THUNDERBIRD RULES

YOU CAN'T FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME
                               or
                          CAN YOU ?

When I was a budding psychotherapist in l967 I got my first break to work as a psychologist at Odyssey House, an innovative therapeutic community for the treatment of heroin addicts. For the first three months I believed that I had discovered my personal Garden of Eden. During the next 14 months, "Eden" turned into Paradise Lost - a nightmarish experience that could aptly serve as a sequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest.

My traumatic experience at Odyssey and what I have learned from it is useful in understanding the current political atmosphere both in America and the whole world. In this connection, Odyssey is viewed as a microcosm of the complexity of group interactions ranging from cooperation and good will on the one side to subjugation and abuse of authority on the other.

In this context a summer camp game called THUNDERBIRD dramatizes these points and has chilling implications with respect to understanding the nature of our current political landscape.