Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, founder of Phoenix House, dies at 87
A psychiatrist, he was one of the first advocates of drug and alcohol treatment with residential group therapy.
Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, the founder of Phoenix House, which billed itself as the largest private nonprofit drug addiction treatment program in the United States, died Nov. 14 in Manhattan. He was 87.
His wife, Sarah Simms, said he died in hospital of complications from pneumonia.
Dr. Rosenthal, a psychiatrist, popularized a regimen of abstinence and group therapy in a community residential setting where people could recover from drug and alcohol addiction, as well as address other behavioral issues.
>He founded Phoenix House in 1967 in a former flophouse on Manhattan's Upper West Side after six drug addicts who had been in the rehab unit at Beth Israel Medical Center sought his help.
The program later grew into a national network, which by the 1990s had residential treatment centers in 10 states, where it continues to operate , as well as in some prisons. He also opened high school academies. Programs in Britain, the Netherlands and Israel have been established on the model of Phoenix House.
"Throughout history, "without "hope" was among the most commonly applied labels to people addicted to alcohol and drugs," Dr. Rosenthal wrote that year in an autobiography he completed just before his death. "Drug addicts" were shunned by much of the medical profession," he continued. "Few people wanted to have anything to do with them. therapeutic community, in the 1960s. That was the first glimmer of hope."
A prodigious and gregarious fundraiser, Dr. Rosenthal quickly rose from a minor New York City official at the public face of nationwide residential addiction treatment.
He advised the Reagan administration on drug policy and promoted the "Just Say No to Drugs" campaign by Nancy Reagan. He skillfully brought together celebrities, philanthropists and other public figures to generate government grants and private contributions for Phoenix House. And he did the same to gain political support for his own anti-addiction approach, given his conclusion that the official "war on drugs" had failed.
For more than five decades, he advocated against the legalization of hard drugs; warned that decriminalizing adult marijuana use would encourage young people to use it; insisted that methadone was a quick fix to wean addicts off heroin, not a permanent fix; and generally despised needle exchange programs and similar initiatives which, to him, seemed to recognize illegal drug use as a grim but irreversible reality.
In a letter to the New York Times in 1993, Dr. Rosenthal wrote that the impact of drug abuse extends far beyond crime and the criminal justice system.
"Disorderly drug addicts are widely crime but also for random violence and juvenile violence, domestic violence and child abuse," he wrote...
A psychiatrist, he was one of the first advocates of drug and alcohol treatment with residential group therapy.
Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, the founder of Phoenix House, which billed itself as the largest private nonprofit drug addiction treatment program in the United States, died Nov. 14 in Manhattan. He was 87.
His wife, Sarah Simms, said he died in hospital of complications from pneumonia.
Dr. Rosenthal, a psychiatrist, popularized a regimen of abstinence and group therapy in a community residential setting where people could recover from drug and alcohol addiction, as well as address other behavioral issues.
>He founded Phoenix House in 1967 in a former flophouse on Manhattan's Upper West Side after six drug addicts who had been in the rehab unit at Beth Israel Medical Center sought his help.
The program later grew into a national network, which by the 1990s had residential treatment centers in 10 states, where it continues to operate , as well as in some prisons. He also opened high school academies. Programs in Britain, the Netherlands and Israel have been established on the model of Phoenix House.
"Throughout history, "without "hope" was among the most commonly applied labels to people addicted to alcohol and drugs," Dr. Rosenthal wrote that year in an autobiography he completed just before his death. "Drug addicts" were shunned by much of the medical profession," he continued. "Few people wanted to have anything to do with them. therapeutic community, in the 1960s. That was the first glimmer of hope."
A prodigious and gregarious fundraiser, Dr. Rosenthal quickly rose from a minor New York City official at the public face of nationwide residential addiction treatment.
He advised the Reagan administration on drug policy and promoted the "Just Say No to Drugs" campaign by Nancy Reagan. He skillfully brought together celebrities, philanthropists and other public figures to generate government grants and private contributions for Phoenix House. And he did the same to gain political support for his own anti-addiction approach, given his conclusion that the official "war on drugs" had failed.
For more than five decades, he advocated against the legalization of hard drugs; warned that decriminalizing adult marijuana use would encourage young people to use it; insisted that methadone was a quick fix to wean addicts off heroin, not a permanent fix; and generally despised needle exchange programs and similar initiatives which, to him, seemed to recognize illegal drug use as a grim but irreversible reality.
In a letter to the New York Times in 1993, Dr. Rosenthal wrote that the impact of drug abuse extends far beyond crime and the criminal justice system.
"Disorderly drug addicts are widely crime but also for random violence and juvenile violence, domestic violence and child abuse," he wrote...
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