Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Ursus on August 20, 2007, 08:46:16 PM
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News:[/color] From sugar-coated lollipops to electric shocks, the road to discipline. Jennifer Gonnerman talks with the Rotenberg Center's founder Matthew Israel. (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/jennifer_gonnerman_interviews_matthew_israel.html)
August 20, 2007
(http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock_3_580x454.jpg)
Photo: Larry Sultan[/i]
JG: How did you first meet Dr. Skinner?
MI: I was a freshman in college. It was 1950, at Harvard College, and I had a social conscience, I think, and I wanted to do some good with my life. And I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I thought I might go into government or something, Foreign Service...and Harvard at that time had a science requirement. And I thought I'd get it out of the way my first year so I took first semester in astronomy. I needed another half year of science and I saw they had some courses that were open to freshman in the rubric of natural science and one was called "Human Behavior," by someone named Skinner. And the description sounded good, and I took it, and I liked very much his approach because he was trying to bring the methods of natural science to the study of behavior. A lot of the study of behavior is with the methods of social science. They're less rigorous; they're the methods of political psychology, which at that time there wasn't really data on it, and I thought it was a very fascinating notion.
I got angry at myself at one point because I didn't seem to be reading anything except what professors were putting on their lists of books you're supposed to read. So I said, "Let's pick up some books that aren't assigned to me." And Skinner had written a utopian novel called Walden Two, and that really captivated me because what he said in that book was in something I alluded to yesterday: He said that a lot of the issues in the world have to do with what we understand to be the nature of man.
Is he a free, rational person able to choose between good and evil, between truth and falsehood? And if so, John Mills and the democratic approach to government make a lot of sense. If he is primarily motivated by sexual issues, then the Freudian makes a lot of sense. If he is primarily motivated by his position in the economic class struggle, then Marxism, communism makes sense. Prior to taking this course I was feeling that way. How do you know who's right? What combination of theories is correct? Then along comes this little book that says it isn't one way or the other way; our best understanding is that each individual person is what he's made by his genetics and his conditioning history. He's not good or bad, or primarily this way or that way, but the way to find out is through the methods of experimental science.
Which was, he called it--[experimental science] came to be called behavioral psychology, and he said therefore the way to find out how people really should be organized and how society really should be governed is through experimenting and we need an experimental community. So he described this utopian community where it was essentially an experiment in living--and it captivated me. I thought, "My God, that's a wonderful solution, because people don't have to pretend to know the answers. You only have to say, 'Well, I'll find the answers.'" And that was, I decided that my mission was to start a, that, utopian community.
JG: And about how old were you at this point? Twenty?
MI: I was 17 or 18, a freshman in college.
JG: So you decided at 17 or 18 that you wanted to start a utopian community?
MI: Absolutely. I was very serious about it; I didn't think my life would have any real...I wanted my life to have some meaning but I didn't know how to do that. First I went in and told him he should assign that book because he wasn't assigning it to his own classes. And he told me some story, some joke, about professors assigning their own books, and I said, "Well, you should," and he did assign it the next year, as well as 1984.
JG: He assigned 1984 too?
MI: Yeah, because he wanted to give all sides of the issue.
He then began to...a lot of people...he wrote the book right after World War II, it was kind of something he was offering in return to veterans as a way of hope for a better world, and a number of people wrote to him and asked, "Where is this place?" It was described as being in Canton--I assumed it was Canton, Ohio--and Skinner would give me the letters people wrote into him asking where this place was and I started a little newsletter to people interested in it.
I started to major in psychology, but found the other courses were very boring. He was writing a book called Science and Human Behavior and in it analyzed all of society with these same basic principles. He shows how religion, politics, economics, education--they're all agencies using behavior to mold the individual. Then he also put forth the idea in this book, as well as in Walden Two, of determinism, that ultimately all behavior is lawful and that although that seems pessimistic at first thought it's actually optimistic because it means you can--by changing the environment and conditioning history that people have--make a better life.
JG: So is that why [the JRC is] in Canton today?
MI: That's an accident, but that's why the students...I didn't know how to start, how to go about this. I don't want to make this story too long. What happened was that I became discouraged; I thought maybe everybody when they're young they have these ideas that they want to do good and that real life is something different. My father was a lawyer and I thought maybe that's what I was going to have to do, and I didn't want to go to Army because the Korean War was on, so I went to law school for two years and got headaches and I didn't think that was for me.
Decided to go back to graduate school and study under Skinner, which was what I then did, and at that time he was working on "program instruction" teaching machines. My first approach was to start a business to make program instruction teaching machines in early 1960s, and that didn't work out. I was hoping it would be so successful it would support the utopian community. My next approach was I started two communal houses, hoping they would grow into a community. That didn't work out well.
JG: Where were the houses?
MI: One was in South End in Boston, one was in Arlington.
JG: And they just flopped?
MI: Well, they had all the problems of a marriage without the satisfactions people have in marriage. All the problems of living together.
JG: How many people were in them?
MI: The first had six or seven people; the second had five. The first had a three-year-old girl who had these terrible behaviors. Screaming. She was very spoiled. Her mother was a Freudian. She was an unwed mother, but she gave me the chance to do training with her child.
JG: What did that entail?
MI: Well, the first thing was that she had to stop this; she was very wild and screaming. I had started a group called the Association of Social Design--people who wanted to work toward building a behavioral community--and at a party she would walk around with a toy broom and whack people over the head.
JG: This was the Association of Social Design?
MI: Yeah, we'd have a meeting once every eight days, invite people, try to get people interested in a utopian community; that was when behavioral modification was beginning to...the first journals were in the '60s, and I remember at one point she would be screaming and I would retreat to my own room, and she'd be trying to pull away and get into my room, and I'd have to hold the door on one side to keep her from disturbing me while I tried to talk to someone.
When she was screaming one day, I asked her mother if I could try a few behavioral procedures, and her mother said, "Okay." I would reward her when she was quiet and not screaming, but that alone didn't seem to work sufficient. One day I found myself alone in the house with her and she started to barge into my room when I was trying to work or something, and maybe she was screaming or whatever; I found myself putting her in her room and saying, "There's no screaming. Time-out for you." Time-out was a procedure that was being used in a lot of papers and literature. The idea was that you took away the opportunity for reward--it was time-out from reinforcement.
And she kept screaming, and that was annoying. And now she's trying to come out of the room and I'm a 40-year-old, in my late 30s, holding the door on one side and this little 3-year-old is on the other side, and I thought, "This is ridiculous." I went into her room. I gave her a snap on her cheek, and said, "There's no screaming when you're in time-out."
JG: What is this, like a...
MI: A punishment. It's a snap on the cheek with the finger; it was either a snap or a slap, I'm not sure which. And I went outside again and I would measure how long she was quiet. And I noticed: I did this a couple of times, and she would stop her crying. And I would take walks with her--that was a source of a lot of reward--and it got to the point where she was so well-mannered that if I sat across the table from her and she started to do something inappropriate, I could just shake my head at her like this, and she would...Instead of being an annoyance, she became a charming addition, a charming individual to the house.
And I'd teach her how to play by herself. I'd say, "If you can play by yourself for a while"--I'd set a timer--and I'd say, "If you can play by yourself for two minutes, we'll do something fun." It was the same basic behavioral techniques. It was general property. It wasn't something I invented; it was obvious principles. So that was kind of an eye-opener to see how effective this was. Skinner's work was mostly with pigeons and rats, and he speculated that the same basic principles would work with human organisms as well. And only in the '60s, '70s, and '80s did people start to actually do research with humans, at first with psychotic and retarded people, then with more normal, unimpaired individuals.
JG: What was this little girl's name?
MI: Andrea.
JG: And what ever happened to Andrea?
MI: I don't know. I would like to know.
JG: So she was in some ways your first pupil. I don't know if pupil's the word.
MI: Yes, that's right, and there was a couple that joined the house that summer, largely because they found her so charming. She could be a sweet, charming little girl.
JG: How often would you have to slap her on the face?
MI: It was just a couple times. I think I didn't use a slap. If I used it the first time, then I went to just a cheek snap. I would give her instructions to just follow directions. I'd say, "Andrea, we're going to learn to follow directions." I'd give her directions that weren't necessarily meaningful things. I'd say, "Touch the doorknob, please." If she did, I'd pick her up and reward her extravagantly. If she refused, I might give her a snap on the cheek.
Skinner had not really been a proponent of punishment. His Walden Two was a world where reward was used so skillfully that you didn't need to ever punish. And he said of punishment that it works temporarily but in the long run it has--he related a lot of the problems people had to punishment early in life. That was the theme of the Freudian approach also.
Anyway, to skip forward a little bit, in the late '60s I decided perhaps--these two communal houses were in '67 and '68--and I decided maybe a better way was to start a school, because a school will provide jobs for the members of the community. And that's how I got into starting a school.
Once the school got started--it started in the homes of two students in Providence, Rhode Island--once the school got started, I think the first couple of employees...I insisted they had to be people interested in Walden Two.
JG: The first couple employees?
MI: Yeah. And then I found that I didn't want to compromise the quality of the school by making that requirement. And I also found as the next three or four years went by that I was getting such satisfaction out of running the school that the potential satisfactions of the utopian community were less important to me. I was sort of getting satisfaction out of real life, for the first time really, so the dream of the utopian community kind of faded away and I worked on developing the school. But little elements of the school, in some respects, still has similar elements of Walden Two.
JG: Were there any elements in particular?
MI: Well, Walden Two had a...there was a woman described--there are a lot of elements, really, if I think about it--there was a woman who went around the community with a clipboard just asking the members--there's only 1,000 people in the community, and she would ask people if they're satisfied with things and if they had any problems. 'Cause the idea of the government community is that you wanted to have a community where people are getting their needs met, things are working smoothly.
We have a discussion board for our staff--it's online--which does the same thing. In fact, the practicing employees are required to make some entries.
JG: So you don't need someone with a clipboard anymore?
MI: Yeah, we don't need the clipboard. Another example would be, yesterday we talked about the "programmed opportunities." In Walden Two, he described some training and self-management, with little children, and one example of the training would be they would have to sit in front of bowls of hot, steaming cereal when they were hungry and not eat it. Or there was another where they would hang lollipops around their neck and coat them with white sugar so if they lick them they could tell. These were essentially little programmed opportunities that were hopefully intended to build resistance, tolerance to frustration, ability to defer gratification for a period of time.
JG: So that's the bit you were telling me about with...
MI: The programmed opportunities where we deliberately present a stimulus which might trigger a problem behavior, and you hope that it doesn't and you teach the student, you try to prompt the student so that it doesn't--you reward him if it doesn't.
JG: So it's like a lollipop with the white sugar?
MI: Yeah, it has some similar aspects; you're trying to teach self-management. You're programming stimulus which might trigger a problem behavior, but you want to teach the student the opposite behavior.
JG: Are there other things in Walden Two that...
MI: Other people comment when they visit here that there are, but I'll try to make it a very ideal environment for the students. I think that Walden Two was written at a time when people weren't interested in nutrition, but I think if it existed today...I mean an optimal environment would be one where you're eating in ways that are helpful to your health. I think--it came as a surprise to me the extent to which the corporate influences are involved in setting health policy in this country. I don't know if you read--most of us don't realize that these committees that set the guidelines for what we eat...
JG: I read Fast Food Nation; I know Eric Schlosser. I got a good taste for...
MI: Good, the committee that sets the guidelines, I think in fact [someone] filed a Freedom of Information Access request and found that the majority of the members of the committee had economic ties to the food industries. So people who have economic interests in seeing you eat their foods--the meat industry, the dairy industry, for example--are...and it also came as a surprise to me that you could do anything about the chronic disease of aging.
I thought, "As you get older, you might get heart disease, you might get cancer, but there wasn't anything you could do about it." Most people do think that way: Just these are just the things that happen to you. Most people get their own--and me too--you get your education about medicine and drugs largely from commercials on the evening news, and the fact that through diet you could do something to avoid or delay things like heart disease or cancer, the fact that heart disease begins when you're a child--during the Korean War, when they opened up teenage kids and their arteries already had plaque--so I think that having to--that's a small thing--probably the most the whole notion of Walden Two was that through behavioral procedures you can make people, and by changing behavior using behavior modification, you can really change people's behavior and help them lead a better life.
Walden Two was a comprehensive environment. The notion was that you needed to have the whole environment under control. With a school like this, we have an awful lot. Not the whole environment, but an awful lot. Those are a few things that just occurred.
JG: And you grew up in Brookline [Massachusetts]?
MI: That's right.
JG: And how many kids in the family?
MI: Two. I had an older brother.
JG: And was he interested in the stuff you were interested in?
MI: No, not at all. He was an electrical engineer and he did not like psychologists. He had had bad experiences with psychologists. He was involved in the development of computer-controlled air traffic systems. He eventually worked for Defense Department on strategic air defense systems. I guess in the course of his life he encountered psychologists who were not helpful.
JG: He was an electrical engineer? Did he ever help you with BRI [Behavior research Institute] or JRC's electrical needs?
MI: He was on the board of directors at a certain point in his life. He was living in Washington then. He was on the board for a while.
JG: Did he help with the GED at all?
MI: No, he was...I think he was...no, he didn't happen to, but he was still alive at the time that we first built it.
JG: And were you the older one, or the younger one?
MI: Younger.
JG: And how old are you now?
MI: I'm 73.
JG: And you said your dad was a lawyer?
MI: Yes.
JG: And I think you said on the website that you went to high school with Dukakis?
MI: Yeah, I went to high school--we used to run cross-country and practice together.
JG: Cross-country?
MI: Yeah.
JG: So were you in the same grade, or no?
MI: He was one grade behind me.
JG: Did you have any kind of friendship?
MI: I thought it was a friendship, because I wrote [somewhere] that I was disappointed later.
JG: Did you have any contact after high school?
MI: No, he went into politics. He went to Swarthmore and then into politics. I would just hear about him from mutual friends.
JG: Did he ever talk to you in later years?
MI: Well, my father supported him in his political campaign, and my father's law partner was an advance man for him in his campaign, and I didn't have occasion to speak with him, though I'm sure I went to a fundraiser. The part that I wrote about was when we had our first big controversy over aversives. I think he was just running for president, and I'm sure he didn't want this controversy to have any adverse affect on his run. And from that respect, I can understand, but I was disappointed personally. The way it was explained to me was because there was litigation involved, he couldn't speak to me. If he had even said that, it would have been nice.
JG: Did your parents or your dad have any kind of punishment policy when you were a kid? Were you ever punished? Disciplined?
MI: I think I was spanked a couple of times. I was put in a room in a kind of time-out for losing privileges.
JG: Was it emphasized at all?
MI: Oh no, it was just normal. I was very fortunate in family life. They were very good to me, very good to me.
JG: What kind of lawyer was your dad?
MI: It was just a general practice. He did a lot of corporate law and real estate.
JG: You were telling me about Brandon yesterday and the SIBIS practice and the decision to take this one yourself...
MI: We started the program in '71, and the procedures we used were the spank, muscle squeeze, water spray, and pinch.
JG: Were these things others were doing, or did you come up with them yourself? The spank, the water spray...
MI: The spank has been going on since time began. Aromatic ammonia was a procedure that was used, where you break a vial of ammonia under the nose. You do find a lot of these in the literature of the '60s and '70s and '80s--more so then, because it has become so politically incorrect. What you'll also find is the skin shock. They would use a cattle prod. My consulting psychiatrist would say, "Why don't you use the skin shock? It's so much cleaner." I was frightened to get into that because that seemed too big a step. People could understand a spank because everyone has probably received one in their life, but no one had received a deliberate electric shock. You had to get ahold of the student and that could result in a struggle. And injuries did occur in those struggles. All the injuries that the staff were getting built up, and around '89 and '90, this new device called the SIBIS came about...That plus the frustration of seeing so many injuries led me to say, "Let's give this a try."
JG: You were telling me about a time when you were giving Brandon four or five thousand shocks but it didn't work.
MI: It was in automatic negative reinforcement mode, which means you saw that he had a bandaged arm. He was hitting his head as well as spitting and vomiting. He had to hold his hands on a switch, and while he held his hand on the switch, he would not get a shock, and if he took them off, he would receive about one per second. Unfortunately it wasn't strong enough. He would keep taking his hands off. At this point you have to realize I thought his life was in the balance. I couldn't find any medical solution. He was vomiting, losing weight. He was down to 52 pounds. I knew it was risky to use the shock in large numbers but I had to weigh that against...If I persevered that day, I thought maybe it would eventually work. There was nothing else I could think of to do to keep him from these behaviors. But by the time it went into the 3,000 or 4,000 applications, it became obvious it wasn't working, so we gave up. Nobody was actually administering it. It would happen only if he took his hand off. He would be shocked in the arm and leg. The problem that day was that the shock was too minor; it was of no effect. It wasn't even strong enough to make him want to stop it.
JG: Was this the turning point in the development of the GED?
MI: Yes.
JG: How do you know how strong the GED should be?
MI: There was no standard. It's hard; the literature each give a different description of devices that had been used. We knew what SIBIS was and we wanted it to be...to feel two to three times stronger than that. In the literature some of the durations had been as long as two to three seconds. So I chose two seconds.
JG: Tell me about the first time you used the GED.
MI: There was one student. I forget his name. Brandon was the second.
JG: Would you use it yourself on Brandon?
MI: Yes, we had a remote and we administered it. It was always used with a remote control.
JG: And at what point was the GED-4 created?
MI: The mid-'90s.
JG: And why did you develop the GED-4?
MI: Because some students had adapted to the GED. You can adapt to aversive conditions and procedures. The body is made that way. Odors, for example, are aversive at first, but the body adapts. That happens, unfortunately, with many kinds of punishment as well.
JG: Have people adapted to the GED-4? Is there a need for a GED-8?
MI: I don't think so. It hasn't happened, fortunately. I wouldn't rule it out--it could happen, but it's so effective. It's not used very often. You see, the more effective something it is, the fewer times it is used, and the less the chance of adaptation. So it's conceivable, but not likely.
JG: Have you ever used the GED-4 on yourself?
MI: Yes.
JG: What does it feel like?
MI: It's very painful.
JG: How many times have you tried it?
MI: A couple.
JG: That was enough?
MI: Yes. I demonstrated the GED-1 for a reporter and he wanted me to show him the GED-4, but fortunately he changed his mind. Must the surgeon demonstrate surgery on himself?
JG: Is that parallel--to the surgeon--how you think about your work?
MI: I think this is a treatment, and that is where the advocates who are opposed to it will not accept that notion--that it can be seen as treatment. They seize upon describing it as torture and abuse. But of course it's treatment. Why else would I want to encounter all these objections and controversies, and put my work in jeopardy every couple of years? What good reason would there be for this? Why would I do this if there wasn't some reasonable reason for it? Psychologists shy away even from doing research in this. They know in their hearts that it's effective. But they're afraid because psychology is so political. A consultant of ours once said, "If you made a discovery in physics or astrophysics, it might turn the whole field around." Psychology is much more politically encumbered in some ways. Education is that way too. Procedures that are effective don't get adopted because they're effective. For example, there was a study decades ago on how to teach children to read, comparing all different procedures. The best results were two behavioral procedures. Nobody adopted them. There's a politics to education and psychology. You could have a procedure that worked, but it wouldn't be adopted. Skinner developed a whole field of instruction and education procedures, but that doesn't mean it was going to be adopted.
JG: Do you think that if you were in a different field things would be different?
MI: Well, maybe I am underestimating the degree of politics in the field of physics and astrophysics. But in psychology...I'll give you one example. They did a study in positive behavior support--these are the people who should be completely against shock. So they did a survey of all the most prominent people in positive behavior support. They sought out the journal editors at journals like the Journal of Positive Behavior [Interventions]. I think they surveyed 140 people and got like 70 responses or something. And they asked, "What procedures would you consider using?" Their purpose was to try to show something like "people used to be using these terrible procedure called aversives." But what they found was that 10 percent of these people admitted, because it was done in a way that they could answer without using their names, 10 percent of these people who are committed to using non-aversive procedures admitted they would use shock in some circumstances, including self-abusive behaviors. If 10 percent--and that's not even asking those who aren't philosophically opposed to it...
JG: Do you think a lot of your opponents secretly would use this if they could?
MI: Well, that data is what it is. They answered that way. I do know that you'll find a lot of psychologists who acknowledge that this is an effective procedure, but they wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Why should they? Their career would be jeopardized. They would not be invited to speak at conferences, they would not be held in high regard. [Pauses.] It's just politically difficult.
JG: Do you think this is a price you've paid for going down this path over the years?
MI: It obviously is. I think so, but I mean behavioral psychology was just politically incorrect when it began. It still is not. But science is supposed to be a search for the truth.
JG: So if people are taking shots at you, that's just part of it?
MI: You'll find in the field of nutrition, how some people have made discoveries. There is one physician who has reversed heart disease, and at the Cleveland Clinic they will not offer that treatment. It's too politically incorrect, but the clinic still has places like McDonald's and fast food in their corridors. Yet members of the board of directors of that clinic will come to him privately for help. Every field is probably like that.
JG: What kind of negative effects have you seen with the GED?
MI: The only one is that it leaves a mark, and in some students it creates a mark that may last for days. I can't think of a single one except that it leaves a mark.
JG: You never see loss of appetite, or someone having a seizure? Nothing negative? It must affect everyone differently since everyone is so different.
MI: It feels different because everyone's skin is so different, and the resistance is different. But it has the most dramatically positive effects. Because suddenly, once the behaviors, once they change, the student is happier; he's more relaxed; he's enjoying life more. This has even been reported in the use of SIBIS. They have reported that some children help the experimenter put the device on. They weren't resisting. Some students seem to recognize that this is helpful to them. I can't think of a single negative effect other than the fact that there is a mark. And obviously it's painful--that's a direct effect that happens at the time.
JG: Have individuals ever become less affectionate or more withdrawn?
MI: No, just the reverse. They're able to now go home and enjoy their family. Their family will take them home. They become more a part of their family. Their life becomes better. They become happier and more relaxed. You didn't see anybody cringe when I walked up, or when a staff member walked up to them. We're never the source of solely aversives. We're the source of huge amounts of rewards, as you can see, and you'll see in the rest of your tour. I don't think there is any program that has gone to the lengths that we have to have reward systems. I don't know if I pointed it out to you, but in some classrooms, there's a little reward box with toys they can earn, or rent, or borrow, as a result of their behavior. The reward corner. The reward room, a big arcade-type of room. There's a reward afternoon. No school has made the effort we have with the powerful systems of reward that we have. I cannot think of any ill effects, particularly with the GED. That's the beauty of it: You don't have to worry about the side effects you have with drugs. The known side effects, not the side effects that show up five years later, once it's too late to change them.
JG: Is there any age limit at the top or bottom of who gets a GED?
MI: We haven't really set one. But we don't get the very young children.
JG: What's the youngest kid you ever had?
MI: I'm not sure. Maybe seven or eight.
JG: At what point did you decide to start trying to expand into high-functioning kids?
MI: There always have been high-functioning students. The first two students we started working with when we stared a residential program, one of them was a schizophrenic that would be a high-functioning student. The other was classically autistic. So there have always been some. When the proportion became larger, I know that prior to our moving to Canton, in '96, we already had a classroom for higher-functioning kids. So in the early '90s, we began to put together a classroom.
JG: Did you personally have any questions in your mind about whether your system would work for all of these types of kids? Even just the ones I met the other night? You have such a wide range of problems. Did you ever wonder about whether it would work for this rather than that, the autistic kid versus the other kids?
MI: I did have some questions whether as applied to the higher-functioning students maybe they would become so angry that there would be too much counter-aggression. Now for the first time, we have students like Katie who can tell you, "It helped me." But yes, I did have some questions.
JG: Was your fear primarily about whether there would be some kind of counter-aggression, or were there other questions?
MI: I had no question about whether it would be effective. Fortunately or unfortunately, these basic principles, such simple principles, do seem to work with all organisms. We all have events that will function to accelerate behaviors--that's rewards. For all of us, there are events that will function to decelerate behaviors--aversives. Gravity is a perfect example of a decelerent, a sort of aversive consequence that we can't escape. They seem to be very fundamental principles of behavior.
JG: When you said, "For the first time, we have people like Katie," when you say first time do you mean because she can talk to you?
MI: Yeah. She can talk to you. And she can say...If we had only autistic-like students, they wouldn't be able to say, "Gee this has really helped me. I didn't like it at the time. It was really painful. If I could have asked you at the time, I would have asked you to stop it. But this really helped me. That's when I stopped my [behavior]." They're also able to tell you how much they appreciate being off drugs.
JG: What kind of counseling do higher-functioning kids get?
MI: We call it "behavioral counseling."
JG: And that has nothing to do with psychotherapy, or sitting for an hour with a shrink?
MI: It's a behavior approach, and I describe it in the website; it's very easy to find that part. If you look under the "special features" there is a section that goes into the difference with behavioral counseling. Traditional counseling, one problem with it is that for some of our students it can be a rewarding event, a chance to get out of the classroom, sit down. Like one of the students did last night. I think he really appreciated the chance to talk to you about his feelings about his family, his father, his mother, whatever. In a behavioral approach, you have to be careful that no rewarding event takes place after a problem behavior. So if I engage in aggression and you immediately send me to see a therapist, and I can now talk about my problems and I enjoy doing that, there is a risk there that I have actually arranged a rewarding event after a problem behavior, and therefore you may show that problem behavior in the future to make that rewarding event occur again. In other words, it can function inadvertently, not intentionally, as a reward. So therefore, we don't schedule it on a weekly basis, because the weekly appointment might occur at the wrong time, during a loss of privileges status. We make it part of the rewards system. If you have been doing well, and gotten some contracts, then you can talk to your psychologist. The second thing is that we don't have the traditional privacy issues. Traditionally if you go to a psychologist or psychiatrist, they're not supposed to tell anyone what went on in that session. We want everything that happens to a student to play a role towards improvement. Here, what you say to a behavioral psychologist may very well...that psychologist may talk to a teacher and fix some things; there is not a wall between the two. Thirdly, there is an assumption in traditional psychology that simply gaining insight into a problem will be beneficial. Behaviorists tend to be skeptical. It's just like you might have knowledge that cigarette smoking causes cancer. But the knowledge, we're skeptical that it may cause a change in behavior. We have more skepticism than most about just having an insight. Thirdly, fourthly, or wherever we are, traditional counseling often makes the assumption that all of your problems now are related to something from back when you were a child. Behavioral psychologists are a little skeptical about that. We don't see why there is a special causal nexus that should be assigned to what happened when you were a child, versus what happened last week, or yesterday. We just have more skepticism about some of the things they have in traditional.
So in a behavioral counseling, the psychologist uses the same principles. First of all, the goal of the counseling is not just to provide a sounding board for the student for his or her problems and what their parents did and whatever in their past. The goal is to get desired behavior now and in the future, whatever the past was, and to help the student make the best of his time here. Also, the goal is to teach the student what these principles are, so that he or she will look at his or her behavior in the same way. It's very different if you are looking at your behavior and you've been taught to believe that everything has to do with what my parents did to me. And you look at life in a certain way. If you have a different view and you say, "My behavior comes from what I've been conditioned for in the past," that's a very different understanding, and it will lead to differences in how you handle your current problems. So we think it's more effective for the student to start to look at his own behavior in a behavioral way. So we try to teach in the behavioral counseling to analyze in the same way that we analyze behavior here when we're trying to change the student's behavior. We dispense with the generalities and we talk about specific behavior and how we go about changing it through rewards, punishments, whatever. So it has a different goal. It's not done on a rigid schedule. It's still talking.
Another thing is that there is an assumption in traditional therapy that verbal behavior has a lot of control over your nonverbal behavior. We're skeptical about that too. Human beings have verbal and nonverbal behavior. Saying the right thing does help a little bit, but it isn't the whole thing by any means. It's like saying, "I should quit smoking." That may help a little bit, but there's often not a total correspondence between what you say and what you do. We all know that. If these principles are so powerful that we're able to change behavior here effectively, I think it's probably the most effective treatment available.
JG: Would you ever think in some special circumstances that a kid needed more cognitive behavioral therapy?
MI: Well, if you can show that it really helps, I have no problem with any kind of therapy. I think cognitive therapy is useful, but I think that too should be done from a behavioral perspective. Some specific techniques--like in cognitive behavioral therapy, you're taught to take things to the extreme, to consider the logical inconsistencies of your thinking. I mean, if that really helps somebody, I have no problem with that. But these simple basic principles that we use, I think, are more powerful, should be done first and provided anyway. Also, as far as counseling, we don't just routinely provide it automatically on a schedule. If the student's doing well, then maybe they don't need it. We don't restrict it to once a week. They can talk to a psychologist clinician as often as they want to.
JG: If they are on LOP [Loss of Privileges] status they can't go to the psychologist?
MI: I doubt they're allowed to during the LOP period.
JG: You were telling me yesterday about behavioral rehearsal lessons. Is this a concept and a phrase that you came up with yourself?
MI: There's always been the word "behavioral rehearsal." It's often used in social-skills training. Say if someone's learning to become more assertive. You might role-play. Let's pretend that I'm the employer and you're whomever. You would rehearse the behavior. It comes from, and you'll find it used, in that context. It seemed to be the closest phrase to what we were doing.
JG: And that's something that doesn't happened that often, I think you were saying.
MI: Very rarely, but it can be very helpful. Particularly for behavior you just don't want even one instance to happen. You want to use this in a preventative way instead of waiting for the problem behavior to occur, which could be disastrous.
JG: One of the things that you get criticized for a lot is this whole question of peer review. It comes up a lot? You know, "Why hasn't Dr. Israel submitted any of his work for peer review?" I have read the responses so I could write the answer myself, but...
MI: Well, first of all, just yesterday there is a paper that's about to be submitted by a psychologist from Holland named Peter Duker. He uses shock therapy with mentally retarded individuals and it's a great success in helping them get out of restraint. He sent one of his graduate students here last summer, and she's written a paper. He had the same thing--"Why don't you publish?"--and now she's helping him.
We've been so busy just managing and running the school and defending ourselves against enemies. It's been hard to justify the time. Plus it's a two- or three-year process to get a paper published. And the GED can't be used outside of here, so it isn't easy for other people to do research on the GED, so if it was done, it would have to be done here. We've been growing very fast and the psychologists have been stretched thin just doing their work as psychologists and clinicians. We call them clinicians now. It's a long story; we can talk about it if you like.
JG: This paper, you said, is about to be submitted somewhere. Where is it about to be submitted?
MI: We were talking about submitting it to the Research in Developmental Disabilities. I can give you a copy of it. It's just in its draft form. It was just sent to me yesterday. Duker's graduate student...
JG: You said, "We've been so busy just managing and running the school and defending ourselves against enemies." It sounds exhausting.
MI: When we're not doing that, we're growing very rapidly. It's a big project. Most programs are not in a position to put up a battle.
JG: You guys seem to be the most resilient.
MI: We were very fortunate then. We were much smaller then [in the 1980s]. The parents brought a lawsuit against us as well as against the agency that was trying to close our program. At a certain point, I think the judge found that the agency had acted in bad faith. They all tend to do something similar, which is they bring in a group of experts to bring in a review that ends up very negative. You can usually point out that the experts are really not neutral or were already biased against aversives to begin with. He [the judge] made a finding that what in Massachusetts was acting in bad faith. He then ordered that our attorney's fees would have to be paid by the commonwealth. Now they didn't appeal that, but I'm not sure that would have held up if it were appealed. But that then caused the commonwealth to come to a settlement agreement. That settlement agreement said that we could use aversives so long as we went to court on an individual basis. And that agreement has protected us in Massachusetts ever since. What happened then in the '90s was that we had been transferred from one agency to another as part of the remedy for that first lawsuit. We were transferred to give us a fresh start from what was then called the Office for Children to the Department of Mental Retardation, which assumed the same obligations from that first settlement. Then in the '90s, it came to be headed by an anti-aversive ideologue, a person who just philosophically...he had been head of the Massachusetts Association for Retarded Citizens. He essentially violated the terms of that settlement agreement that we had reached earlier to settle the first controversy. Because that agency now violated the settlement agreement, we asked that the agency be put into a receivership. It was a remarkable thing. The judge actually put a state agency in receivership. Not us, the state agency. With respect to all of its licensing activities, the Department of Mental Retardation was placed into a receivership. The head of the agency was fired by Governor Weld. There was a receiver that gave us protection for almost ten years. Unfortunately, the receivership ended about nine months ago. Now, I got into all this to tell you that fighting these battles is very expensive. We got very fortunate that the judge ordered that our legal expenses would have to be borne by the other side.
JG: So that was quite a victory in the mid-'90s.
MI: And then they appealed it to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. And finally it was sustained only in '97. That's when the governor called the commission.
JG: So now you've got a whole new cast of characters.
MI: Yes, it's very unfortunate. We can't spend our time improving the program as much as we'd like to. We have to spend a lot of time on other activities.
JG: What do you think about this guy, Ken Mollins [Evelyn Nicholson's lawyer, who filed a suit against the JRC last year]?
MI: I don't think he believes in his heart in what he's doing. He's out for the publicity and the money. I don't think in his heart that he believes we're doing anything inappropriate. In fact, at first he said he had nothing against JRC. He said he was just going to sue the school system that placed the child here. Then next he added that he was suing the State Department of Education. Only very recently, about four or five weeks ago, he added us to his lawsuit. I think he's a lawyer, and I don't think even the mother thinks we did anything wrong in her heart. I think they're doing it for the money. Unfortunately our legal system is such that you may have no case, and I think that's a very bogus case, that whole business with Nicholson. But even having a case, the other side's going to have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend it. And there's eventually going to be a settlement, because one side will say, "You don't have a case against me, but I'd rather just pay you the money than pay the lawyer." I think that's what's going on.
JG: Why do you think it's a very bogus case?
MI: Because there was nothing we did that deserved any kind of condemnation or lawsuit or injury. The boy was receiving treatment as many of the students here are. He was benefiting, as I said to you yesterday. His chart may be among those that I showed you. He showed as much improvement as any of the students here. This lawyer has been involved with that same foster mother. I think that she adopted him. I think that she was also the foster mother of twelve children. He's involved with her in a suit against another school about a time-out procedure. I think he's in the business of finding...well, anyway, he's also been working with this Tim Minton, the WNBC TV reporter that came up undercover. The mother gave written approval. The mother withdrew approval. That's happened with other mothers before. We immediately stopped the procedure. Where's the harm? Who did anything wrong? What possibly, what harm did anybody do? We offered a treatment; the mother not only accepted it in writing, but used it in the home. The child benefited tremendously from it. If you would trace where he is now you would probably find that he is in far worse shape. He wound up in a psychiatric hospital last I knew. But the mother could benefit economically enormously from this. If you saw the pictures of him...He was a healthy, happy young man. He wasn't injured in any way. He only improved by his period with us. When they withdrew permission, they had a terrible time finding a place to take him. It took them about six weeks. We have a whole thing about Nicholson too. We've written lots about Nicholson.
JG: I know the mother obviously signed for the GED at the beginning. When the GED actually starts, do they sign something else, or there's no need?
MI: I don't know if she signed for it at the beginning, because I don't think that he was put on it at the beginning. Just before we went to court, we would have needed her permission. We don't require that parents who place a child here agree to the use of a GED, because we don't know whether we're even going to need it. She even used it in the home at Thanksgiving... [the student's mother, Evelyn Nicholson, disputes this. She says the GED was only used once...when she had it in her pocketbook and activated it accidentally]
JG: And what was the reason they used it? Do you know?
MI: I'm not sure what the behavior was.
JG: We were talking about this yesterday, "Behaviorism as a Way of Life," or the club you had many years ago. Is that something you use? I think I read something on your website about the nutrition and diet thing.
MI: I found that one of the most powerful influences that made me a believer. When I told Skinner I was really enthusiastic about his Walden Two, Skinner invited me to, and took me to, he went out and built this device where pigeons could play ping-pong across a table with their beaks. So he built a little table with railing on the side, a pigeon at each end. You could train them to bat a ping-pong ball across the table. To do that, you have to be using reward very precisely. And it's amazing to be able to do something like that, seeing that the principles can be used to do something you never thought you could do. I thought, "Here's a way of helping people become believers in this." So that's where self-management comes into play. To show to someone that you can accomplish something--changing your own behavior using these principles helps to make the person a little more a believer that there's something real there, as opposed to, "It's part of my job." So that's why we have the "Behaviorism as a Way of Life" scheme.
JG: So have you in recent years used behaviorism to change anything your life?
MI: Well, to lose weight, to keep your weight under control. One thing that I've done, the first time I did something like this--this is not something I invented; it's a procedure I've heard other people use. You write out a check to an agency you don't...you can write yours to the Fund for More Rockefeller Laws. You write it to an agency you don't like. You give it to someone else and you say, "I'm going to stop smoking by a certain date," or "I'm going to lose a certain number of pounds by a certain date." And if you don't, you have them send that check out.
JG: So who would you happen to send that check to?
MI: I think I probably chose something political, like the Republican National Committee. It might have been an organization opposed to adverses.
JG: Would you literally write the check?
MI: Oh yes, absolutely.
JG: Is this going back years?
MI: Yes. The first time I did this, it was a revelation to me. As soon as I wrote that check and gave it to someone, I could feel the difference. I had been struggling, myself, with overeating for many years. I think the first time I did this, it might have been the late '70s. But the first time I did that and gave that check to someone, I could feel the difference.
JG: And do you remember how much that check was for?
MI: It was probably for $1000. It has to be something that is enough to have an effect.
JG: So you pick someone you hate, any enemy or something.
MI: Yeah. So if you're pro-abortion, you write it to the pro-life people.
JG: So who do you write it to, an anti-aversive person?
MI: Whoever is my biggest enemy recently, someone who's promoting a bill to ban aversives. I'd contribute to his re-election campaign.
JG: And did you do this just one time, or have you done this repeatedly over the years?
MI: I'm still doing it now.
JG: You're still doing it?
MI: I do something now using the GED. I'm in the middle of a project now where I have to cut my weight by a half a pound every week. My monitor is the director of human resources here. He knows what my schedule is and I have to give him a report every week.
JG: And do you use the GED if you mess up? How many times have you messed up and had to use the GED?
MI: I haven't had to use the GED.
JG: Which one, GED or GED-4?
MI: I think it's the GED-4.
JG: And what do you have to do? You have to lose a half a pound a week?
MI: Yeah, when I start these projects they are to keep my weight.
JG: And does he put you on a scale? Or you have to honest?
MI: No, I have to be honest. I give my report, and I have asked for an exception.
JG: What happened the exception week?
MI: I got married a few weeks ago.
JG: Just a few weeks ago?
MI: Yes.
JG: Congratulations.
MI: Thank you.
JG: So you had to get an exception for that week?
MI: Yeah. And if there are times when I am traveling or eating out and I don't have access to a scale and can't control what I eat, then I ask for an exception. But overall, it still works.
JG: Have you ever had to give yourself a GED or GED-4 as a punishment?
MI: No. Not yet.
JG: And are there other things besides sending a check to someone you loathe?
MI: Well, you choose whatever you want. You could say, "I'm going to tear up a dress that I like." You can choose whatever you think will work for you.
JG: What are other things that you have tried over the years?
MI: I've always found that self-penalty is the easiest thing to do--giving away money. I've told people that they could try burning a dollar bill, but that's illegal, from what I understand.
JG: Have you ever had a check sent to some that you hated?
MI: No, because I made the contracts. I usually make them for a limited period of time.
JG: And how long are these contracts?
MI: Thirteen weeks is a typical contract period.
JG: So it's not like you're making out checks to Ken Mollins right now?
MI: That would be a terrific person to write to.
JG: He would be terrific. That would motivate you?
MI: Yeah, he would be a good choice.
JG: Do you think that could be a future weight plan?
MI: Yeah, I think...He may lose interest in this fight.
JG: So you just got married a few weeks ago?
MI: I was married once for 7 or 8 years, about 15 years ago.
JG: How did you meet your wife that you just got married to?
MI: I've known her for a long time. We met at a conference years ago. She has an autistic child.
JG: And she's the one who's responsible for all the design? I think I met her in New York. Did she come to New York?
MI: She was at that hearing in Manhattan.
JG: Does she work here?
MI: She did work here until we got married. Now she's no longer working here. She worked as a consultant.
JG: She worked as a consultant here. But she's no longer a consultant?
MI: No, she's still working as a consultant, but not here.
JG: So if I wanted to talk about the design, she's the person to talk to? I'm trying to figure out various things I see here, but I don't know the words. I'm sure she knows all the words like the back of her hand.
MI: She's not a professional designer; she just has very good taste. I like the taste. You might not like it. I majored in fine arts in college. I didn't major in psychology--as I told you, I found traditional psychology difficult to take. So I've always been interested in painting and sculpture, painting mainly. It's always been a problem, how to decorate these homes. Some places probably don't worry about it at all. I couldn't figure it out. Because you're going to have different people who are going to work for a while, nobody's really going to be living in those homes. And it was my responsibility to figure out how they were going to be decorated.
Because of the aversives controversy, we felt we wanted the environment to be more upbeat and positive. And when we were decorating the 240 building first, which was maybe 10 years ago, we happened to put up a Mickey Mouse print. And we found that when you look at a Mickey Mouse print, it's hard not to smile. It's just a happy image. And so then we got every Mickey Mouse poster that I could find, and we decorated the whole hallway with Mickey Mouse. And we have a room--you heard about it yesterday--a Mickey Mouse room. So we got these inexpensive posters. They're $20-$30, and we framed them and mounted them. That's what you're seeing in the corridors...I just find that it makes a much more attractive environment.
JG: So is this in the last 10 years that we're seeing all the color and the...
MI: Since we moved to this building, we've been able to do a lot more, these two buildings now. We want this environment to be an attractive environment to the students, to everyone, to the parents when they come.
[Clock chimes.]
JG: That goes on every hour? What song is that, do you know?
MI: I don't know.
JG: So every hour your clock spins around and sings?
MI: Yeah, we had a wall of these in the reception area of the other building before it was remodeled. We had about 25 different versions of that. And where they were all going off at once, it was rather interesting.
JG: Because it was 25 different songs, right?
MI: Not the same clock--all different clocks all doing different things. We'll probably put them up again somewhere. This building is going to be really spectacular. We haven't even done anything yet. All the reward rooms are going to be off of that main corridor there. It's going to be really nice.
JG: Critics would say that there are elements of the environment that are so abnormal here that how could anyone be prepared for normal life? And I know you've heard that over and over.
MI: You have to look at it like the emergency room in a hospital. There are elements in, not the emergency room, but the intensive treatment area. An intensive treatment area is not normal life. Everything is marshaled for one result: to save your life. Normality is not the standard for how that room and those procedures are designed. I think you have to look at this the same way. It starts off being highly abnormal. The amount of structure, there's all these rewards, all these aversives--not all these aversives. The number of aversives is highly outweighed. But as the person recovers, after the behavior improves, as you can see, they move more and more towards a normal pattern. They get rid of their recording sheet. They get freedom to work outside jobs. And eventually they leave, and go back into a regular world. But at first, you have to make it different if you are going to make a change. It has to be different; it can't be just the regular pattern of a school. If it was always the way it is at first, it would be more subject to criticism. But if we have a plan where we are gradually diminishing these artificial schemes and making it into a more normal pattern, then I think that's the way it should be.
JG: I think I've heard you quoted before about how various people with medical advances have throughout history run up against controversy, and that history later proves them right, or sometimes it goes the opposite, depending upon the situation.
MI: Yeah, I think maybe that's what we're involved in here in a way. Surgery itself was very controversial and done by barbers, I think. The first...
JG: So what do you hope your legacy [will be] down the road? What you've done, your school?
MI: Well, I hope the school will continue to defend a treatment that's effective, even though it's politically controversial.
JG: It seems like only a certain kind of person would have the inner strength or fortitude to have waged this battle for 10, 20, 30 years, and persisted financially, emotionally. What is this about you that from age 17 or 18 wants to create a utopia, but all these years later is still fighting the fight?
MI: I don&
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This man needs to be electrocuted.
Now.
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Responses received thus far in the Comments section of the Comments:[/b]
I have posted an extensive response to Ms. Gonnerman's article under the main article at [url=http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html]http://motherjones.com/news/feature/200 ... shock.html (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/jennifer_gonnerman_interviews_matthew_israel.html). And for a fully formatted version of my response to Ms.Gonnerman's article, please see [url=http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf]http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf[/url] Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D. Executive Director Judge Rotenberg Educational Center
NOTE: Copied from the pdf as a separate thread. -Urs
See here: [url=http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22929]http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22929[/url]
Please see my response at: http://motherjones.com/news/feature/200 ... shock.html (http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html)
NOTE: For the immediately above, see here: http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21555&start=25 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21555&start=25)
That's a nice load of ego-inflating crap, but you're still going to get owned.
WHAT THE [deleted].
LOL
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Responses received thus far in the Comments section of Jennifer Gonnerman's article Why Can't Massachusetts Shut Matthew Israel Down? (http://http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21555&start=21) (MotherJones, August 20, 2007):
Comments:
Why not use painless aversives? A bitter taste for example. It works and can be increased without causing injury. Sure the deliver system might require some creativity, but the results might be worth it.
Unfortunately it is quite easy to believe that such inhumane treatment of disabled or "troubled" teenagers would be sanctioned by U.S. law. While perhaps more subtle today, our system still dehumanizes anybody who is not a WASP or who does not kowtow to the status quo by assimilating him or herself to the dominant society. After all, this is the same government that forcibly wrenched small Native American children from their homes for over 100 years and sent them to boarding schools in the name of "civilization." This is the same government that forced sterilization on minority and disabled women. This is the same government that still does not unilaterally grant civil rights to the GLBT community. Need I say more? This series of stories on Dr. Israel outraged me, but unfortunately I had to read my favorite periodical, Mother Jones, to find out about such issues. There won't be real change until these stories hit a wider audience and all Americans' eyes are opened to this horror ala 19th century sanitariums.
I am at a loss for words. I am utterly convinced that love, common sense, honoring the laws of behavior, and using far more humane strategies that seek to understand what is motivating behavior, teaching replacement behaviors that achieve what it is the person wants and needs to meet his/her needs, nurturing healthy relationships, helping people work toward goals they find worthwhile, making sure they have valued roles in a their communities wilth appropriate support, and generally respecting all those we profess to care about, and offer treatment, is not only do-able, it is the only humane and moral way to provide treatment. I am appalled that Matt Israel and his followers are so stubbornly clinging to antiquated ways of treatment that dehumanize both the people providing treatment, and the recipients of such "treatment". There is much documentation of people with very severe self-injurious, aggressive and dangerous behaviors who have been helped to overcomve these difficulties and enjoy their lives. No child or adult should ever have to endure treatment that is so horrendous that most people cannot bear to even read or learn about it. Truly, this is a hidden and shameful practice that needs to be stopped!
Senator Joyce is misguided in his intentions to control Israel. By legislating a commission to review and decide when to approve aversives, he will in effect legislate aversives which will result in their expansion across other prograns both public and private. The use of aversives in other programs will probaably not reach the extremes of Israel's aversives but will still deny equal protection to the class of people labeled disabled. Senaator Joyce needs to do some serious thinking s do other legislators in Massachusetts.
Re: Aversive Therapy - A a retired Supervisor of Child Welfare in Colorado, I hope the proposed legislation with strict regulations over aversive therapy will be enacted. While is may be possible to change some behaviors with such therapy, the long term effects of such may well be far worse than the behavior. We had some experiences with such modalities in Colorado. Miton C. Hanson, Retired ACSW, former Superisor of Child Welfare - CO - 1971-1986 - Northfield, MN
aversive; n. something that one does to someone else in the name of discipline to destroy their true mind and replace it with whatever they need. Also used by people who need to show that they are superior to people weaker than themselves. (no this isn't a REAL definition, but it was more effective that way.)
Question is - where does Israel's power come from in the judiciary? It's very unusual for a state dept to loose an obvious case such as this in their own state's court system, plus the COmmissioner forced to resign? Just how much power does Israel have? And where does it come from?
The only poeple who I believe should have any say in this matter aqre those served by it. One thing that is very important that you failed to mention is that almost all the students at JRC have been rejected by other programs! Furthermore Dr Israel does not make a profit from that millions you talked about. JRC is not just a "Group Home" organization you are talking about. Millions of dollars are spent towards the wellfare of the students.They go from the homes to the school everyday, the requires money for transport arrangements, they have very modern and beautifully decorated homes and school. And contrary to what you might believe, they are fed on the best food money can buy etc. Aversives are not just administered at will, there is a treatment programme to go with that. I wonder whats better to you, the adverse side effects suffered due to use of pyschotic medication or a skin shock which last only afew seconds and saves lives. You cannot talk for the parents that have loved ones at JRC believe me the do not love aversives either but the know what they have done for mtheir children. I beg all the haters including the professors and whoever else to think about those individual and quality of life before anything else. We cannot try to be self rightious about situation we do noty fully understand. I have done my homework and I believe that the aversive do work. It may not work for all but there are families out there who can testify to this.
There is no proof that aversive therapy has helped anyone, much less saved lives. It is so sickening that Israel makes huge amounts of money from the suffering of these disabled and unhappy young people. He can afford his own cadre of lawyers to make sure aversives are "court-approved" every time. Victims of JRC regularly try to escape the heavily guarded facilities. I don't blame them. I'd try to escape too, or become "self-injurious" (suicidal). No betty, Israel's victims don't have a better quality of life. They have a hideous quality of life. These poor humans locked away for life in Israel's clutches were probably abused into their conditions by the very parents who now support Israel's torture methods, and who now want nothing to do with their damaged offspring. One father admitted he rarely visits his child incarcerated at the Rotenberg torture prison. It's guilt and fear and neglect that keeps these parents supporting Israel's sadism and greed. The inmates have it better in Guantanamo than the poor innocents at Rotenberg. The US is such a violent ugly place.
As a twenty-four-year-old autistic woman, I must emphatically disagree with Betty's remarks. The rarity of quality programs for extreme behaviors causes desperation for many caring parents and families, but using methods of torture under the name of "adversives" is damaging to the subject-victim. Should there be any especially extreme cases where such pain prevents greater bodily harm, it should be used carefully and as lightly as possible -- something which is not being done at the JRC. Most autistics and aspies, myself included, react much more favorably to sensitive behavior/situation analysis** than to disrespect, humiliation, dehumanization, and intentionally-inflicted agony. In bad but non-injurious situations, pain, even pain "for one's own good," only worsens the problem. In addition, the JRC is using electroshock "aversives" on children and teens who are not self-injurious in any immediate sense. These methods should NOT be used on these youths, but they are. Without oversight, the JRC abuses this damaging technique, causing harm to those under its care. Teens are being shocked for uttering forbidden words. This is punishment, not protection. Strict regulation from an impartial, properly-educated source is essential. If shocks cannot be used correctly, it would be better for them to never be used at all. Finally, the financial point of these articles has not been to prove the riches of Dr. Israel, as Betty protests. It has been to show the vast sums of money being put into an injurious "treatment" which does more damage than good to a substantial number of its subjects. This money would be better spent on interventions which work, respecting the teen and perhaps costing less than the JRC's state-of-the-art electric gadgetry. Having visited friends teaching in inner-city high schools, I have witnessed environments in which education is limited by the district's inability to purchase books. Lack of education leads to lack of opportunity, which foments social breakdown. It also aggravates such conditions as ADD (which I also have) and ODD (which I do not, but one cousin does), conditions for which physically-healthy adolescents have been sent to the Judge Rotenberg Center. Building the lives of these youths on punishment does no one good. For many of them, such as Antwone Nicholson, State money sent to the JRC is money wasted. It is difficult to educate a person with special needs. Nonetheless, it is possible to do this in a respectful way if the educator or facilitator is willing to try to understand their client's perspective from moment to moment. Painful electric shocks have no part in this for the overwhelming majority of people. For the rest, it has no place the majority of the time. It should not be the cornerstone of the institution's treatment methods. I decry abuse of all kinds: emotional, physical, sexual, pharmaceutical. None of these should happen if the caregiver is properly educated, trying to see things from the client's point of view, and always respectful of their common human dignity. **(My head-banging, for example, disappeared as I discovered other forms of immediate, undeniable sensory stimulation. Injury from without would simply have driven me to further head-banging. My agoraphobia is less if I am permitted to wear a hooded sweatshirt, hood up, but would have become crippling if my compensatory strategy had been forbidden by someone who did not understand, or worse, punished.)
I am the parent of a high functioning autistic child. This article made me sick. I thought these barbaric methods were illegal. Six dead people, 36 years of hurting countless other children and this guy isn't in jail? Not only that, but two of the "successes" Caroline and Janine were not cured by his methods. There are other medical models to help people on the autism spectrum, even those with severe behaviors. How can Michael Vick be prosecuted for torturing and killing dogs when this guy has been allowed to do the same thing to human beings and no one can stop him? Do we care more for animals than we do humans? It sure seems that way to me sometimes.
why not bring 8th amendment litigation against these people?
I have posted an extensive response to Ms. Gonnerman's article in the forum under the main article at http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... shock.html (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html) Matthew L. Israel,Ph.D. Executive Director Judge Rotenberg Educational Center www.judgerc.org (http://www.judgerc.org)
And for a fully formatted version of my response to Ms.Gonnerman's article, please see http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf (http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf) Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D. Executive Director Judge Rotenberg Educational Center
I am sure that none of you writing against JRC have a child who carries 7 psychiatric diagnoses and over the last several years has been on 30 medication combinations and intensive therapy (with positive behaviroal approaches) with nothing to show for it except severe physical side effects. This same child was kicked out of school becasue the state that he lived in had NO programming for him even in their special education programs. In the six months that he was not in school he ran away from home, was hospitalized, and arrested. After being admitted to JRC and spending 18 months there he is now medication free, getting his GED, working at a paid job, eating a vegetarian diet, and enjoying his life. JRC has saved this person's life when no program within his states borders could provide services to him.
Please see my response at http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... shock.html (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html)
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Was this initial article a Mother Jones one as well ursus?
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Was this initial article a Mother Jones one as well ursus?
Yes.
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Was this initial article a Mother Jones one as well ursus?
Yeah, sorry if that was unclear. Gently glide your mouse over the title in the OP and you'll see that it doubles as the link to the original source.
MotherJones appears to have devoted a whole issue to this topic. Most of the articles are by Jennifer Gonnerman relating to Matthew Israel and the JRC, but Maia Szalavitz's article "The Cult That Spawned the Tough-Love Teen Industry" is from this collection as well.
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it is I who am sorry for being too lazy to drag the mouse an inch
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I like how Matty thinks copypasta can help him. It's hilarious. Let's see if he tries it again!
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Here is an appeal from Nancy Weiss to the APA, asking them to declare their position on the 'treatment' at Rotenberg's House of Horrors.
Ms. Weiss writes:
Please see the attached letter written by Derrick Jeffries and me. You are
invited to sign-on individually or on behalf of your organization.
The letter calls upon the American Psychological Association to stand behind its 'Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment' and take a stand against The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (formerly BRI) in Massachusetts which has a long history of using electric shock, food deprivation and prolonged mechanical restraint, as well as other painful and dehumanizing aversive techniques to change the behavior of people who have autism, developmental disabilities, and psychiatric diagnoses.
The APA's recently released '2007 Reaffirmation of the 2006 Resolution' states that the resolution is "a comprehensive and foundational position applicable to all individuals, in all settings and in all contexts without exception." In addition, APA code calls upon members to report apparent ethical violations that have "substantially harmed or are likely to substantially harm a person or organization."
The letter, which has already been endorsed by over 80 individuals and
organizations, calls upon the APA to apply their own code of ethics, and to
formally and specifically declare their position regarding the use of skin-shock "treatment", food deprivation, and any other aversive procedures that inflict pain or deprive basic human rights at JRC or elsewhere. The letter also requests that the APA send this letter to its members, post it on their website and/or publish it in a newsletter or other publication that reaches its full membership. Derrick sent this letter to the APA in mid-October and sends them weekly updates with additional signatures.
Derrick writes the following, "As a person with Asperger's Syndrome, and a parent of a child with Autism, and a brother of a sister with Autism, I am
asking you to join Nancy Weiss and I, and many others, by participating in
this effort. Would you please allow us to include your name, and/or organization name on this document as being one of many individuals and
organizations presenting this letter to the American Psychological Association? If the APA will take a decisive stance against torture, it may
pave the way to ending such practices that take place at the Judge
Rotenberg Educational Center."
If you are interested in signing on, please send an e-mail to Derrick Jeffries at: www.nlcdd.org (http://www.nlcdd.org)
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Senator Joyce is misguided in his intentions to control Israel. By legislating a commission to review and decide when to approve aversives, he will in effect legislate aversives which will result in their expansion across other prograns both public and private. The use of aversives in other programs will probaably not reach the extremes of Israel's aversives but will still deny equal protection to the class of people labeled disabled. Senaator Joyce needs to do some serious thinking s do other legislators in Massachuset
Someone pass this along to George Miller...
fucking insanely true.
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bump
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghheuvDQD2Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghheuvDQD2Q)
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List of organizations that are trying to get the place shut down:
The Arc of Massachusetts, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Center for Public Presentation, Federation for Children with Special Needs, Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation, Coalition for the Legal Rights of People with Disabilities, Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, Autism National Committee, Central Massachusetts Families Organizing for Change, Autism Alliance of MetroWest, Disability Policy Consortium, Disability Law Center, Community Resources for People with Autism, Massachusetts Office on Disability, TASH New England, Massachusetts Advocates Standing Strong, Advocates for Autism in Massachusetts and Massachusetts Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee
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Program kids who were tortured in mass. should be aware that this state will close down abusive facilities, as long as they have kids who will testify.
This state’s progressive and liberal and has evolved ideas of human rights
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I don't get how this place can still be open if the major disability law organizations are interested in killing it.
What kind of dark power does this man channel?
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What kind of dark power does this man channel?
State Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, whose nephew Brandon has been in Matthew Israel's "care" since 1992; has done what he can to ensure that no bill banning aversives becomes law.
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Let us also not forget the facility's namesake, Judge Rotenburg, and his loyalists...
It used to be called something else, but got changed to JRC after Rotenburg ruled in Israel's favor when a state agency (? not sure) tried to get it axed quite some time ago. Rotenburg also made this agency pay Israel's court fees plus punitive damages. Believe the damage was on the order of six figures. Put a real chill on Israel's opponents.
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This comment was posted to a blog about JRC back in June:
I was in this program for two years and two months and I don't feel comfortable talking about the things that they have done to me or other people on a public blog. All I will say is that there is more going on then what the news is even reporting. If you haven't heard the screams of people you live in close quarters with or the smell of their burning flesh and cries for days on end you can't really feel the pain of the people who went here and are still there. When people talk about this so-called school they never talk about the higher-functioning students who make up half of the school and what they have to go through. There are many "Normal" students who are subjected to the same torturous methods as the special-needs students it's almost even worst for them because they are fully aware that they are being tortured. You never hear any one report that all of your civil liberties are stripped as soon as you enter the program. There are cameras everywhere. Your bedroom, bathroom, classroom, transportation etc. JRC also follows a point system in which positive behaviors are rewarded with points and negative behaviors result in a lost of points. Of course depending on your staff every so-called negative behavior is totally subjective. I lost all of my privileges before for saying Jesus Christ because a staff thought that equates to cursing! How foolish is that? What's even more repulsive is the support that JRC has from many parents. I'll say this though JRC is a place where parents who gave up on their child send them. A lot of people there would have been better off with some counseling (this is in reference to the higher functioning students). People do not discuss the inappropriate relationships that go on between staff and students or the fact that many older kids/adults who are there for pedophilic behavior are your roommates and classmates and are encouraged to interact with all students even the younger ones! It’s not until my Dad took me out of the program that I found out from a staff that one of my good friends, who was a grown women mind you (23 and I was 12 ), was there because she raped her little brother and sister. That explained every thing because her mother never wanted to see or hear from her for some reason and now I know why. I will not mention any names because you can go on their site and see who I am talking about if you do I don't want to get sued for slander, but a staff who still works there today had a sexual relationship with a teenage boy there and bore his child. This was in the late 90's and she still works there today! On a more personal note though, my best friend was there with me at JRC she was sent there for acting out as well. Well let me explain her situation. She was being anally and vaginally raped by her uncle and her only way to release her anger was fighting in school; no one listened to her and her grandmother and mother knew what was going on but did nothing. Now JRC knew that she was being raped by her uncle and did nothing about it. Usually schools are supposed to report to the police department or child protective services when kids are being sexually abused. It’s not like they didn’t have evidence because there were eyewitnesses from other JRC students who went on a home visit with her let alone the physical evidence. This is just one of the many situations where JRC does not do any thing because on average they are receiving $214,000 for each student and that is just more important than the well being of a student. If you have gone to their site you will see that on the outside these students are living in luxury but behind close doors they are suffering. I have said enough. Feel free to email me if you have any questions: http://autisticbfh.blogspot.com/2006/06 ... ed-ad.html (http://autisticbfh.blogspot.com/2006/06/judge-rotenberg-center-help-wanted-ad.html)
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Here's Matthew Israel's equivalent of an About-Me page from the JRC website. A lot of this goes into greater depth and detail of more or less the same material in the Interview with Jennifer Gonnerman which started off this thread, however, there is some additional data here as well. In particular, he goes into a lot of detail re. his legal difficulties when individuals and institutions have attempted to get JRC shut down.
History and Basic Principles of JRC (http://http://www.judgerc.org/history.html)
by Matthew L. Israel
(http://http://www.judgerc.org/images/mliportrait.jpg)
1971-1985: Beginnings, Philosophy and Early Growth
I studied psychology under the late B.F. Skinner as an undergraduate, as a graduate student, and as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University. I received a doctorate in psychology at Harvard in 1960. I was very impressed with Skinner's work and accomplishments. As a result, I was confident that the basic behavioral principles and technologies that he had developed or refined could be fruitfully applied in the treatment of a wide variety of behavior disorders. Behavioral principles appeared to be extraordinarily successful in both explaining and managing behaviors.
My first opportunity after graduate school to apply these principles and techniques was in the 1960's, during which time I founded a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts that wrote self-instructional materials for publishers and businesses and manufactured teaching machines. Another opportunity was in two behavioral communes that I started in 1966 and 1967. In one of these I employed behavioral principles to eliminate a three year old girl's behavioral problems, changing her from what some considered to be extremely spoiled, demanding and annoying, into a charming presence in the house. In the late 1960's I consulted to the Rhode Island Children's Center where I developed a behavior modification program for neglected and dependent children in one of the homes at that Center. In 1970 the director of the Emma Pendleton Bradley Home for Children in Riverside, Rhode Island, invited me to establish its first unit for the treatment for autistic children.
In 1971 I started the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) by offering behavioral treatment consultation in the homes of parents of autistic-like children. JRC's first residential program was started in the fall of 1972, within a private home in Cranston, Rhode Island. The program at that time served two adolescent students. One was the schizophrenic child of the parents who lent us a wing of their home to use as the treatment center. From 1971 to 1994, the program was known as Behavior Research Institute. In 1994, we changed our name to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, to honor the memory of the judge (below) whose courageous decisions and actions helped to preserve our program from extinction at the hands of state licensing officials in the 1980's.
(http://http://www.judgerc.org/images/webjer2.jpg)
From its inception in 1971 JRC's basic plan was to apply, in a comprehensive and thoroughgoing manner, the then-newly emerging science and technologies of behavioral psychology to the education and treatment of severe behavior disorders. To use behaviorism as the foundation of treatment was a new approach to such treatment, which at that time was still heavily influenced by the use of pharmaceuticals and the psychoanalytical approach of Freud and his followers. A thoroughgoing and consistent behavioral approach to treatment was quite unusual at that time. The more common approaches at that time were psychoanalytic treatment, psychotropic drugs, normalization, educational approaches, milieu therapy, psychiatric counseling, play therapy, or eclectic, multidisciplinary approaches in which a combination of a little bit of several different approaches were used, with none predominating.
A thoroughgoing behavioral approach differs markedly from these traditional approaches in certain ways. Some of these differences, which are itemized below, have caused JRC to experience difficulties with licensing agencies from time to time.
• Near-zero rejection and expulsion policy.
We have always accepted any and all individuals for treatment and have tried to maintain a zero or near-zero rejection and expulsion policy, provided that the needed treatment procedures are made available to us. We do not limit those whom we accept to persons with certain psychiatric diagnoses and labels. In fact, once we have determined that the least restrictive and most effective treatment for a student is behavioral treatment, we really pay relatively little attention to psychiatric diagnoses which are essentially labels for groups of behaviors. Instead, we look directly at the behaviors that are the individual's problem and simply set about treating each of those individual behaviors. Of the first two students we worked with, one was labeled autistic and one was labeled schizophrenic.
Our policy of near-zero rejection and expulsions, coupled with the success we demonstrated in treating our students, resulted in agencies referring their most difficult behavior problems to us. Most of our referrals had been unsuccessfully served in numerous other private and public mental health and educational facilities before they were referred to JRC. Many of our students arrive directly from unsuccessful psychiatric admissions.
• Active treatment rather than warehousing.
We do not solve behavioral problems by simply accepting the problem behavior as it is and adjusting our treatment environment to allow it to occur; instead, our goal is apply active treatment and educational procedures to change the behavior so that the individual can function successfully in the normal environment outside of our treatment facility.
The fact that our mission is to provide active and relatively rapid treatment of severe behavior problems, with a no-rejection and no-expulsion policy, and not merely to serve as a care facility for children whose only problem is that they lack a normal home environment, explains some of the issues we have had with licensing agencies from time to time. Licensing standards that are set up for the latter type of facilities are not appropriate for programs that are designed for the active treatment of extreme problem behaviors.
• Treatment with a unitary, coordinated and comprehensively Skinnerian, behavioral approach, rather than with a "multi-disciplinary" approach.
The hallmark of JRC is that it is makes use of a behavioral approach and that this approach guides and informs all services provided by the agency to staff, students and parents. Although JRC has always employed nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists, psychiatrists, physicians, medical consultants and teachers, all of these special services are administered in a manner that is as consistent as is possible and practical with an overall Skinnerian, behavioral approach. JRC is probably the most consistently behavioral treatment program in existence.
• Behavioral rather than a psychiatric, approach.
A behavioral approach essentially views a treatment problem as one in which the individual has certain behaviors that need to be decreased and certain ones that need to be increased. The fundamental technique for accomplishing these increases and decreases is the application of rewards and punishments. We use as one of our most important measures of effectiveness, the frequency of problem and desired behaviors. Behavioral frequencies and trends are displayed on Precision Teaching Charts that had been designed in the 1960s by Dr. Ogden Lindsley, another student of Skinner. Behavioral treatment decisions are based on the data shown on these charts, rather than on clinical impressions, hunches, or observations alone.
• Behavioral, rather than traditional counseling.
At JRC counseling is done as a fully coordinated and integrated component of a total behavioral approach. We call our counseling "behavioral counseling." This means, for example, the following: the counseling is not given on a regular schedule but rather on an as-needed basis; the counseling is not given at points where it might function as an inadvertent reward for some problem behavior that has just occurred; the counseling is given by clinicians and other trained staff that are employed by JRC, rather than being provided by persons outside of JRC; the content of the counseling session is not necessarily kept private between the counselor and the counselee, but instead is shared with other professionals in the agency as needed; and the purpose of the counseling is to enhance the student's cooperation with, and progress within, the JRC program and to change his/her behavior toward the treatment goals set by JRC.
• Behavioral procedures as the means of treatment, rather than the use of normalization.
The dominant philosophy of the care of mentally disabled individuals during much of JRC's existence, which continues even today, is that of normalization, also sometimes referred to as social role valorization. This approach, which insists that such persons should be placed in, and cared for, with as "normal" a set of procedures as possible, is frankly opposed to the notion of behavioral treatment. In behavioral treatment, normalization is accepted as the goal of the treatment process, but not as the means for reaching that goal. Indeed, behavioral procedures that will effectively eliminate problematic behaviors and help the student improve his/her condition and live a more normal life often have to be highly abnormal at first until the behavior changes sufficiently. As the behavior changes, however, the environmental conditions can and are made increasingly normal.
In this respect, JRC is like a medical hospital. The goal of most medical hospitals is to return the individual to good health and to a normal living situation outside the hospital; however, in order to reach that goal it may be necessary to do some highly "abnormal" procedures within the operating rooms and in the emergency and intensive care wards of the hospital.
• A complete treatment facility—i.e., not tossing the treatment problem to others when the problem becomes difficult.
We view our program as a "hospital of last resort" where whatever behavioral treatment is needed will be applied to solve the problem. If a student becomes difficult to handle, we do not turn the problem over to a psychiatric facility or to the criminal justice system; instead, we adjust our treatment procedures to adequately deal with the problem behaviorally.
• No or minimal use of psychotropic medication.
We have always employed either no psychotropic medication at all, or the very minimal amount that is needed. Psychiatrists are employed to help us assess whether such medication is needed and to help us diminish or eliminate the psychotropic medication when it is not needed. Our psychiatrists make considerable use of our behavioral charts as they make these decisions.
• Use of powerful rewards.
In order to treat individuals without drugs, and without traditional counseling or warehousing, a program will obviously need alternative effective procedures that can be used in their place. In JRC's behavioral approach this means, among other things, that first and foremost the program must have available as powerful a set of rewards as is possible. The first area in JRC's present school building that we created was a large arcade-type reward area to motivate students to behave well and learn. We also created a reward corner in each lower-functioning room, reward boxes for the teachers to use, a contract store where students could pick rewards to purchase and work for, etc. We are not aware of any other treatment center that uses as wide a variety and as powerful a set of rewards as we do.
• Giving the parent the option to supplement the reward treatment with physical aversives when rewards and educational procedures alone prove to be insufficiently effective.
If treatment with the use of rewards, loss of privileges, fines, other non-physical aversives, and educational procedures, prove insufficiently effective by themselves, then the parent should be given the option of supplementing the student's program with carefully administered physical aversives. In the 1970's and 1980's, JRC employed physical aversives such as the pinch, spank, muscle squeeze, water spray, vapor spray (mixture of compressed air and water), ammonia capsule, unpleasant taste, and white noise. During the 1991-1993 period, JRC substituted a 2-second remote-controlled shock to the surface of the skin for all of these procedures. This procedure is called the GED (Graduated Electronic Decelerator).
At the time that JRC was starting (1971), a movement to limit the use of punishments in the raising of children was already well under way. In that year, for example, Sweden passed a law banning the use of punishment with children. (Interestingly, no punishment was specified for failing to obey the law). The use of punishments in the education and treatment of children is still, today, vigorously opposed in certain quarters and has even been banned in the regulation of certain state agencies. OCCS regulations, for example, explicitly ban the use of aversive procedures. Every year or so a bill is introduced in the Massachusetts state legislature to ban the use of aversives. (This bill has never passed, however.) Because of all this, JRC and its parents have had to battle fiercely over the years to create and preserve this important component of its treatment.
• Video monitoring, 24/7 of staff performance.
The best-laid behavioral programs in the world are to no avail if they are not carried out as designed by the direct care staff. Ever since JRC's first residential program in 1975, we have used videos cameras in all rooms to monitor staff, and sometimes student, performance.
This set of policies has always enabled JRC to provide unusually effective treatment. Ultimately, the parents and placement agencies are interested in is just that—effective treatment. As a result, during the period 1971 through 1985 JRC grew from 2 students to approximately 65 students. Our school and administrative offices were in Providence, Rhode Island during this period.
From 1971 to 1975 JRC operated as a day school/treatment center. The program was approved by both the Rhode Island Department of Education and was licensed by the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health. In 1975 we opened a residence for some of its students in Seekonk, Massachusetts. In succeeding years we added other residences in Attleboro and Rehoboth, Massachusetts. These residences were licensed as group residences by the Massachusetts Office for Children (OFC).
1985-87 Failed Attempt by Office for Children to Close JRC
In 1985 a young man died at JRC while being restrained at one of our residences. The cause of death was ultimately determined to be natural causes related to his condition of tardive dyskinesia and not due to the restraint procedure that had been employed. Opponents of JRC seized on this death, however, to call for the closure of JRC. JRC's opponents included officials of the National Society for Autistic Children and various other local advocacy groups, such as the Disabilities Law Center, Massachusetts Association for Retarded Citizens, Massachusetts Civil Liberties Association, etc. All of these agencies wrote letters to the Governor, urging him to close JRC. The governor of Massachusetts at that time was Michael Dukakis, who was preparing for his 1988 run for president1.[/b] JRC must be allowed to continue to employ aversives, but only if each student with whom it wished to employ aversives undergoes a substituted judgment hearing.
2. A Court Monitor was appointed to visit JRC periodically and to report to the Court on the status of JRC. John Daignault, Psy.D., was appointed to be the Court Monitor.
3. OFC agreed to issue a letter of apology to the JRC Parents.
4. The Commonwealth agreed to be bound by the standard of "good faith" in its licensing dealings with JRC.
5. A Mediator was appointed to hear disputes that might arise between JRC and its licensing agent. The purpose of this was to keep these disputes from burdening the court system. If the mediator is unable to solve the problem through mediation, any party is permitted to appeal directly to the Bristol Probate Court without having to go through the usual and time-consuming administrative law process. John Daignault, Psy.D., was appointed to be the Mediator. He was succeeded by the Honorable John Hurd. The Honorable Lawrence T. Perera has been appointed to assume the role of mediator when his appointment as Receiver has concluded.
6. In recognition of the bitterness that had developed between OFC and JRC, and to give JRC a fresh start, the licensing functions that OFC had exercised over JRC were transferred to DMH. DMH soon thereafter spun off DMR as a separate state agency and DMR assumed DMH's obligations under the Settlement Agreement.
During 1987, the attorney who had headed OFC during the OFC-JRC controversy was removed or transferred from that office and the agency was given a new head.
In 1987 DMH formally accepted its obligations under the Settlement Agreement. Later in 1987 or in 1988, DMH adopted new regulations on the use of aversives which paralleled its obligations under the Settlement Agreement. During the process of developing these regulations, DMH invited input and consultation from JRC. The new regulations categorized aversives into three levels and required that the most severe aversives (Level 3 Aversives) could only be employed if the petitioner obtained court authorization through the same substituted judgment process that JRC was required to use under the Settlement Agreement. The regulations also created a certification process in which certain organizations would be certified on a program wide basis to be allowed to employ Level 3 aversives. This certification must be renewed every two years.
In 1986 or 1987 some anti-aversives advocates introduced a bill in the Massachusetts legislature that would ban the use of aversive procedures. Although the bill would ban all aversive procedures, it was clear that it was aimed at JRC in particular. In 1987 the bill passed its initial committee and even passed the entire House of Representatives. Fortunately, because Michael Dukakis was running for president in 1988, the legislative session was abbreviated to help him spend more time on the campaign trail and the bill was not taken up by the Massachusetts Senate. The same bill has been introduced every few years since then and each time JRC staff, parents and students have lobbied vigorously to kept he bill from passing. Fortunately we have been increasingly successful in doing this each time the bill has been introduced.
In the late 80's or early 90's DMH spun off its mental retardation services as a separate agency known as the Department of Mental Retardation (DMR). After its creation, DMR adopted DMH's regulations on the use of aversives, and sought and obtained from the court an amendment of the Settlement Agreement to add DMR as a party to that agreement.
1987-1993 Peace, Calm and Growth under DMR
From 1987 to 1993 JRC functioned very well under the new DMR licensing authorities and resumed its growth. JRC's population, which had shrunk to about 39 students during the JRC/OFC controversy, rose to 65 by 1993. During these years we introduced a few new features to our program:
• Beautiful decoration. We have made it a point to make all of JRC's spaces, in the school, in the administrative offices, and in the residences, unusually beautiful. No institutional furnishings are used and every bedroom and residences is decorated differently from every other. Our goal is to make the experience of attending school an attractive one, and to create a colorful, beautiful and optimistic learning environment.
By making our school building as rewarding as possible, both in its look as well as in its various reward functions and areas, we have been able to use the opportunity to attend the school building as an earned reward. Similarly, students who behavior extremely poorly are required to stay in their residence and receive their academic instruction there, instead of at our school building.
• Maximum use of computer technology. As computers came into use, we saw them as an important tool. Every student has his own computer. There is now staff and student networks and web sites, discussion boards, an executive blog, a parent/agency web site, etc. Approximately 70% of our instruction is self-paced, programmed instruction that is carried out by means of self-instructional software. All behavior data is entered in a database and displayed through charting software that can be viewed from any computer on our network. We now monitor all classrooms residences and buses by means of digital video monitoring and recording.
In approximately 1992, DMR received a new Commissioner named Philip Campbell. Commissioner Campbell had previously been the head of the Massachusetts Association for Retarded Children (MARC). Mr. Campbell appears to have had a strong personal and philosophical opposition to the use of aversives and to the existence of JRC. While serving as the head of MARC, he had testified in favor a bill to ban the use of aversives in Massachusetts.
1993-1997: Failed Attempt by DMR to Close JRC
In 1993, Judge Ernest Rotenberg died. The Honorable Elizabeth LaStaiti succeeded him as Chief Judge of the Bristol County Probate Court. Shortly after that, DMR began a comprehensive campaign to close JRC and to interfere with JRC's ability to obtain referrals from other states. The details of this campaign are to be found in a set of findings that Judge LaStaiti eventually made in 1995 and which may be found at here. In carrying out his campaign1997-Date: Peace, Calm and Growth under the Receiver
From 1997 and continuing to this date, JRC experienced another period of calm in its relationship with its licensing agency (DMR), which was now overseen by the Receiver. In 1996 JRC had moved its administrative offices and school building from Providence, Rhode Island to Canton, Massachusetts. JRC's educational program continued to be approved by the Massachusetts Department of Education which had already approved the program when it had been located in Rhode Island.
The receivership gave JRC a welcome protection from further attempts by licensing agencies to interfere with its treatment. As a result, the program thrived and grew in size.
JRC took advantage of the respite in litigation that the Receivership ensured by introducing a few new major features into its program:
• Nutrition/wellness initiative. In approximately 2002 we began to invite nationally known nutritional experts to speak to our students and staff and we made a study of contemporary nutritional science. This led us to change our menus toward a much healthier type of foods and to encourage our students and staff in the same direction.
• Transparency in our treatment decisions. In 2004, we opened up a Parent/Agency website and began to place every possible document relating to our treatment decisions and the progress of our students on that site. Parents and placement agency officials can now, for example, keep up with the daily behavior charts, and even see the weekly progress notes that clinicians have entered for the student in question.
In 1997, JRC opened a 6-bed respite services program that provides short-term (30-60 day) respite services to developmentally disabled clients of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation.
In approximately 2002, JRC opened its day program, called Tomorrow. Currently this programs serves 3 students.
Beginning in approximately 2003, the Receiver began to return various functions to DMR and to wind down the Receivership. DMR indicated its desire to transfer the licensing of students under the age of 22 back to OFC, which was now called OCCS. JRC agreed, but only on condition that JRC's treatment modalities be preserved and that OCCS be willing to accept the obligations of the Settlement Agreement that DMR had been subject to. OCCS was reluctant to accept this obligation.
The matter was resolved on September 4, 2003 at a meeting of the parties in front of Steve Hanna, the First Assistant Register of the Bristol County Probate Court. The parties agreed that DMR would delegate its licensing authority over JRC's under-22 population to OCCS. This means that OCCS is acting as DMR's agent in licensing JRC and that DMR and its agent OCCS must comply with all the terms of the Settlement Agreement. Judge LaStaiti issued an order effectuating this agreement.
As of June 30, 2005, OCCS ceased its existence as an agency under the Executive Office of Human Services (EOHHS). The licensing functions of OCCS have been transferred by statute to EOHHS. We are informed that as part of an interagency agreement, the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), a new agency that started on July 1, 2005, has accepted all of the former OCCS licensing powers and obligations that had been transferred by statute to EOHHS, including EOHHS' obligations to license JRC's under-22 group homes acting as DMR's agent.
Current Status
JRC's educational program continues to be approved by the Massachusetts Department of Education. At the present time all of JRC's residences are currently licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation (DMR). Currently, JRC is working with DMR and the licensing officials of the former Office of Child Care Services (OCCS) to try to separate out the under 22-years-old population of students at JRC and to have the residences that house those students licensed by EEC, the new agency that has taken over the licensing duties previously carried out by OCCS.
Today, JRC serves over 200 students and adults from many states. These individuals live in 37 apartments, town houses and homes which JRC operates in Canton and neighboring communities. All attend JRC's day school at its Canton facility each day. The program is staffed with approximately 900 employees.
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186. This Court concludes that a plan was developed at the September 7, 1993 meeting which was implemented over the next year and a half to disrupt the financial operations of JRC. There were many parts of this plan, including interfering with JRC's fiscal condition, which are discussed infra. Generally, a plan was formulated to disrupt the operations of JRC by every conceivable means - to allege that clients were being abused; to interfere with financial operations; to disrupt JRC's relationship with funding agencies, as well as parents; and other activities which have absolutely no bearing on the legitimate exercise of regulatory authority. The plan also included requiring JRC to expend extraordinary funds for legal services in this litigation and in the related guardianship cases. DMR attorneys suddenly became very active in these proceedings. For example, motions were filed in JRC Guardianships challenging treatment plan reviews by a Master and motions were filed in said Guardianships challenging Attorney Bettina Briggs' role as GAL.
187. The September 7, 1993 agenda indicates that it was the task of Commissioner Campbell's Special Assistant, Jean Tuller, to obtain "contacts" with states that provide funding to JRC. (Exhibit 293). As discussed in other parts of this opinion, the Department then undertook a concerted effort to spread knowingly false information to JRC's funding agencies in an effort to prevent new clients from being referred, as well as disrupting current placements.
268. As described infra, the Department's acts of contempt and other wrongful conduct, imposed a severe and essentially constant burden on the JRC staff by having to respond to an unrelenting stream of bad faith regulatory demands and other bad faith conduct over twenty-two months. The Department's contemptuous conduct also caused a severe and almost constant drain on JRC's revenues by forcing JRC to pay almost one million dollars in attorneys fees and other expenses to defend the school from the Department's contemptuous conduct. The Department has caused even greater financial damage to JRC by reducing JRC's enrollment by attacking JRC's reputation and competency, which were directed to JRC's only source of revenue: its funding and placement agencies. With ever increasing attorneys fees and dropping revenues, JRC had no alternative but to cut staff and reduce purchases in order to maintain financial viability. These cuts along with the staffs' preoccupation responding to DMR's bad faith regulatory demands, adversely affected the quality of the most important aspect of JRC's program--the positive programming and educational components of the program. While aversive therapies are the best known and most controversial aspect of treatment, it is in fact the positive rewards that are the most pervasive and important to the students.
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is helpful or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is abusive, its not abusive, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
...
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
I most states people with psychiatric labels (o.k. anybody) can be forced to take medication against their will.
In most cases this is done on pure hearsay and 1 Dr. & Judge.
I could write several books on this subject alone...luckily others have already done the work.
I have seen people ask for ECT to get out of a Hospital quicker....they got worse and stayed longer.
Psychiatrists have a drug habit for real!
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
I most states people with psychiatric labels (o.k. anybody) can be forced to take medication against their will.
In most cases this is done on pure hearsay and 1 Dr. & Judge.
I could write several books on this subject alone...luckily others have already done the work.
I have seen people ask for ECT to get out of a Hospital quicker....they got worse and stayed longer.
Psychiatrists have a drug habit for real!
Hey, I can tell you from experience that Kentucky law states that even if a few other doctors want to keep ye in the psyche ward, that is just takes one doctor to say no and get ye out. That is sincerely the only state I know really well about mental health laws other than Ohio.
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is helpful or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is abusive, its not abusive, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
...
:wall:
oy......I am thinking of opening an abortion clinic for adult children.
Drop off any kid over 18 and abort them.....HOLY SHIT I'D BE FUCKIN RICH!!!
I can see the traffic jam now :seg2:
"Did you ever wish you had aborted your child but it is too late because they are over 18 now?" :roflmao:
"Come to the Judge Rottenbitch Center and we will make your dreams come true" <<<<<<INSERT COPYRIGHT RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW :clown:
"Did you create a genetic nightmare and can't turn back time?" WE WILL DO IT FOR YOU ;)
"We will torture them slowly to death for x-tra MEGAcash" :poison: :deal:
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is helpful or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is abusive, its not abusive, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
:wall:
oy......I am thinking of opening an abortion clinic for adult children.
Drop off any kid over 18 and abort them.....HOLY SHIT I'D BE FUCKIN RICH!!!
I can see the traffic jam now :seg2:
"Did you ever wish you had aborted your child but it is too late because they are over 18 now?" :roflmao:
"Come to the Judge Rottenbitch Center and we will make your dreams come true" <<<<<<INSERT COPYRIGHT RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW :clown:
"Did you create a genetic nightmare and can't turn back time?" WE WILL DO IT FOR YOU ;)
"We will torture them slowly to death for x-tra MEGAcash" :poison: :deal:
A refreshing, and yet depressing, observation! :tup:
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is helpful or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is abusive, its not abusive, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is abusive or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is benign, its not benign, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
-
From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is helpful or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is abusive, its not abusive, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
Thats great, Anne, I think we agree on this one.
...
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From the Washington Post: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/17/AR2010091705376.html
I am glad that President Obama is being asked to look at it. I find ECT alone to be repugnant and have seen its harmful effects. Operant Conditioning goes way beyond that! There was a really good episode of Law and Order about Operant Conditioning and its effects.
It is a difficult issue and the only way, that I see, how this is going to get resolved is to give it a lot of visibility. Bring in as many professionals as possible to look at it and review the successes and failures and make an assessment on whether the process is helpful or not.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is abusive, its not abusive, is getting old.
It needs to get resolved.
Thats great, Anne, I think we agree on this one.
That wasn't Anne's post that you just attributed to her. You just substituted your own (previous) post in its place.
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That wasn't Anne's post that you just attributed to her. You just substituted your own (previous) post in its place.
I took a double take myself, Ursus, but I didnt mind that she copied and pasted my post like that, maybe she was just trying to bump it up. If you look one post up from mine you will see she copied my post, I didnt make it up.
Link (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=383776#p383776)
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That wasn't Anne's post that you just attributed to her. You just substituted your own (previous) post in its place.
I took a double take myself, Ursus, but I didnt mind that she copied and pasted my post like that, maybe she was just trying to bump it up. If you look one post up from mine you will see she copied my post, I didnt make it up.
Link (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=383776#p383776)
Nope. Of course she didn't just copy your post. Note her word usage: she states that the process is "not benign," whereas you claim that it's "not abusive." A bit of a difference, dontcha think?
That was the point she was trying to make.
And... it would appear that you knew this, otherwise you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of substituting your version in its place, while trying to pass it off as her version. You would have just done a simple quote-reply.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is benign, its not benign, is getting old.[/list]
As it stands now, you are, once again, posting in response to yourself, and agreeing with yourself, whilst pretending you're someone else. Lol.
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That wasn't Anne's post that you just attributed to her. You just substituted your own (previous) post in its place.
I took a double take myself, Ursus, but I didnt mind that she copied and pasted my post like that, maybe she was just trying to bump it up. If you look one post up from mine you will see she copied my post, I didnt make it up.
Link (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=383776#p383776)
Nope. Of course she didn't just copy your post. Note her word usage: she states that the process is "not benign," whereas you claim that it's "not abusive." A bit of a difference, dontcha think?
That was the point she was trying to make.
And... it would appear that you knew this, otherwise you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of substituting your version in its place, while trying to pass it off as her version. You would have just done a simple quote-reply.
It would be great if they could do a full fledged investigation on a federal level. Then either license these people and regulate them or shut it down. This in between hints the process is benign, its not benign, is getting old.[/list]
As it stands now, you are, once again, posting in response to yourself, and agreeing with yourself, whilst pretending you're someone else. Lol.
Ursus, what is your problem? Why is everything a conspiracy to you?
Actually I didnt not see that. She usually puts something in there like :I fixed it for ya! or changes the color or something like that. But either way we both agree that an investigation is warranted and we should get them licensed or they should be shut down . The in between hints it is benign? okay? But we both agree it is getting old and needs to be resolved.
Why don't you discuss the issues instead of critiquing everyone else and their motives? Without cutting and pasting what other people think what do you think should be the next step? At least I put myself out there and post my opinions and not other peoples.
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