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By Alicia on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 10:24 am:

    Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, Who Founded Odyssey House Group Drug Program, Dies at 68

    May 14, 2003
    By DOUGLAS MARTIN



    Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, a lawyer and psychiatrist who
    founded the drug treatment program Odyssey House and went
    on to give widely quoted but sometimes disputed testimony
    on subjects like child abuse and pornography, died on
    Sunday in Manhattan. She was 68.

    The cause was cancer, said her daughter Dr. Sarah Baden,
    who added that her mother lived in Westport, Conn., and had
    come to New York for Mother's Day.

    In 1966, Dr. Densen-Gerber founded Odyssey House, one of
    the earlier drug-free therapeutic communities that helped
    addicts recover. She was a leading advocate of such
    programs, which involved group residence and group therapy,
    as opposed to methadone-maintenance programs.

    She got to know Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller when she
    picketed in front of his house to demand funds for her
    program, and they became friends. In the 1970's she became
    a conspicuous figure at public hearings, society balls and
    ghetto demonstrations with her bouffant hairdo,
    rhinestone-studded glasses and cigars.

    A 1979 profile in New York magazine quoted Mayor Edward I.
    Koch as saying that she was "one of those seminal forces,
    original, a go-getter." He said there were "few people who
    can claim as many accomplishments."

    Dr. Densen-Gerber's success at getting government help
    became her downfall when the state investigated her use of
    public funds in the early 1980's and found irregularities.
    She resigned as executive director of Odyssey House in
    1983, but remained active in affiliated programs.

    Her influence extended to areas like child pornography. In
    1977, her testimony that there were 264 monthly
    publications devoted to the subject helped persuade the
    House of Representatives to unanimously pass a bill to
    regulate it.

    IPT, the publication of the Institute for Psychological
    Therapy, reported in 1992 that later government
    investigations proved her estimates to be exaggerated by
    "several orders of magnitude."

    Dr. Densen-Gerber also commented on many other hot issues
    from a psychiatric point of view.

    In 1991, she went to Omaha to testify in court that her
    interview with a man convinced her he had witnessed four
    satanic ritual killings. She characterized herself as an
    expert at deprogramming survivors of satanic cults.

    In 1997, she appeared on Geraldo Rivera's television
    program to analyze a videotape of JonBenet Ramsey in a
    children's beauty contest.

    Her unorthodox approach extended to her psychiatric
    practice. In 1999, she agreed to pay $200,000 to settle a
    civil lawsuit over her inability to account for 1,270 vials
    of medicinal cocaine. She denied any violation of the law.

    She was born in Manhattan on Nov. 13, 1934. Her mother,
    Beatrice Densen, who had kept her own name, was an heiress
    of the Densen paper-box fortune. Her father, Gustave
    Gerber, a chemical engineer, became a lawyer in his 40's
    and was considering studying medicine in his 60's.

    Dr. Densen-Gerber's parents persuaded her to study law
    before supporting her through medical school. She graduated
    from Columbia Law School and New York University Medical
    School. She did her residency at Metropolitan Hospital,
    where during one of her pregnancies, the director suggested
    she spend an hour or two a day working with addicts. That
    led to her assembling, in 1966, a group of addicts who
    wanted to cure themselves without using drugs. Before she
    found a home for them, they slept in 11 temporary shelters,
    giving rise to the name Odyssey.

    Her original capital was $3.82, and dinner was often rice
    and spaghetti. Her first permanent building, on East 109th
    Street, was rented for $17 a month. There were 17
    residents.

    Within four years, other Odyssey Houses had started to
    spring up in other cities. In New York, Dr. Densen-Gerber
    reached out to new populations like prostitutes and
    addicted mothers.

    Her own celebrity grew, and in 1981 The New York Times
    noted her costume at the April in Paris Ball at the
    Waldorf-Astoria. She wore a leather lionlike mask and a
    lionlike coiffure.

    By the next year, Dr. Densen-Gerber faced stiff challenges.
    She agreed to pay back $20,000 in excessive personal
    expenses to close a state investigation. News reports
    suggested she had become intoxicated with her own power.

    "I remember her grandly lying back and being grande dame to
    all the peons who were lying around," Nancy Hoving, a
    former member of Odyssey's advisory council, said in a New
    York magazine interview.

    In 1997, her marriage to Michael Baden, who had been the
    city's medical examiner and a top forensic official for the
    state police, burned out in a flurry of lawsuits and
    spectacular accusations.

    The marriage's beginning had also been unusual. Mr. Baden
    said in an interview with The Daily News in 1989 that he
    took her to an autopsy on their first date and proposed by
    phone while assisting in the post-mortem on the
    bullet-riddled body of the mobster Albert Anastasia.

    In addition to her daughter Sarah, Dr. Densen-Gerber is
    survived by another daughter, Trissa Baden of Hopewell,
    N.J.; a son, Lindsey, of Brookline, Mass.; and two
    grandchildren.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/14/obituaries/14GERB.html?ex=1053915374&ei=1&en=943326d65dcd972a



By Jimmy Hernandez on Saturday, April 22, 2006 - 01:15 pm:

    Judy was a great beacon of light as we struggled
    in a raging sea of drugs and crime. She had a way
    of drawing our devotion and commitment to any task. Odyssey was a dynamic,vibrant,therapeutic
    community; ever growing and evolving.I have often
    wished that I could have spent more time,and delved deeper in therapy with her.I will always
    cherish her memory.


By sarah on Monday, April 24, 2006 - 12:41 pm:


    yesterday morning we learned that Rubin, our next door neighbor, died.

    this morning i got a phone call telling me my friend Marie (who lives in Mountainview, CA) died yesterday. i found out a few dyas ago that she had suffered a cardiac event of unknown origin that deprived her body of oxygen for an unknown period of time that resulted brain swelling. she was on life support for less than 48 hours before her body shut itself down.

    this makes four deaths in my life, in less than one month.


    Scot (38), my grandmother (89), Rubin (76), and Marie (41).


    i am so sad, i can't even really get a handle on all of this. it has happened so quickly. doesn't this seem strange as well as excessive?




By sarah on Monday, April 24, 2006 - 01:32 pm:


    oh great. okay, i am not making this up.

    i just now found out that one of my co-worker's eight year old daughter died over the weekend.


    WHAT THE FUCK!?




By kazu on Monday, April 24, 2006 - 02:10 pm:

    That IS excessive. And strange.

    It would be less strange if in all your travels and habitats you made acquaintance with many older folks, but three of those five are young. Eight years old. Fuck.


    I'm sorry about all this.


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