The idea that punishment can be therapeutic is not unique to the Rotenberg Center. In fact, this notion is widespread among the hundreds of “emotional growth boarding schools,” wilderness camps, and “tough love” antidrug programs that make up the billion-dollar teen residential treatment industry. No fewer than 50 programs (though not the Rotenberg Center) can trace their treatment philosophy, directly or indirectly, to an antidrug cult called Synanon.

This Friday, April 16, will be the 25th anniversary of The Point Reyes Light's winning a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service. It was the fourth time in the 61-year history of the Pulitzers that a prize in any division had gone to a weekly newspaper instead of a daily.

Charles E. Dederich, a reformed alcoholic who founded Synanon, the drug rehabilitation program that won widespread acclaim and amassed great wealth before it became associated with violence, died on Friday in Kaweah Delta Hospital in Visalia, Calif. Mr. Dederich, who lived in Visalia, was 83.

A tape recording of the founder of Synanon, Charles E. Dederich, suggesting violence as a means of dealing with troublesome lawyers and reporters, has been played to a jury in the organization’s $21 million slander suit against KGO-TV, the San Francisco affiliate of ABC, and six staff members.

Attorney Paul Morantz unlocked the door of his house in Los Angeles last week and put his left hand into the mailbox. "I felt a sharp pain, and then it felt as though my hand was in a vise," he recalls.

In a cavernous California mountain lodge, some 40 smiling people, their shiny, shaved heads reflecting the dancing flames of a roaring fire, oohed, ahed and applauded.