientology training.
He expanded his Clearwater private school, Lighthouse,
which incorporated L. Ron Hubbard's study techniques,
and opened sister schools in Scientology's target
markets of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Italy.
To use Hubbard's "tech" and materials, Payne agreed to
pay 10 percent of his schools' revenues. He paid the
fee initially, but stopped in 1997 because he said his
curriculum had evolved to a point where Hubbard's
techniques were used only marginally.
The church threatened to declare him an SP.
"It's the ultimate weapon for them because no one can
talk to you," Payne said.
He pleaded his case through four committees of
evidence - two held in Clearwater, two in Los Angeles.
He formally was declared a suppressive person on May
11, 2003. The order said Payne "spread false and
derogatory statements to others about Scientology and
Church staff."
Scientology agents sought to cut off Payne's ties to
the church community. A church ethics officer told an
employee at Payne's school that he needed to quit,
according to a note the employee wrote to Payne.
Church staffers informed Payne's students who were
Scientologists that Payne had been declared and that
they should leave the school, he said.
The suppressive person policy was used against him as
a form of extortion, Payne said, to get him to pay the
fees.
He wrote legislators and met with law enforcement
officials, asking they investigate his claim of
extortion.
Last October, Payne made a more public protest that
could happen only in Clearwater. During the opening
moments of a Clearwater City Council meeting, when
residents typically complain about parking problems
and potholes, Payne stood and with TV cameras
recording his every word, complained about the Church
of Scientology:
"It is my belief that this church's leadership has
created a corrupt internal justice system to enforce
its money-making scheme on individuals and
businesses."
Council members sat mute.
* * *
Extreme? Perhaps. Effective? Definitely.
That's the view of many religious scholars who say the
motive behind Scientology's suppressive person
doctrine is clear: keep members from breaking ranks.
"That's the way the church keeps discipline," said J.
Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study
of American Religion, a think tank in Santa Barbara,
Calif., that focuses on smaller groups. "For them,
that's an internal control mechanism."
Scientology's disconnection requirement is far more
extreme than the severing practices of most modern
religions, Melton said.
"I just think it would be better for all concerned if
they just let them go ahead and get out and everyone
goes their own way, and not make such a big deal of
it," said Melton. "The policy hurts everybody."
Church spokesman Shaw suggested the Times interview
two other professors who have testified in
Scientology's behalf in legal cases.
"It is rather strict," said the first, F.K. Flinn,
adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington
University in St. Louis. It also is characteristic of
a young religion, he said.
"It has to do with feeling threatened because you're
not that big. You do everything you can to keep unity
in the group."
Scientology is not as controlling as were the early
Christians, Flinn said. Its SP practices are akin to
the shunning of the Amish and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Some Amish communities allow contact with close
friends and families; Jehovah's Witnesses cut off all
communication except in cases of family business or
emergency.
The second expert Shaw suggested, Newton Maloney, a
professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary in
Pasadena, Calif., characterized Scientology's
disconnection policy as "too extreme," particularly as
it affects families.
"Some people I've talked to, they just wanted to go on
with their lives and they wanted to be in touch with
their daughter or son or parent. The shunning was just
painful. And I don't know what it was accomplishing.
"And the very terms they use are scary, aren't they?"
Shaw says the church's policy is far from extreme.
Doesn't everyone distance themselves from negative
influences?
"Prisoners are disconnected from society," Shaw said.
"Employees are fired, spouses scorned and divorced by
their partner."
Unethical lawyers are disbarred. Discriminatory
businesses are boycotted. Journalists who fabricate
stories are fired, he said.
"All of these actions represent the practice of
disconnection in cases where an antisocial person will
not reform or restrain their destructive actions."
The suppressive person and disconnection policies are
a last resort, Shaw said.
"The only reason to declare someone a suppressive
person is to give them a road map to their own
salvation."
And many SPs have returned.
Hubbard once wrote that SPs were "fair game," meaning
that they could be "tricked, sued or lied to or
destroyed." Hubbard canceled the "fair game" policy in
1976, saying it was never intended to authorize
"illegal or harassment type acts against anyone."
Church critics, however, remain wary.
* * *
Potential Trouble Source. No Scientologist wants to be
called that. PTSs can't take classes or get the
spiritual counseling called auditing. But if you
maintain contact with a suppressive person, that's
what you are.
Two recorded messages left last year on the answering
machine of Creed Pearson illustrate just how serious
this can be.
The caller: Scientologist Kathy Feshbach, a major
contributor and founder of a Scientology mission in
Belleair.
The first call was placed on March 2.
"Hi ... this is Kathy Feshbach. ... Ah, George Mariani
is running for mayor again in Belleair, called us;
wants us to have all our friends over on Sunday at our
house at 4 for him to talk. It's really important
because No.1, he is reaching for us, the
Scientologists. So that's really a good indicator. So
I really want to have a big showing for him. ... So,
anyway, it's a big deal that the mayor called us so I
really want you guys to come over."
What Feshbach did not know was that Pearson - a
Scientologist for 25 years and big church donor - had
been declared a suppressive person the previous month.
Pearson, 50, said he was declared because he told his
friends in Scientology that the religion was being
altered by current management. He also said L. Ron
Hubbard had lied while ticking off his accomplishments
during a speech.
Four days later Feshbach called Pearson back and left
a second message. It was clear she had learned he was
a suppressive.
"Hi, Creed, this is Kathy Feshbach. Sunday morning ...
I just heard that you were under some kind of ethics
cycle. So, you are not invited to our house today. I
am sure you understand. So, ah, thank you very much
for understanding. Please do not attend the event.
Thank you very much for understanding."
* * *
As the community of Scientologists has grown to an
estimated 10,000 in the Tampa Bay area, so too has the
number of declared SPs increased, according to church
officials and former members.
Shaw said there are only about 40 SPs in the bay area.
Former Scientologists say the number of suppressive
people is much higher.
Thousands of SP declare files are kept at the church's
administrative headquarters in California, said Astra
Woodcraft, who worked there for three years ending in
1998.
Now, she is in those files herself.
* * *
The Woodcrafts are a family divided. The mother, a son
and grandmother are Scientologists. The father and two
daughters left.
The two sides do not speak.
Raised with her brother and sister in Scientology,
Astra Woodcraft spent two years in Clearwater as a
teen, living in a church-owned motel on U.S. 19 and
serving as a Scientology cadet.
Her family later moved to Los Angeles and at 14 she
joined the Sea Org, the legion of church staffers who
dedicate their lives to church service. Woodcraft was
assigned to the ethics security team, which tried to
keep people from leaving Scientology.
One month after turning 15, she married a 22-year-old
fellow Sea Org member. A few years later, she traveled
to England to attend her grandmother's funeral.
Enthralled with "the outside world," she stayed on for
a time in England and decided to leave Scientology.
Her husband wrote her from Los Angeles: "What really
will happen if you decide not to come back and get
declared? I will have to disconnect from you, and so
will the rest of your family - your Mom, your Dad,
Grandma, Matt and Zoe. Or, you come back and
standardly handle the situation, with whatever
decision you have made."
Woodcraft, pregnant, filed for divorce. She was 20.
She returned to the church in L.A. in April 1998 and
did her sec checks. It took a month. She signed a
document admitting to trying marijuana at age 13 and
once stealing a pair of pantyhose.
Then she left. Scientology hit her with a
"freeloader's bill" for $80,000. Sea Org staffers get
Scientology courses and auditing for free. But leave,
and you are billed retroactively. She refused to pay.
Later, Woodcraft's younger sister, then 15, also left
Scientology. She was in the Cadet Org, living with her
mother, then a church staffer in Clearwater. She
called her father, who had been declared an SP years
earlier. He picked her up at the Clearwater Library
and spirited her away.
Shaw provided the Times a letter from Astra
Woodcraft's mother, Leslie Woodcraft.
"While not happy about it, I could have accepted her
(Astra's) decision to leave church staff," Leslie
Woodcraft wrote. "But what is very, very upsetting is
that she reverted to her old, dishonest ways."
Astra became a "puppet of vested interests and her
'story' - lies and false accusations really," Leslie
stated, likely made as a way to seek attention.
The letter ended, "Still, I have not given up hope
that one day Astra will realize that she made a
decision that, as final as it may appear to her now,
can be reverted."
Astra says she left "not hating Scientology," but the
church's reaction left her wanting nothing to do with
it.
"The hardest thing for me is explaining to my daughter
why she can't see her dad," who did not contest Astra
getting sole custody. "I don't want him to see her. I
don't want Scientology to touch her in any form."
But she wishes she could speak to her brother and
mother and grandmother, all of whom remain
Scientologists.
"I really love my mom and I miss her a lot," Astra
said. "I would love for her to see my daughter."
Robert Farley can be reached at farley@sptimes.com or
(727) 445-4159.
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