Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: psy on May 09, 2010, 05:36:41 PM
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My mom sent me this article on JRC and I really appreciate it.
http://http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8538
Notice the "kids really need it" argument and the prediction of how the kids will turn out without the program. Now to think of it. I haven't seen Whooter defend this school. Where are you Whooter? Read that. What's your take on JRC?
A former employee of the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids."
Even if you don't answer, ask yourself this: So are there bad programs, Whooter? OK? Do those parents know what's going on? No. Of course not. It's called propaganda by the school and the parents swallow it. Videotapes disappear. Disgruntled employee, they've probably said. My point being that if you agree JRC is a bad school you also have to accept that it is impossible for a parent to tell a good program from a bad one. I mean parents get up and defend the place and that ends political pressure to end the school with most politicians who only care about their own careers. The parents are how they get away with it.
Maybe you've already thought of this and that's why I've never heard you speak ill of a program. If you admitted you believed that then you'd also have to admit that their programs are often very successful and remain open for a long time. Think of Tranquility Bay (BTW, I still know a parent who defends the place). Think of the CEDU series of schools. If you admit that than you also have to admit that it's likely the staff of such places migrated and brought their practices with them (Aspen, for example). It's repackaged crap is what it is and it hurts kids. You're either blind, stupid, or a malicious sociopath is what you are, Whooter. You've seen the consistent independent accounts over time. The kids are not lying at MBA, for example (same stories at CEDU, especially in regards to propheets, and I've seen the french maid outfit myself at benchmark). This is not coincidence. The possibility of such intricate detail being identical happening at random is very very remote.
Or perhaps you're the kind of moral busybody who believes the ends justify the means no matter what and he has the right to "insert ethics" (as Tom Cruise might say) into other sovereign individuals. If that were true you'd also believe that lying about the program, distorting the facts, and playing damage control would be a justified act. I think I've figured you out. You're a true believer as you claim.
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My mom sent me this article on JRC and I really appreciate it.
http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8538 (http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8538)
Notice the "kids really need it" argument and the prediction of how the kids will turn out without the program. Now to think of it. I haven't seen Whooter defend this school. Where are you Whooter? Read that. What's your take on JRC?
Oh, you can read his responses to that article in the aftermath of the previous two postings of it (by Anne Bonney) on May 4th (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30436&p=362704#p362704) and May 7th (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30444&start=15#p363062). His latest argument (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30444&start=45#p363189) is composed of accusing Anne and others of denying a child with cancer ... access to chemotherapy (by way of analogy). And of thinking like sheep.
It would appear that Whooter is not at all opposed to the "aversive therapy" practiced at the Judge Rotenberg Center.
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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My mom sent me this article on JRC and I really appreciate it.
http://http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8538
Notice the "kids really need it" argument and the prediction of how the kids will turn out without the program. Now to think of it. I haven't seen Whooter defend this school. Where are you Whooter? Read that. What's your take on JRC?
A former employee of the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids."
Even if you don't answer, ask yourself this: So are there bad programs, Whooter? OK? Do those parents know what's going on? No. Of course not. It's called propaganda by the school and the parents swallow it. Videotapes disappear. Disgruntled employee, they've probably said. My point being that if you agree JRC is a bad school you also have to accept that it is impossible for a parent to tell a good program from a bad one. I mean parents get up and defend the place and that ends political pressure to end the school with most politicians who only care about their own careers. The parents are how they get away with it.
Maybe you've already thought of this and that's why I've never heard you speak ill of a program. If you admitted you believed that then you'd also have to admit that their programs are often very successful and remain open for a long time. Think of Tranquility Bay (BTW, I still know a parent who defends the place). Think of the CEDU series of schools. If you admit that than you also have to admit that it's likely the staff of such places migrated and brought their practices with them (Aspen, for example). It's repackaged crap is what it is and it hurts kids. You're either blind, stupid, or a malicious sociopath is what you are, Whooter. You've seen the consistent independent accounts over time. The kids are not lying at MBA, for example (same stories at CEDU, especially in regards to propheets, and I've seen the french maid outfit myself at benchmark). This is not coincidence. The possibility of such intricate detail being identical happening at random is very very remote.
Or perhaps you're the kind of moral busybody who believes the ends justify the means no matter what and he has the right to "insert ethics" (as Tom Cruise might say) into other sovereign individuals. If that were true you'd also believe that lying about the program, distorting the facts, and playing damage control would be a justified act. I think I've figured you out. You're a true believer as you claim.
I haven’t formed an opinion,myself. I have no first hand knowledge of this place only what I have read in the papers and here on fornits.
I have heard:
Its abusive and disgusting to have kids wear backpacks 24/7. This leads me to believe the person is not adverse to shock therapy but rather that the kids receive it 24/7. This is a program/procedural issue and can be changed.
I have read the outrage that a child was shocked many times due to a telephone prank. This is an abuse of the shock therapy… but again the author never stated that shock therapy itself was wrong, just outraged by the lack of regulation/training.
I have read stories of families which shock therapy has been a savior to their family and child.
Maybe this family is the only one! Maybe they just like having their child out of the house and taken care of by someone else so they can breath a little and will say anything positive so the place doesn’t close. But maybe they are telling the truth and their son and hundreds of others are showing progress and enjoying a better quality of life.
I read stories from ex employees who feel that the place is terrible and abusive towards the kids. Maybe he is a disgruntled ex-employee or maybe he is telling the truth or what he believes to be the truth.
But lets say we can regulate away all the possible human factors that can cause hurt. The question remains is this therapy effective.. is it abusive or inhumane? So far I don’t think so. But that remains to be seen because there is apparently a federal investigation which will be able to supply us with a little more information and insight.
Is supplying a child with a bee sting like shock more inhumane than forcing them to undergo chemotherapy and radiation which causes their hair to fall out and vomit for days afterwards. Is either one guaranteed to work? Is medicating your child into a stupor more humane or letting them slam their heads into a wall for hours until they severe the retina in their eye? Is it more humane to allow these kids to take off their backpacks while they sleep?
I haven’t seen enough outcome or results from this therapy to form an opinion. But right now I would lean towards keeping the place open and allowing the investigation to take place.
...
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Just so everybody knows, Psy and Ursus and Manne Conney all suffer from Whooter Obsession Syndrome, or W.O.S. for short. The symptoms include (but are not limited to):
Calling Whooter "Daddy"
Asking Whooter childish rhetorical questions about the real world (why are people so mean, daddy?)
Throwing temper tantrums directed at Whooter (I HATE YOU WHOOTER, I WILL OUT YOUR IDENTITY!) then realizing he holds the answers to all your childish questions.
Writing 10,000 word essays directed toward Whooter, initiating the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION that has been held on fornits every single day for the past YEARS.
Asking Whooter to be your surrogate Parent so you can complain about programs in general and parents, etc.
Expecting Whooter and others to adopt their Black and White thinking. (Either programs are great, or they are EVIL!)
There is a cure for W.O.S., but since it involves not posting on fornits all the time to have the same argument over and over again expecting a different result,,, wait a second, where have I heard that before. Yep! It[s the definition for insanity!!
insanity is a prerequisite to be a regular poster on fornits, especially if you want to be part of the WOS CLIQUE!
LONG LIVE PRORGAMS AND LONG LIVE WHOOTER! :nods:
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Just so everybody knows, Psy and Ursus and Manne Conney all suffer from Whooter Obsession Syndrome, or W.O.S. for short. The symptoms include (but are not limited to):
Calling Whooter "Daddy"
Asking Whooter childish rhetorical questions about the real world (why are people so mean, daddy?)
Throwing temper tantrums directed at Whooter (I HATE YOU WHOOTER, I WILL OUT YOUR IDENTITY!) then realizing he holds the answers to all your childish questions.
Writing 10,000 word essays directed toward Whooter, initiating the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION that has been held on fornits every single day for the past YEARS.
Asking Whooter to be your surrogate Parent so you can complain about programs in general and parents, etc.
Expecting Whooter and others to adopt their Black and White thinking. (Either programs are great, or they are EVIL!)
There is a cure for W.O.S., but since it involves not posting on fornits all the time to have the same argument over and over again expecting a different result,,, wait a second, where have I heard that before. Yep! It[s the definition for insanity!!
insanity is a prerequisite to be a regular poster on fornits, especially if you want to be part of the WOS CLIQUE!
LONG LIVE PRORGAMS AND LONG LIVE WHOOTER! :nods:
<yawn>
It seems the only person obsessed with "Calling Whooter 'Daddy'," let alone the only person even mentioning it, is one particular poster (or two) ... hellbent on ingratiating themselves with — and sucking up to — youknowWHO! Kinda makes ya wonder... :D
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Just so everybody knows, Psy and Ursus and Manne Conney all suffer from Whooter Obsession Syndrome, or W.O.S. for short. The symptoms include (but are not limited to):
Calling Whooter "Daddy"
Asking Whooter childish rhetorical questions about the real world (why are people so mean, daddy?)
Throwing temper tantrums directed at Whooter (I HATE YOU WHOOTER, I WILL OUT YOUR IDENTITY!) then realizing he holds the answers to all your childish questions.
Writing 10,000 word essays directed toward Whooter, initiating the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION that has been held on fornits every single day for the past YEARS.
Asking Whooter to be your surrogate Parent so you can complain about programs in general and parents, etc.
Expecting Whooter and others to adopt their Black and White thinking. (Either programs are great, or they are EVIL!)
There is a cure for W.O.S., but since it involves not posting on fornits all the time to have the same argument over and over again expecting a different result,,, wait a second, where have I heard that before. Yep! It[s the definition for insanity!!
insanity is a prerequisite to be a regular poster on fornits, especially if you want to be part of the WOS CLIQUE!
LONG LIVE PRORGAMS AND LONG LIVE WHOOTER! :nods:
<yawn>
It seems the only person obsessed with "Calling Whooter 'Daddy'," let alone the only person even mentioning it, is one particular poster (or two) ... hellbent on ingratiating themselves with — and sucking up to — youknowWHO! Kinda makes ya wonder... :D
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Ursus spoke:
"It seems the only person obsessed with "Calling Whooter 'Daddy'," let alone the only person even mentioning it, is one particular poster (or two) ... hellbent on ingratiating themselves with — and sucking up to — youknowWHO! Kinda makes ya wonder..." :D[/quote]
Danny spoke:
That is a biased and prejudicial statement even for you Ursus. Where are your manners. Did you have a crappy weekend and decide to dump on folks here.
Whooter has his points and so do you, as others. Why do we need to attack, (yes I am hypercritical) your debates here are interesting and sometimes very educational. There is not another "Whooter" here right now carrying his perspective with the intelligence that he brings. As I could say about you, psy, che, felice and antigen not to exclude Pile ect.....
With much objectivity, I can say we need all of you to maintain the authenticity of this site otherwise it would be very boring. Yes I did say "authenticity" I do believe that Whooter does believe some if not most of the commentary he writes as I'm sure you folks do.
Just saying..... :cheers: :cheers:
Danny
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Anti Defamation of Youth Workers
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Anti Defamation of Youth Workers
... Seems I remember that Layne Meacham frequently claimed allegiance to such a gig! :D
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Whooter has his points and so do you, as others. Why do we need to attack, (yes I am hypercritical) your debates here are interesting and sometimes very educational. There is not another "Whooter" here right now carrying his perspective with the intelligence that he brings.
He's been here for years doing the same damage control.....and that's exactly what it is. Deflect, distort, outright lie, spin spin spin. Most of us are sick of dealing with it/him. Before he came along, there actually were some pretty decent discussions between polar opposites. He's not here to provide 'balance'. He's here to counter the damage that Fornits has brought upon the industry. You'll see many claiming how insignificant Fornits is, yet they're here....day after day, year after year spinning away. If we weren't having an effect on the industry, they wouldn't find the need to remain for all this time.
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Whooter has his points and so do you, as others. Why do we need to attack, (yes I am hypercritical) your debates here are interesting and sometimes very educational. There is not another "Whooter" here right now carrying his perspective with the intelligence that he brings.
He's been here for years doing the same damage control.....and that's exactly what it is. Deflect, distort, outright lie, spin spin spin. Most of us are sick of dealing with it/him. Before he came along, there actually were some pretty decent discussions between polar opposites. He's not here to provide 'balance'. He's here to counter the damage that Fornits has brought upon the industry. You'll see many claiming how insignificant Fornits is, yet they're here....day after day, year after year spinning away. If we weren't having an effect on the industry, they wouldn't find the need to remain for all this time.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Anne spoke:
"He's here to counter the damage that Fornits has brought upon the industry."
Danny spoke
First off like I said earlier, I am not here to fight with you or anybody about Whooter or anyone else. I also just won't take someones comment at face value either about Whooter till I know more. So far I have not seen any real credible proof that he is what you say he is. Now I could be very wrong and I am willing to concede if that time comes. I also don't think Anne, you have to defend yourself to me, I accept that you believe that Whooter is what you think. :birthday:
I am just not there. Now if I found dishonesty in anything he was saying or doing then I would be done with him in a heart beat but just because he is working for the industry that I despise well I don't think that is worth not having anything to do with him. I enjoy keeping my enemies close (I have Marty Kruglick as one of my facebook friends) not bragging it is just a truth. Why ???? Well I want him close and reading, maybe just maybe one day he speaks.
I don't comment on everything Whooter writes anyway. Some of his opinions and perspectives are important to read, Anne.
I personally don't know what to make of Whooter other then I find him intelligent and a great debater that can hold his own.
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A public service announcement brought to you by the Migrant Worker Council of America
This punk Whooter =
John Reuben, Founder & President of STICC
* Parent of 2 troubled teens who have been in therapeutic programs
* Executive in Software Sales and Marketing for over 25 years, including the founding of a significant software enterprise
* ASPEN Education Group board of directors
* Educational consultant for ASPEN
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A public service announcement brought to you by the Migrant Worker Council of America
This punk Whooter =
John Reuben, Founder & President of STICC
* Parent of 2 troubled teens who have been in therapeutic programs
* Executive in Software Sales and Marketing for over 25 years, including the founding of a significant software enterprise
* ASPEN Education Group board of directors
* Educational consultant for ASPEN
EAH, You forgot that one of the kids got killed off which is blamed directly on the program. At least get the facts straight if you want to convince someone that this poor guy is me.
A year ago you all thought I was this Peter guy in Virginia, but that fell apart quickly. If you get together and stick with the same story this time you might get everyone to believe you.
...
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Whooter has his points and so do you, as others. Why do we need to attack, (yes I am hypercritical) your debates here are interesting and sometimes very educational. There is not another "Whooter" here right now carrying his perspective with the intelligence that he brings.
He's been here for years doing the same damage control.....and that's exactly what it is. Deflect, distort, outright lie, spin spin spin. Most of us are sick of dealing with it/him. Before he came along, there actually were some pretty decent discussions between polar opposites. He's not here to provide 'balance'. He's here to counter the damage that Fornits has brought upon the industry. You'll see many claiming how insignificant Fornits is, yet they're here....day after day, year after year spinning away. If we weren't having an effect on the industry, they wouldn't find the need to remain for all this time.
You are here day after day, year after year, and you are living the great life of beaches and boating, the good life! Is anybody paying you to post here day after day, year after year, decade after decade? What about Psy or Ursus your fellow team members in your lame quest to destroy the Evil Mastermind of the Program Industry, Whooter? This is more of your typical fornits hypocrisy, and different standards depending on what your point of view is. Or maybe you are a payed plant of the "home therapy industry" or whatever bullshit you're pushing these days? Hmm.. makes you wonder, doesn't it?
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This really is a nightmare. The more I read and see, the worse it gets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU)
Looks like Turley has picked up on it as well.
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/05/ri ... f-torture/ (http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/05/rights-group-accused-judge-rotenberg-center-of-torture/)
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This really is a nightmare. The more I read and see, the worse it gets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU)
Looks like Turley has picked up on it as well.
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/05/ri ... f-torture/ (http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/05/rights-group-accused-judge-rotenberg-center-of-torture/)
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This really is a nightmare. The more I read and see, the worse it gets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU)
Looks like Turley has picked up on it as well.
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/05/ri ... f-torture/ (http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/05/rights-group-accused-judge-rotenberg-center-of-torture/)
:shamrock: :shamrock:
They are doing it in the old country too....Ireland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU)
LadyPortia777 This shock therapy ECT is also recommended for children of 4 and 9 in IRELAND for being too intelligent and strong willed. It is all kept quiet. I have witnessed social worker and psychologist in Ireland BREAK the child to nothing.
All this truth is being exposed.
Danny
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They are doing it in the old country too....Ireland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU)
LadyPortia777 This shock therapy ECT is also recommended for children of 4 and 9 in IRELAND for being too intelligent and strong willed. It is all kept quiet. I have witnessed social worker and psychologist in Ireland BREAK the child to nothing.
All this truth is being exposed.
Danny
Seems to be a common theme. The kids begin to develop their own personalities, beliefs etc that parents or teachers don't like, so......BAM.....off to the thought reform camps they go.
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Youtube showing a more positive side to this Center (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytPCVL-AVg&feature=related)
It would be nice if an agency could go in and do and extensive investigation on this place because the reports we are getting are all over the map and contradict each other. We read about the abuses and deaths and then we hear firsthand accounts from patients and parents who tell a very different story. Kids that were once highly medicated are now on no medication and able to work outside the center independently. Many kids opt to had the GED skin shocks and there are independent reviews done by advocacy groups, psychiatrists and there is a court hearing before any child or adult can receive skin shocks.
From these videos there is no doubt in my mind that abuses have occurred and there continues to be exposure to future abuses. But we also see that the center is helping many people which leads me to believe that the therapy itself is not abusive rather it is the lack of control the center has over how the patients are treated.
The average person residing at the center does not receive skin shocks at all and the ones that do receive skin shocks average one shock per week.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Yeah! It's like getting hooked into a TV series! Next season sure will be interesting!!
::)
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It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Yeah! It's like getting hooked into a TV series! Next season sure will be interesting!!
::)
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Yeah, not a very good choice of words there Whooter, even if one child is being harmed that is enough to stop. Not wait till it plays out.
Just say'in....
Danny
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Many kids opt to had the GED skin shocks and there are independent reviews done by advocacy groups, psychiatrists and there is a court hearing before any child or adult can receive skin shocks.
Citation please
The average person residing at the center does not receive skin shocks at all and the ones that do receive skin shocks average one shock per week.
Citation please
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Ughhhh....truly despicable.
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It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Yeah! It's like getting hooked into a TV series! Next season sure will be interesting!!
::)
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Yeah, not a very good choice of words there Whooter, even if one child is being harmed that is enough to stop. Not wait till it plays out.
Just say'in....
Danny
I was referring to the investigation. Waiting for that to play out. I dont agree that the place should be shut down because one child gets hurt. Look at how many children get hurt everyday in public schools, in cars and on buses. How many kids overdose on drugs or harmed by the medication that doctors give them. We cant approach every instance with a heavy stick.
...
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Many kids opt to had the GED skin shocks and there are independent reviews done by advocacy groups, psychiatrists and there is a court hearing before any child or adult can receive skin shocks.
Citation please
The average person residing at the center does not receive skin shocks at all and the ones that do receive skin shocks average one shock per week.
Citation please
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Ughhhh....truly despicable.
The citation was in the video. They have interviews with patients, parents and they talk about the process that is used. It gives us all a different side of the issue. Here is the clip again:
Youtube showing a more positive side to this Center (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytPCVL-AVg&feature=related)
...
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Many kids opt to had the GED skin shocks and there are independent reviews done by advocacy groups, psychiatrists and there is a court hearing before any child or adult can receive skin shocks.
Citation please
The average person residing at the center does not receive skin shocks at all and the ones that do receive skin shocks average one shock per week.
Citation please
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Ughhhh....truly despicable.
The citation was in the video. They have interviews with patients, parents and they talk about the process that is used. It gives us all a different side of the issue.
So, in other words.....you don't have any. Ok.
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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Did someone say Ireland? I have peeps in Ireland. How can they be of assistance in this case, Anne?
-DP
p.s.who is Turley,and why do I recognize that name so much?
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Did someone say Ireland? I have peeps in Ireland. How can they be of assistance in this case, Anne?
-DP
p.s.who is Turley,and why do I recognize that name so much?
see: http://http://www.mindfreedomireland.com/new/
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So, in other words.....you don't have any. Ok.
Sorry, I guess the link didnt go thru. Here it is again:
Youtube showing a more positive side to this Center (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytPCVL-AVg&feature=related)
This video has interviews with patients and parents and outlines some of the procedures that are used at the center.
A couple of facts I found interesting:
Many kids opted to get the GED skin shocks and there are independent reviews done by advocacy groups, psychiatrists and there is a court hearing before any child or adult can receive skin shocks.
The average person residing at the center does not receive skin shocks at all and the ones that do receive skin shocks average one shock per week.
...
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I am disabled and found this video troubling to watch. There was scene with Janie C that really bothered me. She was pulling on her hair, slapping herself in the side of her head and lying on the floor banging her head without staff intervention. That, in my opinion, was highly unethical. There was also another case where a child bit half another staff members nose off! These disabled children need allot of help. What kind of help do you people propose?
I agree with you,Joel, and that is why many of these kids were transferred to the Center. It would be a shame to have to have these kids restrained and medicated all day long and they cannot just be left alone like that. That is a very low quality of life to live in my opinion.
I am not sure what other options would help these children/people.
...
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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I asked that questioned Whooter because people are beating the "unethical treatment drum" and don't seem willing to explore alternative treatment methods.
Some questions that were brought up in a few articles I was reading:
Is finding alternatives only Israel’s responsibility? Why isn’t it the responsibility of the entire scientific community?.....
Shock treatment is controversial and rightly so. It’s not pretty. But neither are severely self-hurting autists. When the alternative to a shock treatment that takes away the self-damaging behavior is to pad them in and strap them down, I at least feel that it’s not obvious which to choose.
...
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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Who gives a shit a what alternatives methods are used? What I want to know is what is going to be done to stop hooking kids up to mobile electric fences and shocking them till they smell like fried bacon.
This shouldn't be about "exploring options".
It should be about stopping something that is wrong, immediately.
Fuck our society in the shitter if we've gotten that far gone that stopping something like JRC requires a committee and a blue ribbon panel followed by a conference wrapped up with 39933 page report.
All of us can go right to hell, and probably will be, if this sort of apple polishing bullshit is endorsed while kids are being zapped silly.
No compromises.. Shut JRC down, and Throw that asshole Matthew Israel into prison with a sign around his neck that says, "Child Abuser".
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Who gives a shit a what alternatives methods are used? What I want to know is what is going to be done to stop hooking kids up to mobile electric fences and shocking them till they smell like fried bacon.
This shouldn't be about "exploring options".
It should be about stopping something that is wrong, immediately.
Fuck our society in the shitter if we've gotten that far gone that stopping something like JRC requires a committee and a blue ribbon panel followed by a conference wrapped up with 39933 page report.
All of us can go right to hell, and probably will be, if this sort of apple polishing bullshit is endorsed while kids are being zapped silly.
No compromises.. Shut JRC down, and Throw that asshole Matthew Israel into prison with a sign around his neck that says, "Child Abuser".
Look Che, you cant just stop Chemotherapy because you cant stand the sight of kids vomiting and their hair falling out. You should read up on the pros and cons of this place. Take a look at the quality of life these kids have. Its near zero....Its no life being restrained 24/7 and drugged out to the point where you are drooling all day. If this gives kids a chance at a better or near normal life then why deny them that? Most of them choose the GED and before any child can be subjected they need to go before a judge along with advocacy groups and independent psych sign off.
Read up on it... thats what I am doing.
...
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Look Che, you cant just stop Chemotherapy because you cant stand the sight of kids vomiting and their hair falling out.
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Equating programs for "troubled teens" to chemotherapy for cancer-stricken kids is kinda like equating getting knifed in an alley with undergoing a surgical procedure. As usual, your bullshit does not stand up to half a second of rational thought. Now go back to playing with your feces.......
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Look Che, you cant just stop Chemotherapy because you cant stand the sight of kids vomiting and their hair falling out.
...
Equating programs for "troubled teens" to chemotherapy for cancer-stricken kids is kinda like equating getting knifed in an alley with undergoing a surgical procedure. As usual, your bullshit does not stand up to half a second of rational thought. Now go back to playing with your feces.......
This thread is not about programs for troubled teens. As usual you jump in without reading up on what you are commenting on. Catch up and then give your opinion. Its actually and interesting topic.
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Whatever, substitute "autistic kids" for troubled teens and my analogy still holds true. Go eat a bag of dicks.
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Did someone say Ireland? I have peeps in Ireland. How can they be of assistance in this case, Anne?
-DP
p.s.who is Turley,and why do I recognize that name so much?
Deprogram,
Anne posted this 4 or 5 posts up on this page, I just copied this article concerning Ireland. I too have and had family in Ireland.
Article copied:
:shamrock: :shamrock:
They are doing it in the old country too....Ireland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-xXfgQiTU)
LadyPortia777 This shock therapy ECT is also recommended for children of 4 and 9 in IRELAND for being too intelligent and strong willed. It is all kept quiet. I have witnessed social worker and psychologist in Ireland BREAK the child to nothing.
All this truth is being exposed.
Danny
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I am disabled and found this video troubling to watch. There was scene with Janie C that really bothered me. She was pulling on her hair, slapping herself in the side of her head and lying on the floor banging her head without staff intervention. That, in my opinion, was highly unethical. There was also another case where a child bit half another staff members nose off! These disabled children need allot of help. What kind of help do you people propose?
I agree with you,Joel, and that is why many of these kids were transferred to the Center. It would be a shame to have to have these kids restrained and medicated all day long and they cannot just be left alone like that. That is a very low quality of life to live in my opinion.
I am not sure what other options would help these children/people.
...
:shamrock: :shamrock:
This point is a valid point. I just don't like abuse.
Danny
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I asked that questioned Whooter because people are beating the "unethical treatment drum" and don't seem willing to explore alternative treatment methods.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
I was leading the conversation in that direction because I don't think many posters here really get what kind of kids and there disabilities that are being discussed here. I would suggest talking with some of the posters who have direct connection with the mental health developement scene. Felice would be good person to contact, I'm sure there are others.
I will say this though I don't care what quality of life were talking here, there is no excuse for abuse of any kind, even if you think it isn't because they are testing. That is fucking sick, test on yourself.
Danny
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Look Che, you cant just stop Chemotherapy because you cant stand the sight of kids vomiting and their hair falling out.
Equating programs for "troubled teens" to chemotherapy for cancer-stricken kids is kinda like equating getting knifed in an alley with undergoing a surgical procedure. As usual, your bullshit does not stand up to half a second of rational thought. Now go back to playing with your feces.......
This thread is not about programs for troubled teens. As usual you jump in without reading up on what you are commenting on. Catch up and then give your opinion. Its actually and interesting topic.
Oh, but it most certainly is! Now, if you really had been reading up on this place instead of playing around with your baseless chemotherapy analogies, Whooter, you would know that a lot of parents of self-harming autistics just don't send them to JRC anymore! Big surprise! Apparently, there are other alternatives!
Instead, troubled teens are now being used to fill those emptied slots. From Nancy Weiss's comments (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/?comments=all#readerComm) to a recent Boston Globe Op-Ed:
JRCs census has fallen dramatically in recent years. When states stopped being willing to send kids with autism to JRC (or when some states stopped sending kids at all) JRC clearly shifted its focus. Many of the people there now (and for the past number of years) are not kids with severe autism or other developmental disabilities but the other group that can push the limits of families, professionals and systems -- tough, oppositional street kids that had gotten in trouble multiple times and that schools were anxious to see go elsewhere.[/list]
If the Judge Rotenberg Center were just concerned with those extreme self-harming autistic cases, why the heck is it marketing itself at events like the American Probation and Parole Association and the Virginia Juvenile Justice Association conferences?
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Oh, but it most certainly is! Now, if you really had been reading up on this place instead of playing around with your baseless chemotherapy analogies, Whooter, you would know that a lot of parents of self-harming autistics just don't send them to JRC anymore! Big surprise! Apparently, there are other alternatives!
There.. thank you. Since you reacted and called the analogy baseless instead of arguing against it shows me that it was effective and understood. We both know that they are both therapies which cause pain and from a distance appear to be very abusive. If you performed a therapy on a child 100 years ago that caused the child to vomit and the kids hair fell out you would be hung from a tree.
From my reading autistic children are still being sent to the center. If this isn't the case anymore I would like to see the link. If the center has open beds and can help some less severe children then I don’t see why they shouldn’t allow them to be accepted and helped at the center. I could see your concern but you filling in a lot of information that is not there.
But besides that the issue is “shock treatmentâ€. Not all the people being treated at the center receive shock treatment and before anyone can they need to have a hearing before a judge, meet with advocacy groups and see a psychologist to determine if this type of treatment would be beneficial or warranted. I dont see how, with the present screening criteria, an at-risk youth could be exposed to shock treatment.
But that is why we are all here to get answers and find out what they are doing and to whom and how effective it is.
...
...
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Look Che, you cant just stop Chemotherapy because you cant stand the sight of kids vomiting and their hair falling out.
Equating programs for "troubled teens" to chemotherapy for cancer-stricken kids is kinda like equating getting knifed in an alley with undergoing a surgical procedure. As usual, your bullshit does not stand up to half a second of rational thought. Now go back to playing with your feces.......
This thread is not about programs for troubled teens. As usual you jump in without reading up on what you are commenting on. Catch up and then give your opinion. Its actually and interesting topic.
Oh, but it most certainly is! Now, if you really had been reading up on this place instead of playing around with your baseless chemotherapy analogies, Whooter, you would know that a lot of parents of self-harming autistics just don't send them to JRC anymore! Big surprise! Apparently, there are other alternatives!
Instead, troubled teens are now being used to fill those emptied slots. From Nancy Weiss's comments (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/?comments=all#readerComm) to a recent Boston Globe Op-Ed:
JRCs census has fallen dramatically in recent years. When states stopped being willing to send kids with autism to JRC (or when some states stopped sending kids at all) JRC clearly shifted its focus. Many of the people there now (and for the past number of years) are not kids with severe autism or other developmental disabilities but the other group that can push the limits of families, professionals and systems -- tough, oppositional street kids that had gotten in trouble multiple times and that schools were anxious to see go elsewhere.[/list]
If the Judge Rotenberg Center were just concerned with those extreme self-harming autistic cases, why the heck is it marketing itself at events like the American Probation and Parole Association and the Virginia Juvenile Justice Association conferences?
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Ursus,
You are not really being totally clear here. These kids they are talking about would not be wanted in your average troubled teen centers at all. These are the worst of the worst that can not be controlled, if you read some of the articles they were shocking these kids also or at least trying.
Also the thread we were all posting about were kids that had severe disabilities, at least that was my understanding, so Whooter was on thread my friend.
You are right though JRC is going to work with some very disturbed and troubled teens. Nobody else wants them except Juvie or Prison. This doesn't mean that they should be abused and neglected either.
Danny
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Nobody else wants them except Juvie or Prison.
Two infinitely more humane alternatives.
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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I don't know, Joel. What alternative could we possibly have to shocking kids for some psycho's fetish? I mean, Massachusetts kids (but not kids from anywhere else in the country, where this is fucking illegal) with mental problems really have nowhere else to go, right? I mean if we sent the autistics to the kind of homes autistics go everywhere ELSE in the US, you know, the ones without all the shocking, what good would THAT do? And of course we can't send the juvenile felons to, well, prison, because obviously life is a bad 80's movie where they can expect every prison trope in existence to apply. So we better just let the torture continue, because we really can't do anything else with them.
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I don't know, Joel. What alternative could we possibly have to shocking kids for some psycho's fetish? I mean, Massachusetts kids (but not kids from anywhere else in the country, where this is fucking illegal) with mental problems really have nowhere else to go, right? I mean if we sent the autistics to the kind of homes autistics go everywhere ELSE in the US, you know, the ones without all the shocking, what good would THAT do? And of course we can't send the juvenile felons to, well, prison, because obviously life is a bad 80's movie where they can expect every prison trope in existence to apply. So we better just let the torture continue, because we really can't do anything else with them.
At LAST... someone on this forum who understands REALITY!!! :tup:
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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I would also explore keeping JRC open while banning shock therapy
That's like castrating a violent rapist and letting him go- sure, you've taken away his primary weapon, but he's still fucking dangerous.
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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@Joel's questions re: alternatives. Well there are a lot of purported treatments available out there that claim to cure, alleviate or manage this that or the other. More than most, Autism spectrum has a variety of such claims associated with it ranging from Auditory Training and dietary restrictions to Craniosacral Therapy or Judge Rotenberg Center issued Graduated Electronic Decelerators.
It seems as if most methods available for Autism include some caveats and uncertainty ( Even ones that don’t involve outfitting the recipient with an apparatus by which they’ll receive repeated painful electroshocks) A couple of these are as follows:
Higashi (Daily Life Therapy)
TEACCH Lovaas Method (Behavior modification program)
Doman/ Delacato Method
@Who and his belief that JRC’s applications shock treatment is analogous to chemo for kids
Treatments that can be described as effective or cruel aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially when the harm is being inflicted to alter behavior. JRC uses a treatment of delivering painful shocks to students that leave burns. When considering the physical and emotional harm caused by a treatment, that it has an effect on limiting self injury becomes moot imo.
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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As mentioned, I found a lot of uncertainties when looking for an answer to your question. I imagine you’d do well as anyone by info seeking the question you’ve posed. Will you get back to us if you find some specifics?
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Craniosacral Therapy - Unmitigated quackery.
Higashi (Daily Life Therapy) - Well-meaning, but not likely to accomplish much.
TEACCH - The only sane one in the bunch. Works with special-ed, on known foundations of autistic brain dysfunctions, with IEPs and the educational system. Has no relation to:
The Lovaas Method (Behavior modification program) - Founded on industrial-strength vicious, evil shit. Holy crap, I remember this shock-floor (http://http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2007/07/ivar-lovaas-pamela-and-ricky.html) from that one Stephen King movie with the cat!
Doman/ Delacato Method - Oh hey, a word, a word, it's been used around here before, what's that word.. Oh yeah! Infantilism!
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K’ care to continue the research (http://http://www.autism-pdd.net/treaforme.html) and review? (http://http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/archive/index.php/thread-15939-3.html)
Oh um, back to the OT point (http://http://www.educationnews.org/mobile/ednews_today/59610.html)
...From the JRC website:
If positive and educational procedures alone are not effective, then after trying them for an average of 11 months, we approach the parents to suggest supplementing the rewards with a corrective (aversive) consequence for the problem behavior.
The JRC website describes these practices as “intensive treatment procedures†but almost every national disability organization agrees that the use of painful procedures to change a person’s behavior is unnecessary, inhumane, and should be banned.
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@Who and his belief that JRC’s applications shock treatment is analogous to chemo for kids
Treatments that can be described as effective or cruel aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially when the harm is being inflicted to alter behavior. JRC uses a treatment of delivering painful shocks to students that leave burns. When considering the physical and emotional harm caused by a treatment, that it has an effect on limiting self injury becomes moot imo.
If a little girl had cancer in her arm she could receive chemo/Radiation therapy, her arm could be amputated or they could do nothing. If they amputated her arm they could spare her the pain and suffering of Chemo/radiation (which can burn the skin also).
If a child had a behavior problem which caused her to self inflict pain on herself to the point she would bang her head so hard that she severed the retina from her left eye would it be justified to restrain this child 24/7 and drug her to the point that she sits and drools all day? Or give her a chance at a higher quality of life and try shock treatment?
Which path is inhumane? If it were your child which would you choose?
If you amputated the girls arm there would be a high probability that the girl would live a long life (but without an arm). If you tried Chemo/Radiation you may be able to save the arm but the child would lose her hair and be sick for weeks and you risk having the cancer return or spread to other parts of the body causing an early death. If you did nothing you could spare your child pain in the short term but possibly early death.
If you sedated the child with the behavior problems and restrained her she would probably live a long life but her quality of life would be near zero. If you did nothing the child would probably injure herself severely. If you tried shock treatment the child may respond and be able to live a long a happier life.
I think it is a good parallel and doesn’t make it easy to conclude that shock treatment is inhumane considering the alternative paths.
...
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@Who and his belief that JRC’s applications shock treatment is analogous to chemo for kids
Treatments that can be described as effective or cruel aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially when the harm is being inflicted to alter behavior. JRC uses a treatment of delivering painful shocks to students that leave burns. When considering the physical and emotional harm caused by a treatment, that it has an effect on limiting self injury becomes moot imo.
:notworthy: :notworthy:
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@Joel's questions re: alternatives. Well there are a lot of purported treatments available out there that claim to cure, alleviate or manage this that or the other. More than most, Autism spectrum has a variety of such claims associated with it ranging from Auditory Training and dietary restrictions to Craniosacral Therapy or Judge Rotenberg Center issued Graduated Electronic Decelerators.
It seems as if most methods available for Autism include some caveats and uncertainty ( Even ones that don’t involve outfitting the recipient with an apparatus by which they’ll receive repeated painful electroshocks) A couple of these are as follows:
Higashi (Daily Life Therapy)
TEACCH Lovaas Method (Behavior modification program)
Doman/ Delacato Method
@Who and his belief that JRC’s applications shock treatment is analogous to chemo for kids
Treatments that can be described as effective or cruel aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially when the harm is being inflicted to alter behavior. JRC uses a treatment of delivering painful shocks to students that leave burns. When considering the physical and emotional harm caused by a treatment, that it has an effect on limiting self injury becomes moot imo.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Inculcate spoke:
@Who and his belief that JRC’s applications shock treatment is analogous to chemo for kids
Treatments that can be described as effective or cruel aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially when the harm is being inflicted to alter behavior. JRC uses a treatment of delivering painful shocks to students that leave burns. When considering the physical and emotional harm caused by a treatment, that it has an effect on limiting self injury becomes moot imo.
Inculcate,
I get where you are going with this Inculcate but what I am not hearing from folks is alternatives (not to the abuse) for the severe disabilities these children have, as Joel was saying. I can relate to being out of control and no other facility wanting you but a place like JRC, I have had this experience.
If this is within your field of expertise please do share I would like to read it or if anyone else has info, share.
I know how folks feel about Whooter but so far outside of Joel, he is the only person willing to share anything worth reading concerning remedies for these kids. I understand shock treatments are cruel, I just would like to read more about them.
Danny
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Inculcate,
I get where you are going with this Inculcate but what I am not hearing from folks is alternatives (not to the abuse) for the severe disabilities these children have, as Joel was saying. I can relate to being out of control and no other facility wanting you but a place like JRC, I have had this experience.
If this is within your field of expertise please do share I would like to read it or if anyone else has info, share.
I know how folks feel about Whooter but so far outside of Joel, he is the only person willing to share anything worth reading concerning remedies for these kids. I understand shock treatments are cruel, I just would like to read more about them.
Danny
So, criticism isn't valid unless accompanied by a solution? Really? I have no clue how to handle the situation, but I know how NOT to. Primum non nocere.
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I am just trying to gain an understanding as to why people here object to it. Some thoughts:
So its not strictly that it harms the person, but rather that it is done to alter their behavior?
So some here feel harming someone to try to cure cancer is okay? What if the chemotherapy also altered the childs behavior. Would that be okay? If the child became afraid to go outside because she was bald and became self conscious of her appearance. Would this altered behavior be okay?
Lets ask ourselves…..Is it okay to alter a persons behavior via medication instead of shock therapy? What if the medication had to be administered via needle (which is like a bee sting) would that be okay? Would the harm being inflicted outweigh the benefits?
What if the person choose to have the shock therapy and realized there would be a bee sting effect involved? Would you object to the use on that level?
What if not altering the childs behavior meant that he/she would harm themselves seriously or someone else?
...
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My sentiments are similar to those expressed by others on this thread that imposing a request for an alternative therapy regimen onto a discussion about what is blatantly abusive treatment is a departure from the importance of abolishing those practices that are harmful.
I’m not going to get pulled into any endorsements at the expense of the discussion being detracted from what is imo of most immediate importance. (http://http://www.educationnews.org/mobile/ednews_today/59610.html)
Everything about how JRC markets themselves is about using “intensive†treatments under the implied rationale that this is called for in extreme cases....That is unacceptable.
Primum non nocere.
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Inculcate,
I get where you are going with this Inculcate but what I am not hearing from folks is alternatives (not to the abuse) for the severe disabilities these children have, as Joel was saying. I can relate to being out of control and no other facility wanting you but a place like JRC, I have had this experience.
If this is within your field of expertise please do share I would like to read it or if anyone else has info, share.
I know how folks feel about Whooter but so far outside of Joel, he is the only person willing to share anything worth reading concerning remedies for these kids. I understand shock treatments are cruel, I just would like to read more about them.
Danny
So, criticism isn't valid unless accompanied by a solution? Really? I have no clue how to handle the situation, but I know how NOT to. Primum non nocere.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Anne, don't do this please, go off half cocked on a post that I think you misunderstood. I was asking a question there was no judgment involved. Of course you can criticize, I did the same thing for the same reason. Don't attack me be cause I am outside the hoola hoop on this one, I said I have personal experience in this, if you bothered to really read my post here and others I have posted on this thread. I am very close to this and all I am doing is asking for different opinions on this subject....OK.
I guess I did get a little testy, I apologize.
I can only hope your Spanish phrase was a nice compliment, I was feeling a little down today...lol.
Danny
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Anne, don't do this please, go off half cocked on a post that I think you misunderstood. I was asking a question there was no judgment involved. Of course you can criticize, I did the same thing for the same reason. Don't attack me be cause I am outside the hoola hoop on this one, I said I have personal experience in this, if you bothered to really read my post here and others I have posted on this thread.
Oh, quit being so damned sensitive! I wasn't attacking you....at all. I was seriously asking because that seems to be the gist of what you and Who are saying. That's really it. Quit reading things into this that aren't there.
I am very close to this and all I am doing is asking for different opinions on this subject....OK.
I guess I did get a little testy, I apologize.
Accepted.
I can only hope your Spanish phrase was a nice compliment, I was feeling a little down today...lol.
Danny
Latin....first, do no harm.
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My sentiments are similar to those expressed by others on this thread that imposing a request for an alternative therapy regimen onto a discussion about what is blatantly abusive treatment is a departure from the importance of abolishing those practices that are harmful.
I’m not going to get pulled into any endorsements at the expense of the discussion being detracted from what is imo of most immediate importance. (http://http://www.educationnews.org/mobile/ednews_today/59610.html)
Everything about how JRC markets themselves is about using “intensive†treatments under the implied rationale that this is called for in extreme cases....That is unacceptable.
Primum non nocere.
We know that these kids came from restraints 24/7 and or medicated to the point of drooling. So their quality of life was very low. So we cant just ignore the fact that if the doors close that these children will return to restraints and medication. I am sure their are groups of people who would be against physical restraints and call them abusive and would rather see these kids being able to walk freely and just as easily take the position: "We dont care what happens to these kids as long as they are not restrained, Primum non nocere", and turn a blind eye to shock treatment like you are to Restraints.
I think we can establish that abuse has occurred at this center. But it has not been establish that the treatment is abusive. It is described as a bee sting. We have heard that children have been burned by the treatment, but it has not been established that every kid is burned. Maybe this was an error. People get mistakenly burned by radiation treatment also, but not all people do.
I dont think it is fair to place the burden on Dr. Isreal to find an alternative either... he has a solution and has moved forward with it. The whole scientific community bears the burden to search for an alternative.
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"Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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Whenever I read JRC related threads I imagine how parents feel. They are making some tough choices that are not easy to make, hopefully many others don't have to make within years to come. What choice would you make if your disabled child was severely out of control, threat to himself, threat to others and treatment from an outside facility was the only option? I bet there may be one person on this website who would consider sending his child to JRC, or possibly do it, so the child would get better. However, I doubt the said person would speak up for fear of verbal abuse on fornits.
I see what you are saying. To see these kids who are banging their heads so hard on the floor that their eyes come loose from their heads and severe retinas and then watch a group become outraged because this same person receives a bee sting shock which will allow him to live freely and visit their favorite restaurant on their own I don’t see the scales tipping in favor of allowing the self abuse as the humane choice.
From the silence (here) I think this reality has sunk in and the ones that just simply aligned themselves behind a few reports of abuse are starting to rethink their position because the argument against this shock treatment seems very weak in light of the benefits. Some say they don’t like it because it burns them and others say that they are shocked 24/7 but if asked if the burns were not typical or that the shocks averaged once per week then many here would still be against it why?
So this tells me that many here really don’t know why they are against the therapy they just enjoy being with a crowd maybe. I am surprised that so many here on fornits advocate physical restraints and medication vs therapy. If we were discussing restraints in a Therapeutic Boarding school then the majority here on fornits would be against it so why are restraints a better alternative at JRC? Go figure.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
The problem with this thread is it really hits home with some of the posters here that post often. I feel that because some of us are asking different questions we therefore get shunned, I ask that you not do this. Anne I know you started this thread and I am not trying to divert it into another direction but it is clearly creating more conversation. This is what this Web Site is all about, right.
Just say'in
I thought this was pertinent so I posted it again. Thanks Joel. (hope you don't mind)
Postby Joel » 44 minutes ago
Whenever I read JRC related threads I imagine how parents feel. They are making some tough choices that are not easy to make, hopefully many others don't have to make within years to come. What choice would you make if your disabled child was severely out of control, threat to himself, threat to others and treatment from an outside facility was the only option? I bet there may be one person on this website who would consider sending his child to JRC, or possibly do it, so the child would get better. However, I doubt the said person would speak up for fear of verbal abuse on fornits.
Danny
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I'm sorry....I just don't see how treating a child like a dog is in any way, shape or form good for them. They make shock collars for dogs to keep them from running out of the yard and into the street. Just think about the uproar if a parent tried to do this.
And this ridiculous chemo analogy is getting old. No comparison.
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I'm sorry....I just don't see how treating a child like a dog is in any way, shape or form good for them. They make shock collars for dogs to keep them from running out of the yard and into the street. Just think about the uproar if a parent tried to do this.
I wouldn’t be too hard on the dog owners. Once the dog learns not to run into traffic and get killed then the collar comes off. The dog doesn’t spend a lifetime being shocked. Its a vehicle which is used to teach the dog to survive.
Your in good company. There are many people who feel the same way you do and that shock therapy should be ended. But I think it is good to discuss the reasons why people feel this way and understand the majority.
And this ridiculous chemo analogy is getting old. No comparison.
I still feel Chemo is analogous. If you disagree that is okay. The main purpose is to get people to think about why they are against shock therapy. If they eliminated the potential for abuse and kept the shocks to once a week and there were no burns and it was a bee sting (as they claim) how many here would be still against it?
...
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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I'm sorry....I just don't see how treating a child like a dog is in any way, shape or form good for them. They make shock collars for dogs to keep them from running out of the yard and into the street. Just think about the uproar if a parent tried to do this.
I wouldn’t be too hard on the dog owners. Once the dog learns not to run into traffic and get killed then the collar comes off. The dog doesn’t spend a lifetime being shocked. Its a vehicle which is used to teach the dog to survive.
Your in good company. There are many people who feel the same way you do and that shock therapy should be ended. But I think it is good to discuss the reasons why people feel this way and understand the majority.
And this ridiculous chemo analogy is getting old. No comparison.
I still feel Chemo is analogous. If you disagree that is okay. The main purpose is to get people to think about why they are against shock therapy. If they eliminated the potential for abuse and kept the shocks to once a week and there were no burns and it was a bee sting (as they claim) how many here would be still against it?
Well then, Whooter, just how would you fit the BRLs (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30436&p=362704#p362704) into your chemotherapy analogy?
Children at the Judge Rotenberg Center are often shackled, restrained and secluded for months at a time, the report says. Social isolation, and food deprivation as forms of punishment are common. Mock and threatened stabbings -- to forcibly elicit unacceptable behaviors resulting in electric shock punishments (Labeled as Behavioral Research Lessons or BRLs, by the center) were reported to MDRI as well as state regulatory bodies.
A former student of the center reportedly tells MDRI, "The worst thing ever was the BRLs. They try and make you do a bad behavior and then they punish you. The first time I had a BRL, two guys came in the room and grabbed me – I had no idea what was going on. They held a knife to my throat and I started to scream and I got shocked. I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn't even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror."[/list]
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Well then, Whooter, just how would you fit the BRLs (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30436&p=362704#p362704) into your chemotherapy analogy?
You make a good point, Ursus. The short answer is: "You cant".
The analogy only refers to the defined shock therapy vs the Chemotherapy. For example if I said that you were as honest as Abe Lincoln it would not take into account the difference that he lived hundreds of years ago and you live in the present or that he has a beard, was a president or is tall etc. The analogy refers specifically that he was honest and comparing that to the honesty of the person you are referring to (not any other characteristics).
The problem people have with shock therapy (as I have been reading here) is that it causes pain and that it is intended to alter behavior. If abuses of the therapy are occurring then these need to be addressed.... i.e. If a person is shackled and forced to drink gallons of Chemo or endure hours of unneeded radiation then this doesn’t mean that the chemotherapy or radiation is ineffective as a therapy. It means that the therapy is being abused. This needs to be separated out when determining if the therapy is appropriate.
If the therapy is found to be effective then the abuses of this therapy can be addressed separately.
...
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[
The problem people have with shock therapy (as I have been reading here) is that it causes pain and that it is intended to alter behavior.
You don't believe that is the only perceived problem with shock therapy. You are human and can imagine what a demeaning context it is to wear a heavy device (that serves as a sign that says 'defect') that is truthfully not 'just a shock a day or week' but is the ongoing trauma of threat of shock, and being required to be submissive to such treatment by others is a continuous humiliation. We can't generalize the individual experience in this case, it can cause dissociative effects beyond that of the one that is maintained under fear of that particular threat.
I realize as humans we have varying standards, but from the one conversation I had with you you expressed that you yourself could not maintain your beliefs in these programs if you were to be subjected to the same treatment.
That being the case I think it would be helpful if you gave your definition of the terms 'symptom' 'treatment' ' and 'cure' as it applies here.
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You don't believe that is the only perceived problem with shock therapy. You are human and can imagine what a demeaning context it is to wear a heavy device (that serves as a sign that says 'defect') that is truthfully not 'just a shock a day or week' but is the ongoing trauma of threat of shock, and being required to be submissive to such treatment by others is a continuous humiliation. We can't generalize the individual experience in this case, it can cause dissociative effects beyond that of the one that is maintained under fear of that particular threat.
This is the first time this has been mentioned on this thread. I can see your point but it is unknown if this is the way the patients feel or if it would cause these effects you mention. I have not seen this in any of the articles that were written yet. If the patient themselves or a third party advocate feels it would be humiliating to them or the particular patient then maybe shock therapy should not be used on them. But patients who do not feel humiliated or have do not have fear could continue with the therapy?
I realize as humans we have varying standards, but from the one conversation I had with you you expressed that you yourself could not maintain your beliefs in these programs if you were to be subjected to the same treatment.
I don’t recall that conversation, awake. If you are asking if I would want to be subjected to shock therapy today. My answer would be “noâ€.
That being the case I think it would be helpful if you gave your definition of the terms 'symptom' 'treatment' ' and 'cure' as it applies here.
Symptom: I would say is an anomaly of some type or different from the norm.
Treatment: Would be something active that is trying to eliminate the symptoms or bring back towards the norm.
Cure: Would be an absence of symptoms after the treatment has ceased.
So the major reasons people here are against shock therapy is because it causes pain intended to alter behavior and that wearing the backpack could be demeaning (as awake had just mentioned).
...
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Ah, but Whooter, as we've clearly shown, you have no shame whatsoever.
And you yourself have stated many, many times that it doesn't matter what the recipient of said "treatment" wants.
Therefore,
Symptom: Whooter is posting on Fornits.
Treatment: Whooter receives 5 amperes of current directly through his scrotum.
Cure: Whooter no longer posts on Fornits.
I propose we implement this treatment program today. What alternative is there?
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A hammer to his nuts instead of an electric shock?
amirite????
:suicide:
I see alot of false flag arguments being thrown at each other in this thread. The biggest one being what are parents with mentally handicapped parents supposed to do with their uncontrollable children. I don't think any of us really have the answer other than to say, SHOCKING THE shit out of them isn't an answer. The real visceral truth of this is children are being zapped senseless as we speak.
Where the hell is the white hot rage?
Man.. we've all been reduced to sheeple. I remember an awesome story about General Patton that I heard from a friend of mine whose grandfather was shotdown in WW2. According to the grandfather his POW camp was liberated by Patton himself who rolled up in a tank. As the story goes a German guard took a potshot at him. He took one nasty look at the guard, swiveled the turret on the tank, and blew the whole fucking guard tower away.
That's rage.. white hot fucking rage.
Where is your rage that kids are being hooked up to fucking machines and tortured? When do the hunger strikes, sit ins, blockaides, and that sort of thing start? Nonviolent protest can be motivated at rage for inhumanity. If there is a place worthy of having all our efforts focused on it..
THIS IS the god damn place.. They are shocking kids to the point where people smell burning flesh..
FFS people.. GET FUCKING ANGRY AND DO SOMETHING.
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A hammer to his nuts instead of an electric shock?
amirite????
:suicide:
I see alot of false flag arguments being thrown at each other in this thread. The biggest one being what are parents with mentally handicapped parents supposed to do with their uncontrollable children. I don't think any of us really have the answer other than to say, SHOCKING THE shit out of them isn't an answer. The real visceral truth of this is children are being zapped senseless as we speak.
Where the hell is the white hot rage?
Man.. we've all been reduced to sheeple. I remember an awesome story about General Patton that I heard from a friend of mine whose grandfather was shotdown in WW2. According to the grandfather his POW camp was liberated by Patton himself who rolled up in a tank. As the story goes a German guard took a potshot at him. He took one nasty look at the guard, swiveled the turret on the tank, and blew the whole fucking guard tower away.
That's rage.. white hot fucking rage.
Where is your rage that kids are being hooked up to fucking machines and tortured? When do the hunger strikes, sit ins, blockaides, and that sort of thing start? Nonviolent protest can be motivated at rage for inhumanity. If there is a place worthy of having all our efforts focused on it..
THIS IS the god damn place.. They are shocking kids to the point where people smell burning flesh..
FFS people.. GET FUCKING ANGRY AND DO SOMETHING.
Che, I think you answered your own question. If kids were being tortured at this place there would be a revolt like you have never seen before. People get upset if we torture our enemies in this country imagine if we did the same thing to kids. In order for there to be rage there needs to be an injustice done and we all know from reading the various accounts that it is all not clear on what is going on at JRC.
The government started an investigation into JRC back in February of this year so there should be some feedback coming from them at some point. All we have right now are conflicting reports and varying points of view.
I think we can all agree that many here on fornits are opposed to Behavior modification on any level and therefore would take a stand against JRC.
I can show you pictures of little kids who are so sick from chemo that their hair is falling out and they cant eat because they are afraid to vomit anymore and have lost 40% of their body weight. Kids get burned by Radiation treatments. Many of these kids die and we say “Oh well we tried†bring on the next one. Where is the outrage here?
Why can we torture kids with Chemotherapy and watch them slowly get consumed by it and die and at the same time get upset at Shock therapy? This discussion has been good in that it is bringing to the surface the reasons why people are against this type of therapy.
...
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You don't believe that is the only perceived problem with shock therapy. You are human and can imagine what a demeaning context it is to wear a heavy device (that serves as a sign that says 'defect') that is truthfully not 'just a shock a day or week' but is the ongoing trauma of threat of shock, and being required to be submissive to such treatment by others is a continuous humiliation. We can't generalize the individual experience in this case, it can cause dissociative effects beyond that of the one that is maintained under fear of that particular threat.
This is the first time this has been mentioned on this thread. I can see your point but it is unknown if this is the way the patients feel or if it would cause these effects you mention. I have not seen this in any of the articles that were written yet. If the patient themselves or a third party advocate feels it would be humiliating to them or the particular patient then maybe shock therapy should not be used on them. But patients who do not feel humiliated or have do not have fear could continue with the therapy?
Well, with regard to fear and anticipation, Whooter, I guess ya just happened to miss this paragraph (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30485&start=60#p363622) a couple of posts back:
"...I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn't even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror."[/list]
Also with regard to the effect of anticipation of a feared event, see the following thread:
The Effects of Anticipated Shocks on Thinking and Behavior
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22955 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22955)[/list]
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Well, with regard to fear and anticipation, Whooter, I guess ya just happened to miss this paragraph (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30485&start=60#p363622) a couple of posts back:
"...I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn't even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror."[/list]
No I didn’t miss it but it is part of all the conflicting information that is coming out of JRC. We have accounts like you mentioned above. We have kids who wanted to try the GED Backpacks and it turned out to help them. They never encountered any fear or horror at all.
Are the problems due to untrained staff? Do the procedures allow kids to be shocked at the will of the staff members? Should they do a better job screening people who would benefit from this therapy?
If we took one raving review from a family and their child and told ourselves this happens to all the kids then we would all go home happy and on the flip side if we all took another from a child that said they lived in fear and horror and were shocked for things they never did and called this typical then we would all be against it. But this obviously isn’t the case. There is an internal investigation going on as we speak by state and federal agencies and I am sure they will interview numerous patients as well as staff.
I agree that the stories are disturbing, but there are also ones that show the therapy helps so we need to look at the entire picture to see how we can continue to help some without hurting others. This is something I believe we would all want.
...
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I'm sorry....I just don't see how treating a child like a dog is in any way, shape or form good for them. They make shock collars for dogs to keep them from running out of the yard and into the street. Just think about the uproar if a parent tried to do this.
And this ridiculous chemo analogy is getting old. No comparison.
What choice would you make if your disabled child was severely out of control, threat to himself, threat to others and treatment from an outside facility was the only option? What other treatment options do you suggest Anne?[/i]
As I said before...I don't know, I don't have the answer. That's doesn't make what they're doing to kids is right, moral or even effective (beyond scaring them into 'behaving').
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As I said before...I don't know, I don't have the answer. That's doesn't make what they're doing to kids is right, moral or even effective (beyond scaring them into 'behaving').
I dont think any of us have the answer. Some accounts from the kids themselves say they were not scared and felt the therapy to be helpful. They are able to live drug and restraint free now. There are many parents who feel that restraining their children or medicating them for the rest of their life is abusive and want to find an alternative which will allow their children to live restraint and drug free for their lives. To me this isn’t a bad decision. We need to look at all the cases before we decide.
Ask yourself how many parents would want to see their children vomiting, losing their hair and watching them be scared to death of what is going to happen next. I am sure many rethink if they are doing the right thing and the lasting scars that are being done in the name of a procedure which may not work. Are these parents doing the right thing? Is this defined as moral or even effective?
If we all step back and look at this therapy from differing points of view I think we can all gain a better perspective of the balance between abusive or helpful.
...
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A hammer to his nuts instead of an electric shock?
You win, we can combine them both. Boy, I bet that's going to be THOR in the morning!
FFS people.. GET FUCKING ANGRY AND DO SOMETHING.
It's been said before, here's my first approach: Get a megaphone for some megafun. "Attention, every child being subjected to restraint and electric shock. If you can understand this, and even if you can't, you have the right to a lawyer. Not your parents' lawyer, your own lawyer. What is being done to you is illegal everywhere else, and only legal here because Matthew L. Israel bribed a judge a while back." Then leave. Then come back later, from another angle, and repeat.
They have ABSOLUTELY NO DEFENSE against this, assuming you're at a good range with a sufficiently powerful megaphone. By the time anyone responds you can be way the hell gone.
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You don't believe that is the only perceived problem with shock therapy. You are human and can imagine what a demeaning context it is to wear a heavy device (that serves as a sign that says 'defect') that is truthfully not 'just a shock a day or week' but is the ongoing trauma of threat of shock, and being required to be submissive to such treatment by others is a continuous humiliation. We can't generalize the individual experience in this case, it can cause dissociative effects beyond that of the one that is maintained under fear of that particular threat.
This is the first time this has been mentioned on this thread. I can see your point but it is unknown if this is the way the patients feel or if it would cause these effects you mention. I have not seen this in any of the articles that were written yet. If the patient themselves or a third party advocate feels it would be humiliating to them or the particular patient then maybe shock therapy should not be used on them. But patients who do not feel humiliated or have do not have fear could continue with the therapy?
I realize as humans we have varying standards, but from the one conversation I had with you you expressed that you yourself could not maintain your beliefs in these programs if you were to be subjected to the same treatment.
I don’t recall that conversation, awake. If you are asking if I would want to be subjected to shock therapy today. My answer would be “noâ€.
That being the case I think it would be helpful if you gave your definition of the terms 'symptom' 'treatment' ' and 'cure' as it applies here.
Symptom: I would say is an anomaly of some type or different from the norm.
Treatment: Would be something active that is trying to eliminate the symptoms or bring back towards the norm.
Cure: Would be an absence of symptoms after the treatment has ceased.
So the major reasons people here are against shock therapy is because it causes pain intended to alter behavior and that wearing the backpack could be demeaning (as awake had just mentioned).
...
So your definition of ‘symptom’ is enough to constitute being subjected to the treatment we are discussing? Everyone has, or does things different from the norm. I’m not sure we have really agreed on the terminology of what we are discussing. Maybe we should just start with your definition of ‘symptom’ in a little more detail.
In what ways does a symptom manifest itself? (That would be appropriately treated by these methods)
In the case of this treatment, who defines the symptom?
Who is affected by the symptom?
Which negative effects of the symptom are the most important in justifying this treatment?
And just to clarify, the reasons against this treatment, so far (I may have missed some things too), are that it is painful, it is intended to alter behavior by utilizing pain, it is intended to alter behavior by maintaining a constant threat of pain, the effects of such treatment are dissociation which holds a risk to psychological health, and it is impossible to make a judgment as to other dissociative effects as people are inherently different and the level to which people feel demeaned or humiliated can’t be accurately factored into the treatment model.
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So your definition of ‘symptom’ is enough to constitute being subjected to the treatment we are discussing?
No, I wouldn’t think so. I have not seen a comprehensive list of symptoms which would constitute being considered for shock therapy. From what I have read so far this therapy is pretty much the end of the road for many patients, which means all other treatments have been ineffective in helping them.
Everyone has, or does things different from the norm. I’m not sure we have really agreed on the terminology of what we are discussing. Maybe we should just start with your definition of ‘symptom’ in a little more detail.
I wouldn’t think we would all agree on just my first cut at a definition. The word Symptom has a wide range of meanings…i.e. a sniffle is a symptom of having a cold, but it doesn’t mean you do have a cold. A person needs to look further… a symptom can be as little as a sign, that’s all.
In what ways does a symptom manifest itself? (That would be appropriately treated by these methods)
In the case of this treatment, who defines the symptom?
Who is affected by the symptom?
Which negative effects of the symptom are the most important in justifying this treatment?
Good questions but I couldn’t begin to answer any of them myself.
And just to clarify, the reasons against this treatment, so far (I may have missed some things too), are that it is painful, it is intended to alter behavior by utilizing pain, it is intended to alter behavior by maintaining a constant threat of pain, the effects of such treatment are dissociation which holds a risk to psychological health, and it is impossible to make a judgment as to other dissociative effects as people are inherently different and the level to which people feel demeaned or humiliated can’t be accurately factored into the treatment model.
Good point, we will add “Risk to psychological healthâ€. I think all of these factors and risks should be considered before this therapy be used.
The same would apply for any therapy….. say Chemotherapy. Do doctors think about the risk of psychological health when these kids are subjected to Chemotherapy…the pain they will be subjected to, humiliation of losing their hair, constant thought of having to continue Chemotherapy if the first course fails, the constant fear.
In the case of JRC, It would be interesting if these factors are considered when their treatment is brought before the judge, psychologists and advocates for the approval needed to proceed to the level of shock treatment therapy? I dont think we have had the privilege to view this info but it would answer many of our questions. I would hate to think that these kids live in daily fear during their time there.
Good discussion, awake.
...
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You don't believe that is the only perceived problem with shock therapy. You are human and can imagine what a demeaning context it is to wear a heavy device (that serves as a sign that says 'defect') that is truthfully not 'just a shock a day or week' but is the ongoing trauma of threat of shock, and being required to be submissive to such treatment by others is a continuous humiliation. We can't generalize the individual experience in this case, it can cause dissociative effects beyond that of the one that is maintained under fear of that particular threat.
This is the first time this has been mentioned on this thread. I can see your point but it is unknown if this is the way the patients feel or if it would cause these effects you mention. I have not seen this in any of the articles that were written yet. If the patient themselves or a third party advocate feels it would be humiliating to them or the particular patient then maybe shock therapy should not be used on them. But patients who do not feel humiliated or have do not have fear could continue with the therapy?
Well, with regard to fear and anticipation, Whooter, I guess ya just happened to miss this paragraph (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30485&start=60#p363622) a couple of posts back:
"...I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn't even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror."[/list]
Also with regard to the effect of anticipation of a feared event, see the following thread:
The Effects of Anticipated Shocks on Thinking and Behavior
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22955 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22955)[/list]
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Ursus, Is that the same gentlemen that said 2 to 3 guards came into his room brandishing knives telling him they would cut his throat. Then we have Ms. Weiss speaking out who can't seem to keep her team together because they are failing to see her allegations. This is to much drama for me to go along with especially in regards to such a controversial treatment. I'll wait for the Gov't report.
Che, that is why I don't have white hot rage because I fail to see the evidence. The people who are speaking out, particularly the one young man with his momma I fail to believe.
This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
No I do not like shock treatments personally never have, I also don't like kids being medicated to the point of being catatonic or being in a stupor. I am not also convinced there is abuse going on here but I am convinced this is a hot and emotional topic for us.
As Joel said, if you think we are emotional how do you think the parents of these children feel, I will tell you utter hopelessness. The children need help and the treatment will be unorthodox.
Danny
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This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:shamrock: :shamrock: :shamrock:
OK Anne, what is so funny. Cause only you know.....lol. Please do tell.
Obviously you don't know New England.
Danny
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This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
OK Anne, what is so funny.
Your naivete on this particular issue. Nobody gives a shit cuz they're keeping the "crazies" away from the "decent people" of society. Nobody gave a shit about us in Straight because Mel and Miller did a good job of convincing the general public that, 1. we were all dangerous drug addict thugs and 2. that they would be in danger if "those damn druggie kids" were to be turned loose. Fearmongering at it's finest/worst. Same with the program parents....enroll your kid or they'll end up deadinsaneorinjail!!! Boooga booga BOO!!!
Willowbrook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School)
Nobody gave a shit until Geraldo went in, undercover, with cameras and showed how the patients were treated, or more to the point, tormented. Even then there was an outcry of "what are we gonna do with these people", which is a legitimate question, but doesn't justify what was being done to them, or us, in the name of treatment.
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This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Yep. Where was Massachusetts, before it was too late ... for Phoebe Prince?
For Carl-Joseph Walker Hoover?
And let's not forget how big-pharma-phriendly Massachusetts is... :dose:
Oh, and what about the John Dewey Academy in Great Barrington? And Valley View School in North Brookfield?
Gah-leeee... Don't get me started on the whole of New England! Wouldn't that include the Elan School up in Maine ... where you allegedly went? That was decades ago, and yet ... they're still grinding up adolescent psyches to this day.
Now where's that fine television coverage when ya need it!?
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Yep. Where was Massachusetts, before it was too late ... for Phoebe Prince?
For Carl-Joseph Walker Hoover?
And let's not forget how big-pharma-phriendly Massachusetts is... :dose:
Oh, and what about the John Dewey Academy in Great Barrington? And Valley View School in North Brookfield?
Gah-leeee... Don't get me started on the whole of New England! Wouldn't that include the Elan School up in Maine ... where you allegedly went? That was decades ago, and yet ... they're still grinding up adolescent psyches to this day.
Now where's that fine television coverage when ya need it!?
LOL, how you like to get everyone a little dirty, so Don’t stop there, New England is right next to New York and we all know how evil they are. That state was where IBM was founded which you, Ursus, attributed (in past posts) to helping to further the holocaust. So New York has a direct link to Hitler and is connected to Canada who harbors programs like AARC…… There is just evil all around us it’s a wonder we all survive.
I think based on this logic we should consider closing JRC.
...
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Your naivete on this particular issue. Nobody gives a shit cuz they're keeping the "crazies" away from the "decent people" of society. Nobody gave a shit about us in Straight because Mel and Miller did a good job of convincing the general public that, 1. we were all dangerous drug addict thugs and 2. that they would be in danger if "those damn druggie kids" were to be turned loose. Fearmongering at it's finest/worst. Same with the program parents....enroll your kid or they'll end up deadinsaneorinjail!!! Boooga booga BOO!!!
Willowbrook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School)
Nobody gave a shit until Geraldo went in, undercover, with cameras and showed how the patients were treated, or more to the point, tormented. Even then there was an outcry of "what are we gonna do with these people", which is a legitimate question, but doesn't justify what was being done to them, or us, in the name of treatment.
Anne, its obvious that you were severely damaged by your experience in a program 40 years ago and therefore are against almost any form of behavior modification because you can only imagine what you yourself experienced, which I take from your posts. I don't knock you for that.
The kids at JRC are not there for drug addiction. If you read up these kids are not being shocked to get them off drugs or make them model citizens’ by our definition. I understand your outrage towards treatment centers. But there are kids that need treatment. You cant just turn a blind eye and say: “I don’t care what happens to these kids if they don’t receive this therapy, I just want the place shut downâ€. Part of a responsible decision, your decision, is to look at what their life was before, during and after treatment and then what the results will be after they close it down. Then ask yourself if the treatment is worth the risk, pain and suffering.
Is Chemo worth the risk? The pain and suffering? If a child’s hair falls out or she gets burned by Radiation should they just shut the place down and say tough luck find another treatment?
I am not trying to start a fight with you, I am just asking you to look at it from a different point of view. Take a look at the children’s quality of life, the kids who slam their heads against the table and floor so hard that their eyes come out of the socket, the choices the parents have, the kids that were hurt by the staff members along with those who were helped. Why force these kids back to a life of restraints and medication because you personally do not like shock treatments. Try to look past your own challenges and put yourself in these families’ shoes.
...
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This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Yep. Where was Massachusetts, before it was too late ... for Phoebe Prince?
For Carl-Joseph Walker Hoover?
And let's not forget how big-pharma-phriendly Massachusetts is... :dose:
Oh, and what about the John Dewey Academy in Great Barrington? And Valley View School in North Brookfield?
Gah-leeee... Don't get me started on the whole of New England! Wouldn't that include the Elan School up in Maine ... where you allegedly went? That was decades ago, and yet ... they're still grinding up adolescent psyches to this day.
Now where's that fine television coverage when ya need it!?
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Well Ursus like you say here, "where you allegedly went" is exactly my point. All of your comments here are alleged concerning JRC so far.
I can not argue your other points because I deserved this outbreak of rebuttals from Anne and yourself, that was a rather ignorant statement I made now that I look at it. They (T.V.) never cover shit unless it falls on the senior editor's head.
Oh, nice little jab there Ursus.
Your assessment of the current status of Elan is based on what ??????? I thought so....unsubstantiated "gerbagio". Grinding psyches...eh. For all you know they could be shut down and playing the ponies.
Danny
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This is Massachusetts if there was wholesale abuse going on there these New Englanders would be raising hell. It would be on T.V. some news channel would be picking it up, CNN, FOX, 60 MINS, ABC Nightline, NBC ect.....Something would be happening.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
OK Anne, what is so funny.
Your naivete on this particular issue. Nobody gives a shit cuz they're keeping the "crazies" away from the "decent people" of society. Nobody gave a shit about us in Straight because Mel and Miller did a good job of convincing the general public that, 1. we were all dangerous drug addict thugs and 2. that they would be in danger if "those damn druggie kids" were to be turned loose. Fearmongering at it's finest/worst. Same with the program parents....enroll your kid or they'll end up deadinsaneorinjail!!! Boooga booga BOO!!!
Willowbrook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School)
Nobody gave a shit until Geraldo went in, undercover, with cameras and showed how the patients were treated, or more to the point, tormented. Even then there was an outcry of "what are we gonna do with these people", which is a legitimate question, but doesn't justify what was being done to them, or us, in the name of treatment.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Anne your right that was naive, got a little carried away. Good points can't argue except with one, Willowbrook that is a big stretch. Now who is being naive or better yet grasping at straws. Your points have been well founded and expressed no need for exaggeration.
Danny
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There are plenty of desperate parents out there that have to make crucial decisions for the wellbeing of their child, decisions that are difficult no matter what. Places like Judge Rotenberg Center count on and capitalize on that. There is a long history of people positioning themselves to profit from the desperation and overwhelm of others.
Will JRC get shut down over this? Not likely. Will the people who have subjected these people to injurious abuses in the name of modifying behaviors (self-injury and other wise) be brought to any kind of criminal justice? Doubtful. They have hidden behind the self-serving rationales that Who so often embraces.
Can how they do business be changed? Yes.
The fact is, (as it has been already pointedly been mentioned on this thread) there are thousands of families who have their children treated at safer alternatives. There are locations that do not and have not ever deemed it necessary to inflict suffering in their position of caring for their vulnerable charges.
Will the practice of employing fear and physical pain and deprivations and indignities in the name of treatment be abolished entirely? Not as long as people are willing to accept the idea that for sometimes this is called for… for some people.
It is a damn shame that places like JRC operate with the consent of the ignorant and the endorsement of the deluded.
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Well Ursus like you say here, "where you allegedly went" is exactly my point. All of your comments here are alleged concerning JRC so far.
I can not argue your other points because I deserved this outbreak of rebuttals from Anne and yourself, that was a rather ignorant statement I made now that I look at it. They never cover shit unless it falls on the senior editor's head.
Oh, nice little jab there Ursus. Shows that little weakness/insecurity you have. Try harder to keep it under a lid.
Your assessment of the current status of Elan is based on what ??????? I thought so....unsubstantiated "gerbagio". Grinding psyches...eh. For all you know they could be shut down and playing the ponies.
Wow, Danny. Are you trying to say that they are not grinding up adolescent psyches at Elan these days? Do you think that what they are doing there now is helpful and healthy for the teenagers that are unlucky enough to be sent there? Or that they may even be "shut down and playing the ponies?"
Jeeeezzz... Push a little hard and the truth spills out... :eek:
No wonder you defend JRC's practices with such knee-jerking precision.
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There are plenty of desperate parents out there that have to make crucial decisions for the wellbeing of their child, decisions that are difficult no matter what. Places like Judge Rotenberg Center count on and capitalize on that. There is a long history of people positioning themselves to profit from the desperation and overwhelm of others.
Will JRC get shut down over this? Not likely. Will the people who have subjected these people to injurious abuses in the name of modifying behaviors (self-injury and other wise) be brought to any kind of criminal justice? Doubtful. They have hidden behind the self-serving rationales that Who so often embraces.
Can how they do business be changed? Yes.
The fact is, (as it has been already pointedly been mentioned on this thread) there are thousands of families who have their children treated at safer alternatives. There are locations that do not and have not ever deemed it necessary to inflict suffering in their position of caring for their vulnerable charges.
Will the practice of employing fear and physical pain and deprivations and indignities in the name of treatment be abolished entirely? Not as long as people are willing to accept the idea that for sometimes this is called for… for some people.
It is a damn shame that places like JRC operate with the consent of the ignorant and the endorsement of the deluded.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Sure would like to know where those facilities are that are dealing with the exact same children we are talking about here with the severe disabilities. How are they dealing with the children. Please tell.
I get the abuse allegations which I am sure there are staff who have committed some of them but in no way have I heard enough credible evidence to substantiate the wholesale abuse that some say has happened.
I really think this is about folks not liking the controversial treatments and the methods. I think we are a bit naive about this particular realm of mental health.
Danny
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The information in this addendum supplements the September, 2009 letter signed by 31 Disability organizations calling for the elimination of the use of aversive and other inhumane practices. This report was sent to the Office on Disability, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education; the Attorney General of the United States; the U.S. Department of Justice; the House Committee on Education & Labor; the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; and Physicians for Human Rights to publicize these practices and to take action against the continued abuse of persons with disabilities.
This addendum contains supporting information from a 2006 New York State Education Department Report and information from news sources such as the New York Times, The Boston Globe, Mother Jones Magazine, Boston Magazine and others. The New York State Report can be found here: http://boston.com/news/daily/15/school_report.pdf (http://boston.com/news/daily/15/school_report.pdf) and additional information and confirming reports are cited within and are available by conducting an internet search for the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts, or the facility’s former name, The Behavior Research Institute (BRI), at its prior location in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Jennifer Gonnerman wrote in the August, 2007 issue of Mother Jones Magazine , “Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it's torture?†In the article, Gonnerman writes,
“Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten.†Later in the same article Gonnerman reports, “The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.â€
The device used to deliver shocks to students at the Judge Rotenberg Center is called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED). It was developed by and is manufactured by The Judge Rotenberg Center. The New York State report says, “The GED is manufactured by the JRC. While JRC has information posted on their website and in written articles which represents the GED device as ‘approved’, it has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)†. The report goes on to describe the device: “the GED is adjustable with an average intensity of 15.25 mill amperes RMS, a duration of .2 seconds to 2 seconds, an average peak of 30.5 milliamperes, and 24 students are receiving GED (referred to as a GED-4) skin shock which has a maximum current of 45.0 milliamperes RMS, an average peak of 91 milliamperes, and a maximum duration of 2 seconds.â€
The shock delivered to children by either the GED or the GED-4 is much stronger than that delivered by a cattle prod at .4 milliamperes or a dog collar at 4.8-5 milliamperes and both of these devices deliver a shock for only a fraction of a second. The shock delivered by the GED can last for a maximum of two seconds, four times as long as the shock from a cattle prod. The New York State Education Department Report states, “JRC’s GED was modified from other similar devices on the market by doubling the intensity (amperage and voltage) and increasing the duration by 10 times (from .2 to 2 seconds) of the shock administered and by expanding the positions on the body where the electrodes could be placed.â€
The Judge Rotenberg Center’s director, Matthew Israel, claims that the center uses these techniques only on students who engage in “self-mutilating …. [or] other life threatening behaviors†but public reports contradict that assertion. The New York State report found students as young as nine years old subjected to sudden, painful, repeated electric shocks for such harmless behaviors as ‘refusing to follow staff directions’, ‘failing to maintain a neat appearance’, “stopping work for more than ten secondsâ€, “getting out of seatâ€. “interrupting othersâ€, “naggingâ€, ‘swearing’, ‘whispering’ and ‘slouching in chair’, and ‘moving conversation away from staff’ (p.3 & 14). The Judge Rotenberg Center’s own report states that students are shocked for getting out of their seat without permission. The New York State report says, “some students are made to sit on a GED cushion seat that will automatically administer a skin shock for the targeted behavior of ‘standing up’, while others wear waist holsters that will administer a skin shock if the student pulls his/her hands out of the holster†. A former employee wrote, “Some students were shocked for stopping work for more than a specified number of seconds. One boy was shocked for closing his eyes for more than five seconds while sitting at his seat. Almost all students on electric shock devices had in their student plan the behavior, ‘refusing to follow staff directions,’ for which they were shocked.â€
The Judge Rotenberg Center describes the shock from the GED as a hard pinch or a two-second bee sting but others who experienced the shock describes it very differently. During a legislative hearing, Massachusetts State Representative James V. DiPaola attached the Graduated Electronic Device to his own forearm and delivered a shock to himself. Audience members observed him to leap out of his seat, cry out in pain, and claw at the arm on which the device was attached. The Boston Herald interviewed DiPaola after he experienced the shock of the milder GED. The Herald quoted DiPaola as saying, "It was torture. It was very painful." People who attended that meeting still talk about the horrifying experience of observing the application of this one electric shock, received by an adult who expected it and had chosen to experience it.
The Boston Globe said this about the testimony of two former employees at the same hearing:
“The employees, Gail Lavoie and Colleen Seevo, said they also worked with a female student who received as many as 350 shocks in one day, another figure confirmed by the school. The women, who left the school at the end of 1992, said the shock is more painful than described by school officials. "I got hit accidentally on my thumb and I had a tingling up to my elbow, on the inner part of my arm, I would say for four hours," said Seevo, referring to a shock. "I was saying I can't believe these kids can do this. My hand was shaking. I wanted to go home, that's how bad it was." Lavoie said the device also had side effects and she had observed students whose skin was burned and blistered by the shocks.â€
A former Judge Rotenberg staff person wrote the following in response to the Mother Jones article (published on the Mother Jones website): “Students on the stronger “GED-4†devices often show red spots on their skin after a shock. The red spots are about the size of pencil erasers that overnight develop into scabs. Students on the strong devices mostly wear what are called ‘spread electrodes’ which is where the electrical current passes through the skin between two electrodes about two or more inches apart during the two-second shock. I was told by the staff responsible for making the electrodes that the objective for the spread electrodes was to create the maximum amount of pain with the least amount of physical damage. Two scabs may occur overnight after a single electrical shock with the strong device. Certain students with autism sometimes get up to 30 shocks in a single day, the cut-off point when shocks must stop unless the student’s psychiatrist gives permission to go beyond 30 shocks …. Students with autism who are on the strong injurious shock devices sometimes have so many scabs on their bodies that the nurse orders that the shock devices be removed for five to six weeks until the skin heals up. Some students go back and forth between several weeks off electrodes while their skin is healing, to sometimes only three or four days back on devices re-injuring their skin, to going back off of devices again, in a cycle that has no end. There was nobody monitoring to see whether electric shocks were working as effective treatments for these students. The students I have seen taken off of the electric shock devices due to their skin injuries have looked pretty bad. They don’t take students off of the electric shock devices unless they absolutely must.â€
A 2007 New York Times article notes, “a former teacher from the school …said he had seen children scream and writhe on the floor from the shock.†The Times article also speaks to how painful the shocks are, “Technically, the lowest shock given by Rotenberg is roughly twice what pain researchers have said is tolerable for most humans, said James Eason, a professor of biomedical engineering at Washington and Lee Universityâ€.
A former employee, Greg Miller, wrote an article called, I Wonder if Parents Really Know What Happens to their Children at the Judge Rotenberg Center. In that article he asks whether “parents, judges and state authorities know that:
• a non-verbal student with autism gets shocked for closing his eyes for more than five seconds while sitting at his desk;
• some students get shocked for standing up from their seat, raising their hand, and politely asking, ‘I would like to go to the bathroom, please’;
• some students get shocked for going to the bathroom in their pants – even if they have been asking for the bathroom for nearly two hours;
• some students get shocked for yelling when they think they are about to get an electrical shock; and,
• some students get shocked for instinctively trying to remove the electrode while the electrode is shocking and burning through their skin for two seconds.
Miller says, “Most Americans don’t know this type of pain, which is severe and can leave burn marks and even bloody scabs all over a child’s body; it is not a ‘bee-sting’. Students are expected to forcefully suppress their own normal bodily reactions to fear, or else. Do parents and authorities know this before signing permission for their child to be shocked?â€
The director of the Judge Rotenberg Center testified at a Massachusetts legislative hearing that one student received 5,300 electric shocks in one day. In his testimony, he stated that over a 24-hour period, this student, a teenager who weighed only 52 pounds, was strapped to a board and subjected to an average of one shock every 16 seconds.
And sometimes, according to media reports, shocks are given in error. In a December, 2007 article titled, “A Shocking Error in Treatmentâ€, The Boston Globe stated: “The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center is the only school in the nation that routinely uses skin shocks to control self-destructive and violent behavior by autistic, retarded, and emotionally disabled patients. But the Canton-based center is too error-prone to be allowed to keep using aversive therapy without intensive and ongoing oversight by state health officials.†The article goes on to describe a well publicized incident that occurred in the middle of the night on August 26th, 2007. The staff at a Judge Rotenberg Center group home received a call from a person who said he was a quality control monitor. Staff were told to awaken two residents, secure them to 4-point restraint boards and shock them. One resident was shocked 77 times and the other 29 times. Later it was discovered that the call was a hoax perpetrated by a former student, but staff did not question the logic of punishing the students for some unknown behavior that allegedly occurred hours previous to the punishment. ,
The Graduated Electronic Decelerator has been know to malfunction and deliver what the Center’s director calls, “spontaneous activations "; that is, people are shocked in error. The Mother Jones article sites a “Trouble Report†that reads, "Jamie Z was getting his battery changed, Luigi received a shock" In 2006, the Boston Globe reported: “from 1992 until last year, state investigators identified 10 occasions when students received shocks when they had done nothing, either because the device malfunctioned or the staff accidentally shocked the wrong person. Most of the complaints were dismissed because the injuries weren't serious enough, but the Disabled Persons Protection Commission determined that the school abused one student who received five to 10 spontaneous shocks due to a malfunction. Commission records also show that one student was seriously injured as a result of shocks. The man was admitted to Children's Hospital in Boston in 2002 with ‘acute stress response’ after receiving 30 shocks while strapped to a board for six hours. Witnesses told investigators the student stopped eating and drinking afterward and cried about his punishment, but investigators dropped the complaint because the shocks were part of a court-approved treatment planâ€.
Electric shock is not JRC’s only method of behavioral intervention. The New York State investigation team noted,
“With mechanical movement limitation the student is strapped into/onto some form of physical apparatus. For example, a four-point platform board designed specifically for this purpose; or a helmet with thick padding and narrow facial grid that reduces sensory stimuli to the ears and eyes. Another form of mechanical restraint occurs when the student is in a five-point restraint in a chair. Students may be restrained for extensive periods of time (e.g., hours or intermittently for days) when restraint is used as a punishing consequence. Many students are required to carry their own “restraint bag†in which the restraint straps are contained.†The same report notes, “Some of these students were observed to be fully restrained in restraint chairs and wearing movement limiting helmets. One student left the school building in full restraint (hands and feet restrained with Velcro straps in a restraint chair), clearly agitated and upset, and returned the following morning carried to the conference room fully restrained in what appeared to be the same chair.â€
The New York State investigation team further reported,
“GED skin shock and restraint are also used together when the Behavior Rehearsal Lesson (BRL) is practiced on a student. The BRL is used when a student exhibits a high risk, low frequency behavior. As described by a JRC staff person, during a BRL, the student is restrained and GED administered as the student is forcibly challenged to do what the procedure seeks to eliminate. If the student attempts to pull away he receives a GED skin shock; if the student attempts to follow through with the high-risk behavior he receives multiple GED skin shocks at closer intervals.â€
The New York State Education Department report described an additional procedure used at the Judge Rotenberg Center. The procedure is known as the Contingent Food Program. According to the report:
“The Contingent Food Program is also widely applied and designed to use hunger to motivate students to be compliant. This intervention requires that a student “earn†a portion of his or her daily prescribed calories by not engaging in identified target behaviors (as per his/her behavior contract). If the student passes each of the behavioral contracts that are set for him/her, he/she will earn 100 percent of the planned calories for each meal served. If the student fails to pass one or more of his/her contracts, the student is not given the food portion(s) that is (are) the potential reward(s) for that contract. Food portions not earned are discarded by the staff and/or student. If the student does not earn the minimum daily total of calories by 7:00 PM, then the balance necessary to bring the total calories eaten to the student’s targeted calories is dispensed to him in the form of nonpreferred staple food (e.g., consisting of mashed food sprinkled with liver powder).
The Specialized Food Program is more restrictive. For students on the Specialized Food Program, JRC does not offer make-up food to compensate for food that the student missed by failing to pass his or her contracts unless the student has eaten 20 - 25 percent or less of his normal daily caloric target. If the student has eaten 20 - 25 percent or less, he/she is offered make-up food to bring him up to the 20 - 25 percent level.â€
The Mother Jones article reported that six children have died in the care of the Judge Rotenberg Center, “prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations†. The following, from a report of The Disabled Person's Protection Commission and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation, describes one of these deaths:
“The Disabled Person's Protection Commission and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation released the report of an extensive investigation into the death of a 19-year old woman who died in 1990 at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC, formerly the Behavior Research Institute, or BRI). The investigation, which included interviews of 72 witnesses, review of hundreds of documents, and reports by four experts, concluded that JRC/BRI direct care staff, nursing staff, and administration, as well as several specific staff members, took actions that were ‘egregious’ and ‘inhumane beyond all reason’ and constituted not only violations of legal standards but violations of ‘universal standards of human decency’. The woman, who was mentally retarded and could not speak, began showing symptoms of illness on December 15 and 16, 1990: she refused her food (she had always had a hearty appetite), she was restless and fidgety and made unusual noises. By December 17, she was pale, disoriented, had ‘glassy eyes’, and kept attempting unsuccessfully to vomit. During this time, because staff mistook her attempts to communicate her discomfort for ‘target behaviors,’ she was punished repeatedly -- forced to smell ammonia, spanked, pinched, and forced to eat ‘taste aversives’ -- either a vinegar mix, or jalapeno peppers or hot sauce. By 7:00 p.m. she had received 8 spankings, 27 finger pinches, 14 muscle squeezes and had been forced to inhale ammonia at least five times and given several taste aversives, even though she was ‘obviously ill’. She received a total of 61 aversives on the day that she died. At 8:00 p.m. on December 18, she was lying on the floor of the bathroom and unable to get up, pale with a bluish tinge to her skin. Although a registered nurse was notified, she refused to call an ambulance until a medical technician arrived and confirmed the need for it half an hour later. By the time the 19-year old woman reached the hospital, her blood pressure was zero and she was in shock. She died on the operating table at 1:35 a.m. on December 19. The autopsy revealed that her stomach had been perforated, (and) that she had extensive ulcers. On the specialized food plan, she had to earn her daily meals by not engaging in certain behaviors and/or working on a computer. Ironically, staff confirmed that although her meals depended on her getting right answers on a computer, she neither understood the relationship between getting fed and getting the right answer on the computer, nor how to get the right answer on the computer. ‘If she didn't earn her food, it was thrown out. She got real thin, she was skinny,’ said one staff member. Staff also said that she was ‘always wanting to eat.’ The program allowed the 19-year old to be limited to as few as 300 calories a day, 20% of her minimum calorie intake for the day. In addition, although DMR regulations permit the use of intrusive and severe aversives such as spanking and ammonia for ‘seriously dangerous behaviors’, the woman was punished when she displayed the following behaviors: ‘Drooling, spitting, nagging, topping work, refusing, and silly laughing. She was deprived of food for merely having the wrong answer on the computer.’
In 2008, an article in Boston Magazine reported the following relevant to the conditions and deaths at Judge Rotenberg:
“In 1979, the state of New York issued two reports from agencies that oversaw the Behavior Research Institute. Fifteen New Yorkers at that time attended the school. (New Yorkers today still account for the highest percentage of the school's student body.) The bright red buttocks and scrapes across the cheek; the plaintive cry of a student who said, "Take me home, I want to go home"; the weird, oft-repeated, and grammatically challenged cheers from teachers ("Good working without stopping") — it led the authors of one report to write that the school's "rigidly implemented" program was the "singular most depressing experience that team members have had." That was not the worst of it, though.
On July 17, 1981, at BRI's sister school in Northridge, California, staffers restrained 14-year-old Danny Aswad face-down on his bed. Aswad died in that position. The autopsy report concluded that he died of natural causes, but the state of California placed the school on a two-year probation anyway. In 1982, the state's Department of Social Services filed a 63-page legal complaint alleging abuse at the school. The complaint claimed, among other things, that BRI withheld meals; showed staff how to hide students' injuries from regulatory agencies; and, strangely, encouraged students to act out for a film crew, the footage to be used later to demonstrate how the children had behaved before BRI. Later that year the state reached a settlement with BRI in California. The school couldn't use anything more punishing than a water spray. The state also forbade Israel—who says he'd turned over control of the campus before Aswad's death—from stepping foot on the Northridge property. But this, too, was not the worst of it.
In 1985, Vincent Milletich died. The 22-year-old from Queens, New York, attended the school in Providence, as did, by that time, roughly 60 others. On July 23, for acting out at the BRI residential home in Seekonk, Milletich was restrained in a chair, his hands and feet tied by plastic cuffs, his face masked and his head helmeted, the earphones inside it emitting white noise. He suffocated in there, asphyxiation. Though BRI was not found to have caused Milletich's death, a district court judge ruled it was negligent for approving the therapy and not carrying it out with sufficient supervision.â€
Although the Judge Rotenberg Center has been using painful procedures on children with disabilities since its inception almost forty years ago, no advocacy organization, state law enforcement agency, or legislative committee has been able to halt these practices, though many have tried. The Judge Rotenberg Center spent over 2.8 million dollars on legal fees according to its 2007 IRS 990 form (for the July ’07 – June ’08 fiscal year), the most recent IRS report that has been made public . The explanation that The Judge Rotenberg Center includes on the same form to explain the amount spent on legal fees states, “During the year ended June 30, 2008, the Judge Rotenberg Center, Inc. retained attorneys and staff to represent them and act on their behalf in opposing legislation introduced into the State Legislatures which would have eliminated educational funding for schools which utilize certain aversive behavioral techniques. If this legislation passed, substantially all funding for JRC Inc. would be eliminated unless JRC dramatically altered its method of instruction and treatments†It is of concern to the signers of this letter that the Judge Rotenberg Center spent almost three million dollars of public funds (Medicaid and state education funds) on its lobbying efforts to continue the practices described in government reports.
Contrary to the assertion that the use of painful procedures is necessary to control dangerous or disruptive behaviors , a wide range of methods are available which are not only more effective in managing the dangerous or disruptive behaviors of children and adults with disabilities, but which do not inflict pain or dehumanize . Alternative approaches that are proven to be effective attempt to identify the individual’s purposes in behaving as he or she does and offer support and education to replace dangerous or disruptive behaviors with alternative behaviors that will achieve the individual’s needs. David Coulter M.D. , a neurologist at the Children’s Hospital Boston and past President of The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, states, "In 28 years as a clinical child neurologist, during which I have personally cared for approximately 15,000 (or more) children and youth with developmental disabilities, served as the onsite neurologist for two state schools in Texas from 1982-1985, and currently serve as the neurologist for two private schools in Massachusetts (one for students with blindness and other disabilities and the other for students with autism), I have never seen anyone who, in my medical opinion, needed electric shock as a form of behavior management."
Sadly, the problem of traumatizing children in the name of treatment is not limited to one institution or to the use of electric shock or food deprivation. A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the treatment of children in public and private schools across the country documents cases in which students were pinned to the floor for hours at a time, handcuffed, locked in closets, and subjected to other acts of violence. The GAO found hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of restraint and seclusion on school children over the past two decades. Examples of these cases include a seven year old dying after being held face down for hours by school staff, five year olds being tied to chairs with bungee cords and duct tape by their teacher and suffering broken arms and bloody noses, and a thirteen year old hanging himself in a seclusion room after prolonged confinement. The GAO found no federal laws restricting the use of restraints and seclusion in public or private schools and widely divergent laws at the state level.
A 2009 report from the National Disability Rights Network describes cases in almost every state in which the abusive use of restraint or seclusion in schools resulted in injury, trauma or death to children with disabilities. The report notes that because there is no mandated system to report or collect data on these abuses, the cases described are just the tip of the iceberg. While there are frequent news stories and significant public concern about bullying and student violence, as a country we have ignored these sanctioned abuses, and as the NDRN report states, we have allowed “children with disabilities to be victimized in our nation’s schools at the hands of the professionals who are entrusted to keep them safe. The restraint or seclusion of children, and the physical and emotional harm which these practices cause, should frighten every parent in America, not only parents of children with disabilities.†Cases are reported in which children are strapped to chairs; pinned to the floor by several adults (sometimes for hours at a time); grabbed and dragged into rooms; held in arm locks or handcuffed; placed in coffin-like boxes and cells; locked in closets; and subjected to other physically and psychologically traumatizing acts of violence by school personnel and others. Below are some examples from this report:
• Students with disabilities who misbehaved at a public school in Tennessee were placed in plywood seclusion boxes measuring 4 ft. x 3 ½ ft.
• In Pennsylvania, a young boy, now eight years old, was kept strapped to a positional support chair for two to three hours every day for over two years by his teacher. A tray and three straps were placed across the boy’s chest, waist and legs to keep him from moving. He received no instruction while restrained.
• A 15 year old Michigan boy with autism died while being physically restrained at school by four school employees who pinned him down for 60-70 minutes on his stomach, with his hands held behind his back and his shoulders and legs held down. He became non-responsive after 45 minutes but the restraint continued and he eventually stopped breathing. He was the second child in Michigan to die from the use of restraint.
• In Wisconsin, a seven year old girl was suffocated and killed at a mental health day treatment facility when several adult staff pinned her to the floor in a prone restraint for blowing bubbles in her milk.
It has been our experience that when people hear about practices like those described in this letter, most are amazed that these practices could be legal. Certainly it is not legal for a parent to do any of these things to his or her own child under any circumstances. Advocates have sought policy changes through federal, state and local regulatory agencies as well as through the criminal justice system but we see no hope on the horizon. We have pursued each of these avenues with rigor and purpose for over twenty years with some small steps forward in state regulations that remain spotty and insufficient, but ultimately resulting in no overarching federal mandate to protect people from these abuses. Disability advocates cannot begin to match the millions of dollars that facilities like the Judge Rotenberg Center spend in defense of their right to continue these practices. Our most vulnerable children suffer as a result.
Even if state regulations are enacted that prevent facilities from using aversive procedures, they can move their operation to another state. If Federal regulations are promulgated, facilities can simply change their designation from an Intermediate Care Facility (ICF/MR), regulated by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); to a Residential Treatment Center (regulated by The Children’s Health Act of 2000); to a “schoolâ€, which can operate with almost no Federal programmatic oversight. Fewer than half of the states in the U.S. have specific regulations addressing the use of aversive procedures, restraint, and seclusion in public schools and only six states require that the use of such procedures be reported .
The Children’s Health Act of 2000 does provide solid protection against the use of these practices by restricting seclusion and restraint to emergency use only, and establishing administrative regulations and reporting procedures, and possible termination of funding for failure to comply – but these regulations apply only to certain types of facilities and the Catch-22 is that the facility itself can choose its designation. There is no federal law that says, if you provide a certain type or array of services, you are a psychiatric treatment facility, and as such must operate under the Children’s Health Act. Until federal legislation prevents the abuse of our most vulnerable citizens, practitioners who choose to do so will be able to continue to cause harm to children and adults with disabilities in the name of treatment.
As of August, 2007, the Judge Rotenberg Center was reported to be serving 234 students . According to a December 25, 2007 New York Times article, states pay about $228,000 per child, per year . This translates to about 53 million tax-payer dollars a year. Money like this might be a good investment if these vulnerable children were getting quality support and help, but in the view of the signers below, students with disabilities should not be subjected to painful and dehumanizing practices. We, the undersigned believe it is time to end these practices wherever they occur in programs and facilities across the country; to accomplish this, we need your help.
Electric shock, prolonged restraint, and food deprivation in any other context, administered to any other population, would be considered torture. If Americans were told that these abuses were being imposed upon the elderly, prisoners, non-disabled school children, or even animals, there would be public outcry. But when told these techniques are being used on children and adults with disabilities, many people are willing to turn away. We have been told, “we are not doctors; we don’t know what people like this need.†We, the undersigned, don’t believe that one needs any particular degree or background to know that all people should be treated humanely.
Some people with developmental disabilities have dangerous or disruptive behaviors and may need considerable help to change their behaviors. However, painful or aversive procedures, seclusion, or prolonged restraint are not effective, necessary or conscionable treatment methods. The people subjected to these procedures comprise one of the most devalued segments of the population. Their plight is often magnified by the nature of their condition which hinders their ability to speak out against mistreatment and makes them vulnerable to abuse.
We cannot condone treating persons with disabilities in a manner that would not be tolerated if applied to other segments of the population. Anyone who is concerned with human rights and with the ethical treatment of all people should express outrage at the continued use of behavior change procedures that cause pain and are dehumanizing. This report calls on the Office on Disability, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education; the Attorney General of the United States; the U.S. Department of Justice; the House Committee on Education & Labor; the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; and Physicians for Human Rights to publicize these practices and to take action against the continued abuse of persons with disabilities.
For additional information, to discuss proposed action, or to contact the organizations that signed the attached letter, please contact Nancy Weiss by phone: 410-323-6646 or e-mail: nweiss@udel.edu
The attached letter is signed by 31 disability organizations including: The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities; the Association of University Centers on Disabilities; The Arc of the U.S.; the Autism National Committee; the Autistic Self Advocacy Network; the Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies, Syracuse University; the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund; Easter Seals; Exceptional Parent Magazine the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors; the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities; National Association for the Dually Diagnosed; the National Disability Rights Network; Self Advocates Becoming Empowered; TASH; United Cerebral Palsy; the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Nursing, the University of San Diego Autism Institute and others.
Addendum (http://http://www.educationnews.org/mobile/ednews_today/59610.html)
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Well Ursus like you say here, "where you allegedly went" is exactly my point. All of your comments here are alleged concerning JRC so far.
I can not argue your other points because I deserved this outbreak of rebuttals from Anne and yourself, that was a rather ignorant statement I made now that I look at it. They never cover shit unless it falls on the senior editor's head.
Oh, nice little jab there Ursus. Shows that little weakness/insecurity you have. Try harder to keep it under a lid.
Your assessment of the current status of Elan is based on what ??????? I thought so....unsubstantiated "gerbagio". Grinding psyches...eh. For all you know they could be shut down and playing the ponies.
Wow, Danny. Are you trying to say that they are not grinding up adolescent psyches at Elan these days? Do you think that what they are doing there now is helpful and healthy for the teenagers that are unlucky enough to be sent there? Or that they may even be "shut down and playing the ponies?"
Jeeeezzz... Push a little hard and the truth spills out... :eek:
No wonder you defend JRC's practices with such knee-jerking precision.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Ursus,
I am not going to fight or be entertained with insults by you because I have a different opinion. This is what you do to everyone that disagrees with you. You go to this adolescence insulting behavior, it makes you look cultish.
What I do know is you know very little about Elan and I don't choose to share anything with you on the subject.
Danny
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Well Ursus like you say here, "where you allegedly went" is exactly my point. All of your comments here are alleged concerning JRC so far.
I can not argue your other points because I deserved this outbreak of rebuttals from Anne and yourself, that was a rather ignorant statement I made now that I look at it. They never cover shit unless it falls on the senior editor's head.
Oh, nice little jab there Ursus. Shows that little weakness/insecurity you have. Try harder to keep it under a lid.
Your assessment of the current status of Elan is based on what ??????? I thought so....unsubstantiated "gerbagio". Grinding psyches...eh. For all you know they could be shut down and playing the ponies.
Wow, Danny. Are you trying to say that they are not grinding up adolescent psyches at Elan these days? Do you think that what they are doing there now is helpful and healthy for the teenagers that are unlucky enough to be sent there? Or that they may even be "shut down and playing the ponies?"
Jeeeezzz... Push a little hard and the truth spills out... :eek:
No wonder you defend JRC's practices with such knee-jerking precision.
Ursus,
I am not going to fight or be entertained with insults by you because I have a different opinion. This is what you do to everyone that disagrees with you. You go to this adolescence insulting behavior, it makes you look cultish.
What I do know is you know very little about Elan and I don't choose to share anything with you on the subject.
Danny
"Insulting behavior?" "Cultish?" Lol.
Make sure you take all of your toys with you from the sandbox when you go home in a huff like that! :rofl: :rofl:
-
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Inculcate,
Thank you for those articles, I had already read most of them. What I also found most interesting was the wooden box built to put misbehaving children in, this was a public school in Tennessee.
I still did not get the article on the substitute treatment you referred to in your previous post.
That's OK. That is not important right now.
Danny
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The information in this addendum supplements the September, 2009 letter signed by 31 Disability organizations calling for the elimination of the use of aversive and other inhumane practices. This report was sent to the Office on Disability, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education; the Attorney General of the United States; the U.S. Department of Justice; the House Committee on Education & Labor; the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; and Physicians for Human Rights to publicize these practices and to take action against the continued abuse of persons with disabilities.
<snip snip>
The link provided was actually for the following article:
U.S. Department of Justice opens investigation on Judge Rotenberg Center (http://http://www.educationnews.org/mobile/ednews_today/59610.html)
23/02/2010 10:42:00 EducationNews.org [/list]
This article contains, amongst other material, the text of the Complaint Letter dated September 30, 2009 which was signed by the 31 disability organizations concerned with the humane treatment of people with disabilities.
There is also an Addendum to the Sept '09 Letter from Disability Advocates which is the actual source for the above post... Correct link to that is here: End Inhumane Practices.doc (http://http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Addendum-to-Sept-09-Letter-from-Disability-Advocates-End-Inhumane-Practices2.doc) (10p download)
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So your definition of ‘symptom’ is enough to constitute being subjected to the treatment we are discussing?
No, I wouldn’t think so. I have not seen a comprehensive list of symptoms which would constitute being considered for shock therapy. From what I have read so far this therapy is pretty much the end of the road for many patients, which means all other treatments have been ineffective in helping them.
Everyone has, or does things different from the norm. I’m not sure we have really agreed on the terminology of what we are discussing. Maybe we should just start with your definition of ‘symptom’ in a little more detail.
I wouldn’t think we would all agree on just my first cut at a definition. The word Symptom has a wide range of meanings…i.e. a sniffle is a symptom of having a cold, but it doesn’t mean you do have a cold. A person needs to look further… a symptom can be as little as a sign, that’s all.
In what ways does a symptom manifest itself? (That would be appropriately treated by these methods)
In the case of this treatment, who defines the symptom?
Who is affected by the symptom?
Which negative effects of the symptom are the most important in justifying this treatment?
Good questions but I couldn’t begin to answer any of them myself.
And just to clarify, the reasons against this treatment, so far (I may have missed some things too), are that it is painful, it is intended to alter behavior by utilizing pain, it is intended to alter behavior by maintaining a constant threat of pain, the effects of such treatment are dissociation which holds a risk to psychological health, and it is impossible to make a judgment as to other dissociative effects as people are inherently different and the level to which people feel demeaned or humiliated can’t be accurately factored into the treatment model.
Good point, we will add “Risk to psychological healthâ€. I think all of these factors and risks should be considered before this therapy be used.
The same would apply for any therapy….. say Chemotherapy. Do doctors think about the risk of psychological health when these kids are subjected to Chemotherapy…the pain they will be subjected to, humiliation of losing their hair, constant thought of having to continue Chemotherapy if the first course fails, the constant fear.
In the case of JRC, It would be interesting if these factors are considered when their treatment is brought before the judge, psychologists and advocates for the approval needed to proceed to the level of shock treatment therapy? I dont think we have had the privilege to view this info but it would answer many of our questions. I would hate to think that these kids live in daily fear during their time there.
Good discussion, awake.
...
LOL. Well, I’m glad you think it was a good discussion, but I guess I was looking for answers that reflect your own set of morals and not totally concede to the program to decide the answers to the questions I asked. Moral standards are set by all of us as free citizens in this society and it is our responsibility to offer our views as to what we consider morally acceptable. I don’t believe it is morally acceptable to defend a context that subjects another to pain and fear (and many other negative effects to an unknowable degree) and then submit that you shouldn’t have your own standards for what properly justifies subjecting someone to such treatment.
I guess I’ll offer one way in which we need to weigh whether or not the symptoms justify treatment. The symptoms must have negative consequences that are comparable to the negative consequences incurred by the treatment. That is to say, a process of therapy that is painful, keeps the subject under a constant state of fear, is humiliating, demeaning, can cause permanent psychological harm and the effect is unpredictable should only be considered if the symptoms are similarly harmful. I’m not saying I’ve taken everything into consideration here, but we must have some sort of moral guidelines and I think this is a good starting point. In fact, I would even go as far as to assume that we can already expect the standard to at least state that we can’t justify it if it can result in equal or more harm than the symptom presently causes.
Furthermore the term symptom is defined by the context under which therapy is conducted. If the subject is there under a forceful context the term ‘symptom’ must be analyzed as the negative effect(s) (Or really, symptoms resulting from the symptom) occurring in the individual(s) related to him that admitted him to therapy. The symptom being treated must be represented by the negative effect that motivates the choice for therapy, and treatment must consist of relieving that symptom. In this way it cannot be ignored that the first step in therapy is to focus on easing the pain (symptom)that is motivating the choice to endure therapy. If there is a way of supplying the client (family) with a solution to the negative effects of the subject of therapy’s symptoms, then attempting to find that solution should be a required first step in therapy before exposing the admitted subject to harmful treatment against their will.
I think it should be considered unethical for any facility capable of harm to skip this step in the therapeutic process, because the object of such extreme therapy (if it is really a last resort) should be for the subject to not have to endure It. If the therapy is not a choice of the subject, and the negative consequences should, as a moral prerequisite for applying force, be relative to the harm caused by the subject’s symptom to those who are affected by it, and are choosing therapy for him, then the object of therapy cannot be ‘cure of symptom’ but can only operate to diminish the symptom in the subject, and the negative effects (also symptoms) in those who chose therapy, to a degree that reasonably supports justifying that he is at that point within his right to choose.
I’m sure there ‘s more to consider here, but it’s not worth glossing over anything considering the risk.
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At least they are doing something, I do believe they can do more in terms of protesting the living shit out of that place. Filing reports and admendmums to the admendunts is alright though.
It's something...
Just not as much as I'd hope it would be.
Sort of like a crappy lite beer when I want a guinness.
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At least they are doing something.
Eh, the disability rights organizations never were very 'tough' in terms of going all Anonymous on shit. They're usually more worried about mundanities like wheelchair access and equal opportunity. Honest-to-Satan child torture facilities is not what they have experience with.
I'm more interested in the DoJ. Those motherfuckers don't take shit from anybody.
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LOL. Well, I’m glad you think it was a good discussion, but I guess I was looking for answers that reflect your own set of morals and not totally concede to the program to decide the answers to the questions I asked. Moral standards are set by all of us as free citizens in this society and it is our responsibility to offer our views as to what we consider morally acceptable. I don’t believe it is morally acceptable to defend a context that subjects another to pain and fear (and many other negative effects to an unknowable degree) and then submit that you shouldn’t have your own standards for what properly justifies subjecting someone to such treatment.
I guess I’ll offer one way in which we need to weigh whether or not the symptoms justify treatment. The symptoms must have negative consequences that are comparable to the negative consequences incurred by the treatment. That is to say, a process of therapy that is painful, keeps the subject under a constant state of fear, is humiliating, demeaning, can cause permanent psychological harm and the effect is unpredictable should only be considered if the symptoms are similarly harmful. I’m not saying I’ve taken everything into consideration here, but we must have some sort of moral guidelines and I think this is a good starting point. In fact, I would even go as far as to assume that we can already expect the standard to at least state that we can’t justify it if it can result in equal or more harm than the symptom presently causes.
Furthermore the term symptom is defined by the context under which therapy is conducted. If the subject is there under a forceful context the term ‘symptom’ must be analyzed as the negative effect(s) (Or really, symptoms resulting from the symptom) occurring in the individual(s) related to him that admitted him to therapy. The symptom being treated must be represented by the negative effect that motivates the choice for therapy, and treatment must consist of relieving that symptom. In this way it cannot be ignored that the first step in therapy is to focus on easing the pain (symptom)that is motivating the choice to endure therapy. If there is a way of supplying the client (family) with a solution to the negative effects of the subject of therapy’s symptoms, then attempting to find that solution should be a required first step in therapy before exposing the admitted subject to harmful treatment against their will.
I think it should be considered unethical for any facility capable of harm to skip this step in the therapeutic process, because the object of such extreme therapy (if it is really a last resort) should be for the subject to not have to endure It. If the therapy is not a choice of the subject, and the negative consequences should, as a moral prerequisite for applying force, be relative to the harm caused by the subject’s symptom to those who are affected by it, and are choosing therapy for him, then the object of therapy cannot be ‘cure of symptom’ but can only operate to diminish the symptom in the subject, and the negative effects (also symptoms) in those who chose therapy, to a degree that reasonably supports justifying that he is at that point within his right to choose.
I’m sure there ‘s more to consider here, but it’s not worth glossing over anything considering the risk.
You bring up a couple of good points, awake. Lets look at it a differently. Lets say you take a child who has cancer in her arm and assess that it has a high probability that it will spread to the rest of the body then I believe it is worth the risk of pain and suffering to subject that child to Chemotherapy. Although the pain felt by the Chemotherapy will be much greater than the initial symptoms the risk outweighs doing nothing or consequently removing the arm or risking an early death.
A child who is banging their head on the ground causing extreme pain and injury or a child who is pulling out their hair would not have the choice of enduring this self inflicted pain for the rest of their life or just stopping on their own. The risk of Shock therapy, which may alleviate the drive to self inflict pain, would be low in comparison to the symptom or just allowing the child to injure his/herself and would be a good candidate for this therapy from what I have read thus far on the subject.
I don’t think you or I would be able to consider all the facets needed to make a sound decision for these children’s fate like the fear of losing one’s hair or standing out in a group because they wear a backpack. But licensed psychologists, advocacy groups and independent judges are making these decisions for them at this time on an individual bases.
If you read the personal accounts and consider that the abuses that occurred at JRC you will see that the shock therapy is effective and gives people a new chance at a better life. The disturbing part is that the therapy does not seem to be very well regulated or controlled allowing unnecessary pain and suffering. So I feel we have to look at the two separately when weigh the risks.
...
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You and the JRC can call it "therapy" as many times as you want, Whooter. it doesn't make it therapy.
Number of actual research organizations referring to this as a valid form of treatment: Zero. (No, this is not your cue to post a whole lot of "independent" "research", which is either wholly owned by the JRC or relies on their numbers. Don't waste our time.)
Number of other facilities using electric torture devices to "modify the behavior" of autistic children: Zero.
It's not treatment. It's not therapy. It's one guy throwing made-up numbers around to justify inflicting his fetishes on children too mentally broken to fight back.
But you're not exactly equipped to understand the difference, are you?
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(http://http://www.effectivetreatment.org/exhibits/exhibit209.jpg)
-
In a social setting far, far away....
An attractive person of the opposite sex walks up to you....
Them: Hello, how are you?
You: I'm good, well.. actually, not so good.
Them: Oh really, why not?
You: Well it looks like Whooter disagrees with me about how to deal with retarded kids
Them: Oh really? Are you a child psychologist for a living or something?
You: Oh me? No, I work at the 7-11 actually, but my hobby is judging troubled child treatment techniques and then posting about it on the internet, there is one poster who in particular bothers me. Hold on, I have to make another post (pulls out smartphone and begins typing with smug grin) That will show Whooter, I am right about how to raise retarded kids!
Them: Oh... ok. That's cool, I guess. How long have you been interested in how to treat retarded kids?
Me: Ever since I found this forum, it gave me a great outlet for my troubled kid techniques, finally I have an audience.
Them: That's great.. but I have to go talk to my other friend over there. Have a good night!
You: *typing away furiously on your smartphone* huh? Wha? Oh.. ok, bye.
-
So your definition of ‘symptom’ is enough to constitute being subjected to the treatment we are discussing?
No, I wouldn’t think so. I have not seen a comprehensive list of symptoms which would constitute being considered for shock therapy. From what I have read so far this therapy is pretty much the end of the road for many patients, which means all other treatments have been ineffective in helping them.
Everyone has, or does things different from the norm. I’m not sure we have really agreed on the terminology of what we are discussing. Maybe we should just start with your definition of ‘symptom’ in a little more detail.
I wouldn’t think we would all agree on just my first cut at a definition. The word Symptom has a wide range of meanings…i.e. a sniffle is a symptom of having a cold, but it doesn’t mean you do have a cold. A person needs to look further… a symptom can be as little as a sign, that’s all.
In what ways does a symptom manifest itself? (That would be appropriately treated by these methods)
In the case of this treatment, who defines the symptom?
Who is affected by the symptom?
Which negative effects of the symptom are the most important in justifying this treatment?
Good questions but I couldn’t begin to answer any of them myself.
And just to clarify, the reasons against this treatment, so far (I may have missed some things too), are that it is painful, it is intended to alter behavior by utilizing pain, it is intended to alter behavior by maintaining a constant threat of pain, the effects of such treatment are dissociation which holds a risk to psychological health, and it is impossible to make a judgment as to other dissociative effects as people are inherently different and the level to which people feel demeaned or humiliated can’t be accurately factored into the treatment model.
Good point, we will add “Risk to psychological healthâ€. I think all of these factors and risks should be considered before this therapy be used.
The same would apply for any therapy….. say Chemotherapy. Do doctors think about the risk of psychological health when these kids are subjected to Chemotherapy…the pain they will be subjected to, humiliation of losing their hair, constant thought of having to continue Chemotherapy if the first course fails, the constant fear.
In the case of JRC, It would be interesting if these factors are considered when their treatment is brought before the judge, psychologists and advocates for the approval needed to proceed to the level of shock treatment therapy? I dont think we have had the privilege to view this info but it would answer many of our questions. I would hate to think that these kids live in daily fear during their time there.
Good discussion, awake.
...
LOL. Well, I’m glad you think it was a good discussion, but I guess I was looking for answers that reflect your own set of morals and not totally concede to the program to decide the answers to the questions I asked. Moral standards are set by all of us as free citizens in this society and it is our responsibility to offer our views as to what we consider morally acceptable. I don’t believe it is morally acceptable to defend a context that subjects another to pain and fear (and many other negative effects to an unknowable degree) and then submit that you shouldn’t have your own standards for what properly justifies subjecting someone to such treatment.
I guess I’ll offer one way in which we need to weigh whether or not the symptoms justify treatment. The symptoms must have negative consequences that are comparable to the negative consequences incurred by the treatment. That is to say, a process of therapy that is painful, keeps the subject under a constant state of fear, is humiliating, demeaning, can cause permanent psychological harm and the effect is unpredictable should only be considered if the symptoms are similarly harmful. I’m not saying I’ve taken everything into consideration here, but we must have some sort of moral guidelines and I think this is a good starting point. In fact, I would even go as far as to assume that we can already expect the standard to at least state that we can’t justify it if it can result in equal or more harm than the symptom presently causes.
Furthermore the term symptom is defined by the context under which therapy is conducted. If the subject is there under a forceful context the term ‘symptom’ must be analyzed as the negative effect(s) (Or really, symptoms resulting from the symptom) occurring in the individual(s) related to him that admitted him to therapy. The symptom being treated must be represented by the negative effect that motivates the choice for therapy, and treatment must consist of relieving that symptom. In this way it cannot be ignored that the first step in therapy is to focus on easing the pain (symptom)that is motivating the choice to endure therapy. If there is a way of supplying the client (family) with a solution to the negative effects of the subject of therapy’s symptoms, then attempting to find that solution should be a required first step in therapy before exposing the admitted subject to harmful treatment against their will.
I think it should be considered unethical for any facility capable of harm to skip this step in the therapeutic process, because the object of such extreme therapy (if it is really a last resort) should be for the subject to not have to endure It. If the therapy is not a choice of the subject, and the negative consequences should, as a moral prerequisite for applying force, be relative to the harm caused by the subject’s symptom to those who are affected by it, and are choosing therapy for him, then the object of therapy cannot be ‘cure of symptom’ but can only operate to diminish the symptom in the subject, and the negative effects (also symptoms) in those who chose therapy, to a degree that reasonably supports justifying that he is at that point within his right to choose.
I’m sure there ‘s more to consider here, but it’s not worth glossing over anything considering the risk.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Danny spoke:
Awake was this paragraph plagiarized/para-phrased and if so who wrote it.
Awake spoke:
"Furthermore the term symptom is defined by the context under which therapy is conducted. If the subject is there under a forceful context the term ‘symptom’ must be analyzed as the negative effect(s) (Or really, symptoms resulting from the symptom) occurring in the individual(s) related to him that admitted him to therapy. The symptom being treated must be represented by the negative effect that motivates the choice for therapy, and treatment must consist of relieving that symptom. In this way it cannot be ignored that the first step in therapy is to focus on easing the pain (symptom)that is motivating the choice to endure therapy. If there is a way of supplying the client (family) with a solution to the negative effects of the subject of therapy’s symptoms, then attempting to find that solution should be a required first step in therapy before exposing the admitted subject to harmful treatment against their will."
Danny spoke:
If my question offends you I am sorry, if you wrote this entire post with all your own thoughts from teaching or experience I am impressed. Finally we have someone here who really gives a shit other then Anne.
-
So your definition of ‘symptom’ is enough to constitute being subjected to the treatment we are discussing?
No, I wouldn’t think so. I have not seen a comprehensive list of symptoms which would constitute being considered for shock therapy. From what I have read so far this therapy is pretty much the end of the road for many patients, which means all other treatments have been ineffective in helping them.
Everyone has, or does things different from the norm. I’m not sure we have really agreed on the terminology of what we are discussing. Maybe we should just start with your definition of ‘symptom’ in a little more detail.
I wouldn’t think we would all agree on just my first cut at a definition. The word Symptom has a wide range of meanings…i.e. a sniffle is a symptom of having a cold, but it doesn’t mean you do have a cold. A person needs to look further… a symptom can be as little as a sign, that’s all.
In what ways does a symptom manifest itself? (That would be appropriately treated by these methods)
In the case of this treatment, who defines the symptom?
Who is affected by the symptom?
Which negative effects of the symptom are the most important in justifying this treatment?
Good questions but I couldn’t begin to answer any of them myself.
And just to clarify, the reasons against this treatment, so far (I may have missed some things too), are that it is painful, it is intended to alter behavior by utilizing pain, it is intended to alter behavior by maintaining a constant threat of pain, the effects of such treatment are dissociation which holds a risk to psychological health, and it is impossible to make a judgment as to other dissociative effects as people are inherently different and the level to which people feel demeaned or humiliated can’t be accurately factored into the treatment model.
Good point, we will add “Risk to psychological healthâ€. I think all of these factors and risks should be considered before this therapy be used.
The same would apply for any therapy….. say Chemotherapy. Do doctors think about the risk of psychological health when these kids are subjected to Chemotherapy…the pain they will be subjected to, humiliation of losing their hair, constant thought of having to continue Chemotherapy if the first course fails, the constant fear.
In the case of JRC, It would be interesting if these factors are considered when their treatment is brought before the judge, psychologists and advocates for the approval needed to proceed to the level of shock treatment therapy? I dont think we have had the privilege to view this info but it would answer many of our questions. I would hate to think that these kids live in daily fear during their time there.
Good discussion, awake.
...
LOL. Well, I’m glad you think it was a good discussion, but I guess I was looking for answers that reflect your own set of morals and not totally concede to the program to decide the answers to the questions I asked. Moral standards are set by all of us as free citizens in this society and it is our responsibility to offer our views as to what we consider morally acceptable. I don’t believe it is morally acceptable to defend a context that subjects another to pain and fear (and many other negative effects to an unknowable degree) and then submit that you shouldn’t have your own standards for what properly justifies subjecting someone to such treatment.
I guess I’ll offer one way in which we need to weigh whether or not the symptoms justify treatment. The symptoms must have negative consequences that are comparable to the negative consequences incurred by the treatment. That is to say, a process of therapy that is painful, keeps the subject under a constant state of fear, is humiliating, demeaning, can cause permanent psychological harm and the effect is unpredictable should only be considered if the symptoms are similarly harmful. I’m not saying I’ve taken everything into consideration here, but we must have some sort of moral guidelines and I think this is a good starting point. In fact, I would even go as far as to assume that we can already expect the standard to at least state that we can’t justify it if it can result in equal or more harm than the symptom presently causes.
Furthermore the term symptom is defined by the context under which therapy is conducted. If the subject is there under a forceful context the term ‘symptom’ must be analyzed as the negative effect(s) (Or really, symptoms resulting from the symptom) occurring in the individual(s) related to him that admitted him to therapy. The symptom being treated must be represented by the negative effect that motivates the choice for therapy, and treatment must consist of relieving that symptom. In this way it cannot be ignored that the first step in therapy is to focus on easing the pain (symptom)that is motivating the choice to endure therapy. If there is a way of supplying the client (family) with a solution to the negative effects of the subject of therapy’s symptoms, then attempting to find that solution should be a required first step in therapy before exposing the admitted subject to harmful treatment against their will.
I think it should be considered unethical for any facility capable of harm to skip this step in the therapeutic process, because the object of such extreme therapy (if it is really a last resort) should be for the subject to not have to endure It. If the therapy is not a choice of the subject, and the negative consequences should, as a moral prerequisite for applying force, be relative to the harm caused by the subject’s symptom to those who are affected by it, and are choosing therapy for him, then the object of therapy cannot be ‘cure of symptom’ but can only operate to diminish the symptom in the subject, and the negative effects (also symptoms) in those who chose therapy, to a degree that reasonably supports justifying that he is at that point within his right to choose.
I’m sure there ‘s more to consider here, but it’s not worth glossing over anything considering the risk.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Danny spoke:
Awake was this paragraph plagiarized/para-phrased and if so who wrote it.
Awake spoke:
"Furthermore the term symptom is defined by the context under which therapy is conducted. If the subject is there under a forceful context the term ‘symptom’ must be analyzed as the negative effect(s) (Or really, symptoms resulting from the symptom) occurring in the individual(s) related to him that admitted him to therapy. The symptom being treated must be represented by the negative effect that motivates the choice for therapy, and treatment must consist of relieving that symptom. In this way it cannot be ignored that the first step in therapy is to focus on easing the pain (symptom)that is motivating the choice to endure therapy. If there is a way of supplying the client (family) with a solution to the negative effects of the subject of therapy’s symptoms, then attempting to find that solution should be a required first step in therapy before exposing the admitted subject to harmful treatment against their will."
Danny spoke:
If my question offends you I am sorry, if you wrote this entire post with all your own thoughts from teaching or experience I am impressed. Finally we have someone here who really gives a shit other then Anne.
I didn’t copy this or modify any text. However it has already been pretty extensively discussed primarily in the 60’s due to the emergence of cybernetics and it’s connection with communications theory which had a dramatic impact on therapy.
I’ll shamelessly suggest reading my post on the Double Bind viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30423 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30423) , and research into the works done by that group. I believe that there is an entire language we lack in trying to discuss these types of therapeutic situations that are commonplace in programs. Without having terms that can clearly correspond to the context we are discussing how is anyone supposed to know what the conversation is truly about?
It seems we are left trying to discuss something without bothering to redefine the ambiguous meanings of terms related to therapy, and in particular are analyzed with cause –effect properties that are outdated. For instance:
If you kick a rock, it is the energy from your foot that causes it to land in a new place. If you kick a child and he hits you, it is not the energy from your foot that caused you to get hit. But we can hardly look at the child’s behavior as symptomatic with the intent to isolate him as a the unit of treatment, this would imply a misunderstanding of the cause –effect pattern.
All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs.
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All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs.
Such as ... chemotherapy ... for example? ::evil::
-
All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs.
Such as ... chemotherapy ... for example? ::evil::
:shamrock: :shamrock:
No... Ursus you trying to be in this conversation with your constant insignificant comments.
Why don't you just sit out this one, the popcorn gallery is full.
Danny
-
Awake spoke:
I didn’t copy this or modify any text. However it has already been pretty extensively discussed primarily in the 60’s due to the emergence of cybernetics and it’s connection with communications theory which had a dramatic impact on therapy.
I’ll shamelessly suggest reading my post on the Double Bind viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30423 , and research into the works done by that group. I believe that there is an entire language we lack in trying to discuss these types of therapeutic situations that are commonplace in programs. Without having terms that can clearly correspond to the context we are discussing how is anyone supposed to know what the conversation is truly about?
It seems we are left trying to discuss something without bothering to redefine the ambiguous meanings of terms related to therapy, and in particular are analyzed with cause –effect properties that are outdated. For instance:
If you kick a rock, it is the energy from your foot that causes it to land in a new place. If you kick a child and he hits you, it is not the energy from your foot that caused you to get hit. But we can hardly look at the child’s behavior as symptomatic with the intent to isolate him as a the unit of treatment, this would imply a misunderstanding of the cause –effect pattern.
All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Danny spoke:
Thanks for your reply. You ask for a, meaning of terms, context and conversation. I don't think at this time I can accommodate due to my lack of book reading and teaching. Though I could communicate on a more personal level. I have witnessed these children and the treatments being discussed here. If you would like to know more please contact me (PM). I will not share anymore here. Folks are to all over the place with there take on this.
I will also say this what is going on in JRC is not set up like a treatment center or any program I know about and as you said, "All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs."
Thanks again for your input
Danny
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(http://http://science.kukuchew.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/chemotherapy_dose_cartoon.jpg)
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If you kick a rock, it is the energy from your foot that causes it to land in a new place. If you kick a child and he hits you, it is not the energy from your foot that caused you to get hit. But we can hardly look at the child’s behavior as symptomatic with the intent to isolate him as a the unit of treatment, this would imply a misunderstanding of the cause –effect pattern.
As I see it the root cause of you getting kicked is the direct result of you kicking the child. The energy would cancel out if the kicks were the same magnitude and would have a “net zero†effect (no energy lost) if you consider yourself the child and the rock as an isolated "closed system". Plus the child was aware that you kicked him/her. If you throw a rock at a dog the dog will attack the rock (every time). So you pass energy into the rock giving it velocity (energy) which is absorbed by the dog and the dog in turn attacks the rock (expending energy) moving it further until it comes to rest. You can do this all day long and the dog will not bite you because he sees the rock as the root cause of his pain where as the child would see you as the root cause and throw the rock back at you, causing you pain (completing the energy cycle). So there is an awareness that needs to take place in order to determine root cause and some children may possess this while others may not. I think a big part of the success of shock therapy may be in part to this awareness, and how the child reacts to the therapy.
As far as determining root cause before treating the child I agree with you there. If the child is acting out then it could be the result of the childs home environment so the home dynamics should be treated, not the child, in that case. One way this can be determined is by isolating the child from the home environment and observe to see if the child improves. (But there are many other ways too)
As far as the Chemo analogy goes. It is not intended to undermine the discussion. It is intended to show that shock therapy is very mild compared to the pain and suffering incurred by Chemotherapy. The child sometimes does not have a say whether or not they receive either therapy. Does this violate “first do no harm?â€â€¦. I think it helps to put the discussion in perspective because many here are using the argument that shock therapy should not be used because it causes pain and I don’t see this as a valid argument in light of other therapies which are readily accepted.
If shock therapy pain is on the level of a bee sting (and people view it as abusive) then how do we handle kids who get immunization shots? Chemotherapy? Radiation therapy? Open heart surgery…etc. In light of this is it valid to disallow shock therapy on the grounds of pain alone?
...
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If you throw a rock at a dog the dog will attack the rock (every time). You can do this all day long and the dog will not bite you because he sees the rock as the root cause of his pain
Every so often, Whooter gives himself away with posts that prove he really has no idea what the fuck he's talking about, ever.
No no no, Whooter, don't feed us your usual bullshit. Just prove it. Please. With a rottweiler, and have a third party record it. I'll put it on Youtube.
-
If you kick a rock, it is the energy from your foot that causes it to land in a new place. If you kick a child and he hits you, it is not the energy from your foot that caused you to get hit. But we can hardly look at the child’s behavior as symptomatic with the intent to isolate him as a the unit of treatment, this would imply a misunderstanding of the cause –effect pattern.
As I see it the root cause of you getting kicked is the direct result of you kicking the child. The energy would cancel out if the kicks were the same magnitude and would have a “net zero†effect (no energy lost) if you consider yourself the child and the rock as an isolated "closed system". Plus the child was aware that you kicked him/her. If you throw a rock at a dog the dog will attack the rock (every time). So you pass energy into the rock giving it velocity (energy) which is absorbed by the dog and the dog in turn attacks the rock (expending energy) moving it further until it comes to rest. You can do this all day long and the dog will not bite you because he sees the rock as the root cause of his pain where as the child would see you as the root cause and throw the rock back at you, causing you pain (completing the energy cycle). So there is an awareness that needs to take place in order to determine root cause and some children may possess this while others may not. I think a big part of the success of shock therapy may be in part to this awareness, and how the child reacts to the therapy.
...
Good on you for showing my fault in not considering how use of metaphor easily results in loss of context. My metaphor with the kicking is meant to show the difference in cause effect relationship when we are dealing with cybernetic relationships, like people, versus things. The cause and effect relationship when you kick a rock is a result of transfer of energy, but between people, or any open system, is the result of a transfer of information, energy is only a consideration as a form of message transfer. If we want to really understand cause and effect as it concerns the term symptom, this is an important basic concept.
Just like you can’t spontaneously avoid understanding the words you are reading now, we as people can’t avoid how we are programmed to interpret stimulus.
At the risk of misinterpretation of context, I will offer this analogy: If there are two AC/heating units in the same room (call them 1 and 2), and 1 is set to start cooling at 80 degrees and the other is set to warm at 80 degrees then the behaviours (or symptoms) are not isolated to either one, but what results is a stable pattern of interaction that is a system itself to be analyzed as an indivisible whole. Symptom, or behaviour, can’t be analyzed successfully by breaking the system into parts, otherwise it destroys the object of observation..
Also, the idea of root cause is a particularly interesting subject that is very interconnected with this, i’ll get to that too. But for now as a thought, what if you could not identify root cause? What if all you can determine is that each person is kicking the other because the other kicked them and the interaction is hopelessly subject to a re- punctuation of ‘root cause’?
The result of this misinterpretation as it applies to therapy is nightmarish, and not just under this therapeutic context.
... and i just don't agree with you about the dog.... every dog i've known is smart enough to know i threw the ball, they know fetch is a playful interractive context, and they know that rocks themselves are not sentient beings that can up and hurt them.
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All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs.
Such as ... chemotherapy ... for example? ::evil::
No... Ursus you trying to be in this conversation with your constant insignificant comments.
Why don't you just sit out this one, the popcorn gallery is full.
Jeeeez... Do you own this thread, Danny? Seems to me this is an open discussion, no?
I regard Whooter's having made reference to his baseless chemotherapy analogy at least 14-15 times ... in this thread alone ... as hardly an insignificant obfuscation, if you ask me.
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If you throw a rock at a dog the dog will attack the rock (every time). You can do this all day long and the dog will not bite you because he sees the rock as the root cause of his pain
Every so often, Whooter gives himself away with posts that prove he really has no idea what the fuck he's talking about, ever.
No no no, Whooter, don't feed us your usual bullshit. Just prove it. Please. With a rottweiler, and have a third party record it. I'll put it on Youtube.
... i just don't agree with you about the dog.... every dog i've known is smart enough to know i threw the ball, they know fetch is a playful interractive context, and they know that rocks themselves are not sentient beings that can up and hurt them.
Do you routinely throw rocks at dogs, Whooter? I'm guessing not, as that is a bit cruel, even for you.
I've also never seen a dog attack a rock that is thrown at it, lol. Thankfully, I've witnessed such incidents only a couple of times in my life.
I've seen a dog "attack" a stick, yes, but this ... in the context of a game of fetch as Awake describes. A thrown stick also does not inflict intentioned pain. Perhaps accidental pain.
Were you to intentionally inflict pain on a dog by throwing something at him over and over again, my guess is that eventually he might well attack you ... if he is preventing from escaping the onslaught. And well he should.
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Do you routinely throw rocks at dogs, Whooter? I'm guessing not, as that is a bit cruel, even for you.
No, I don’t throw rocks at dogs and I don’t think awake goes around kicking kids either. You have a strange way of connecting the dots to justify your feelings about certain things. You couldn’t express why you disliked the "prediction software" that was being introduced in Florida so you searched way back to 1937 and found a photo of IBM sitting at a table with Germans. This somehow helped you feel justified in rejecting IBM as a software supplier and subsequently the software itself. You do the same thing with programs, if a new program is discussed you don’t bother to understand the program but rather you search for some small item that may dirty it up in your mind and give reason to discard it as effective.. maybe an employee who worked at another program or a degree that was earned on-line.
Now you are doing the same thing with JRC. You find a sole article which talks about staff members holding a child at knifepoint to administer shock therapy and then you stop learning and you are willing to discard the entire therapeutic process because of it. In my opinion in order to make take an educated point of view you need to consider all the facets of JRC… the good reports as well as the bad and then weigh the risks with possible outcomes. That is what I am trying to do. I am not defending the therapy or JRC, I am just discussing it openly here on the forum. I think open discussion can be enlightening. Why undermine the conversation?
I regard Whooter's having made reference to his baseless chemotherapy analogy at least 14-15 times ... in this thread alone ... as hardly an insignificant obfuscation, if you ask me.
Why do you feel it is baseless? I was trying to point out that we should not discard shock therapy based on its negative effects alone. There are other therapies (like Chemo) which are risky and have a huge downside. Shock therapy may or may not be inhumane but pain isn’t a factor which separates it from others.
...
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Good on you for showing my fault in not considering how use of metaphor easily results in loss of context. My metaphor with the kicking is meant to show the difference in cause effect relationship when we are dealing with cybernetic relationships, like people, versus things. The cause and effect relationship when you kick a rock is a result of transfer of energy, but between people, or any open system, is the result of a transfer of information, energy is only a consideration as a form of message transfer. If we want to really understand cause and effect as it concerns the term symptom, this is an important basic concept.
Just like you can’t spontaneously avoid understanding the words you are reading now, we as people can’t avoid how we are programmed to interpret stimulus.
At the risk of misinterpretation of context, I will offer this analogy: If there are two AC/heating units in the same room (call them 1 and 2), and 1 is set to start cooling at 80 degrees and the other is set to warm at 80 degrees then the behaviours (or symptoms) are not isolated to either one, but what results is a stable pattern of interaction that is a system itself to be analyzed as an indivisible whole. Symptom, or behaviour, can’t be analyzed successfully by breaking the system into parts, otherwise it destroys the object of observation..
Also, the idea of root cause is a particularly interesting subject that is very interconnected with this, i’ll get to that too. But for now as a thought, what if you could not identify root cause? What if all you can determine is that each person is kicking the other because the other kicked them and the interaction is hopelessly subject to a re- punctuation of ‘root cause’?
The result of this misinterpretation as it applies to therapy is nightmarish, and not just under this therapeutic context.
If each person is kicking the other with no apparent cause forcing them into a vicious cycle of kicking each other I would remove the child from that environment to break the cycle initially and then try to determine root cause via observation and interview with the child and others.
... and i just don't agree with you about the dog.... every dog i've known is smart enough to know i threw the ball, they know fetch is a playful interractive context, and they know that rocks themselves are not sentient beings that can up and hurt them.
If you engage the dog first then the dog will catch on and eventually make the connection that you are the cause of his pain, not the rock.
...
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All too often I feel a conversation gets undermined by making comparisons or analogies that take the therapeutic terminology into an area that doesn’t make sense as it relates to programs.
Such as ... chemotherapy ... for example? ::evil::
No... Ursus you trying to be in this conversation with your constant insignificant comments.
Why don't you just sit out this one, the popcorn gallery is full.
Jeeeez... Do you own this thread, Danny? Seems to me this is an open discussion, no?
I regard Whooter's having made reference to his baseless chemotherapy analogy at least 14-15 times ... in this thread alone ... as hardly an insignificant obfuscation, if you ask me.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
No Ursus I don't own this thread, sorry got a little excited.
Just trying to take this seriously, kind of have a personal stake in this.
Danny
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This is a letter from Brian Avery, a former student at JRC who had the GED as part of his program while he was a student at JRC, 1998-2004. Brian posted this letter on the Boston Globe website as one of the comments on the March 9, 2010 OpEd article by Larry Harmon. Brian's letter is perhaps the most important of all the comments that appeared on the Globe website.
My name is Brian Avery and I was a student at JRC from September 1998 to January 2004. Prior to me entering JRC at age 12, I was in and out of several psychiatric hospitals and failed in two alternative educational settings.
My behavioral problems really began to escalate when I was 8 or 9 years old. I was on several medications including Tegretol, Haldol, Ritalin, Risperdal, Depekote, Prozac and Paxil. At age 10, my behavior become dangerously out of control. While in school, I would climb on furniture, climb under furniture, mouth off at the teacher, run out of the classroom and would have to be chased down by school staff. I would disrespect authority figures, yell, swear, exhibit inappropriate sexual behaviors in school. I would even try to stab myself with a pencil. I would become physically aggressive with my teachers and would have to be confined in a small padded room. In December of 1996 I was moved from a co-ed class with a 10:2 student/teacher ratio to another elementary school a few towns over and placed in a all male class with a 6:2 student/teacher ratio. That changed delivered little improvement in my behavior and academic progress. At home, I spent most of my time sleeping or being a couch potato, a debilitating side effect of all the medication I was taking. During the time that I was awake, I would disrespect my parents, be aggressive towards my parents and siblings, throw tantrums, destroy property, and would spend hours on end crying. In November of 1996, I spend three weeks in a psychiatric hospital. In February of 1998, and also in May of that year, I spent another three weeks in a psychiatric hospital. After my third hospitalization, my parents and school district finally came to the conclusion that I needed to be placed in a residential school. After visiting numerous schools in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, my parents chose JRC.
In September of 1998, I was placed at JRC. Within three months of being at JRC, I was taken off all of my medication. My first few months at JRC were very depressing. For the first month or so of being at JRC, my behavior was much more under control that it had been for a very long time. However, once I became acclimated to the program, my behavior began to deteriorate. I would once again display the same inappropriate behaviors that I did in public school. I would be frequently restrained and placed in a small room. JRC would employ an elaborate scheme of behavior contracts and punishments (not the temporary skin shock). Such contracts included earning a small snack and 10 minutes of free time for going an hour without exhibiting inappropriate behaviors, earning a preferred breakfast for completing my morning routine without incident, being able to order take out for going a full day without displaying inappropriate behavior, being able to attend the weekly BBQ and go on field trips for going a week without displaying inappropriate behavior, and so on. Punishments that JRC would employ involve me spending the day in a small room with a staff person whom I was forbidden from socializing with, going to bed at 7pm, having to do schoolwork or chores on the weekend without being able to socialize with my housemates. Other punishments included being deprived of foods that were rewards. For example, if everyone else were having pizza, I would be served peanut butter and jelly. I would also be put through a ball task, which involved me needing to place 250 foam balls, one at a time, into a trash can while wearing mitts, a task that is very unpleasant. Although I would have occasional bouts of progress (staying on contract for two months at one point), I made no sustainable progress in 1998 through most of 1999. In the fall of 1999, JRC and my parents had decided that it was time to give the GED a try. I reluctantly agreed to the GED and decided not to fight JRC’s attempt to place me on the device. I figured that although unpleasant, the GED would deter me from displaying behaviors that would result in me being restrained and losing out on the rewards that came with the program.
In December of 1999, I was placed on the GED. For the first month or so that I was on the GED, I displayed few inappropriate behaviors, however, once I became acclimated to the fact that I was on the device and was aware of what the GED felt like, I would start displaying lots of more minor behaviors that were not treated with the GED. Once on the GED, instances of me acting out became fewer and more far in between. Although when my contract was broken, I would display lots of inappropriate behaviors, but I would be selective as to not exhibit GED behaviors, although I would occasionally slip up and receive a GED application. By the spring of 2001, it had been several months since my previous major behavioral incident. JRC then began to rapidly fade me off the GED (although the fading process started nearly a year prior, bouts of behavioral episodes impeded the fading process). In July of 2001, I was completely faded from the GED and was moved into a less restrictive residence (apartment), with a student/staff ratio of 4:1. In the apartment, I enjoyed many privileges, such as grocery shopping, going on weekly field trips to the movies, to the arcade, YMCA, local parks etc. I even attended a few sporting events, including the Providence Bruins, Harlem Globetrotters, and even a Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park. I was also given independence to move about the residence and school unsupervised. All of these were privileges I could not even dream of prior to being placed on the GED. From September 2001-September 2002, I would have a few bouts of behavioral incidents and was placed on and off the GED. However, in October of 2002, I was faded from the GED for good. In the fall of 2002, I attended a culinary class at Blue Hills Technical school, and in November I worked in the computer department as an in school job. Also, I began preparing for the New York Regents exams, and in 2003 I began taking the Regents exams. In the fall of 2003, it became clear to JRC, my parents, and school district that I had accomplished all I could while at JRC and in January 2004 I was transitioned back to public school in New York and mainstreamed. I moved to Florida in August of 2004 and graduated from high school with honors in May 2005. Since then, I took and passed a couple of college courses and had a few jobs, including a seasonal position working for a bank as a data capture specialist, a job that I obtained because of my quick typing skills that I acquired while at JRC. Currently (as of March 2010) I am employed at a call center working as an IT assistant and data entry clerk. I’m very active with my church and currently head up some of the functions within the church. Although I have lived independently since leaving JRC, I currently live with my parents, which I don’t mind all that much because that makes it much easier financially on both them and I.
About the GED, it saved my life. There are lots of opponents to this controversial, yet potentially life-saving treatment, and understandably so. For someone who has never had the kind of problems I had nor has dealt with anyone who has my kind of problems, when hearing about the GED for the first time, it is only natural to cry torture. However, in reality, being on the GED is a much nicer alternative than being warehoused in a hospital, incarcerated, or being doped up on psychotropic drugs to the point of oblivion. A brief 2-second shock to the surface of the skin sure beats out spending my days restrained and drugged up on drugs and not making any academic progress. I did not like being on the GED when I felt like acting up because it prevented me from being able to do so. But in the end, I’m thankful for the GED because of the enormous progress I made with it and have continued to make once I no longer needed it.
Some people may wind up spending the majority of their life at JRC while being able to enjoy the benefits and privileges the program has while others, like myself, are able to go on to live an independent life. The bottom line is, if those who opposed the GED had their way, I would currently be locked up and heavily medicate at a hospital or in jail or possibly even dead. So for those who have set out to ban the GED please don’t.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Brian Avery
-
This is a letter from Brian Avery, a former student at JRC who had the GED as part of his program while he was a student at JRC, 1998-2004. Brian posted this letter on the Boston Globe website as one of the comments on the March 9, 2010 OpEd article by Larry Harmon. Brian's letter is perhaps the most important of all the comments that appeared on the Globe website.
My name is Brian Avery and I was a student at JRC from September 1998 to January 2004. Prior to me entering JRC at age 12, I was in and out of several psychiatric hospitals and failed in two alternative educational settings.
My behavioral problems really began to escalate when I was 8 or 9 years old. I was on several medications including Tegretol, Haldol, Ritalin, Risperdal, Depekote, Prozac and Paxil. At age 10, my behavior become dangerously out of control. While in school, I would climb on furniture, climb under furniture, mouth off at the teacher, run out of the classroom and would have to be chased down by school staff. I would disrespect authority figures, yell, swear, exhibit inappropriate sexual behaviors in school. I would even try to stab myself with a pencil. I would become physically aggressive with my teachers and would have to be confined in a small padded room. In December of 1996 I was moved from a co-ed class with a 10:2 student/teacher ratio to another elementary school a few towns over and placed in a all male class with a 6:2 student/teacher ratio. That changed delivered little improvement in my behavior and academic progress. At home, I spent most of my time sleeping or being a couch potato, a debilitating side effect of all the medication I was taking. During the time that I was awake, I would disrespect my parents, be aggressive towards my parents and siblings, throw tantrums, destroy property, and would spend hours on end crying. In November of 1996, I spend three weeks in a psychiatric hospital. In February of 1998, and also in May of that year, I spent another three weeks in a psychiatric hospital. After my third hospitalization, my parents and school district finally came to the conclusion that I needed to be placed in a residential school. After visiting numerous schools in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, my parents chose JRC.
In September of 1998, I was placed at JRC. Within three months of being at JRC, I was taken off all of my medication. My first few months at JRC were very depressing. For the first month or so of being at JRC, my behavior was much more under control that it had been for a very long time. However, once I became acclimated to the program, my behavior began to deteriorate. I would once again display the same inappropriate behaviors that I did in public school. I would be frequently restrained and placed in a small room. JRC would employ an elaborate scheme of behavior contracts and punishments (not the temporary skin shock). Such contracts included earning a small snack and 10 minutes of free time for going an hour without exhibiting inappropriate behaviors, earning a preferred breakfast for completing my morning routine without incident, being able to order take out for going a full day without displaying inappropriate behavior, being able to attend the weekly BBQ and go on field trips for going a week without displaying inappropriate behavior, and so on. Punishments that JRC would employ involve me spending the day in a small room with a staff person whom I was forbidden from socializing with, going to bed at 7pm, having to do schoolwork or chores on the weekend without being able to socialize with my housemates. Other punishments included being deprived of foods that were rewards. For example, if everyone else were having pizza, I would be served peanut butter and jelly. I would also be put through a ball task, which involved me needing to place 250 foam balls, one at a time, into a trash can while wearing mitts, a task that is very unpleasant. Although I would have occasional bouts of progress (staying on contract for two months at one point), I made no sustainable progress in 1998 through most of 1999. In the fall of 1999, JRC and my parents had decided that it was time to give the GED a try. I reluctantly agreed to the GED and decided not to fight JRC’s attempt to place me on the device. I figured that although unpleasant, the GED would deter me from displaying behaviors that would result in me being restrained and losing out on the rewards that came with the program.
In December of 1999, I was placed on the GED. For the first month or so that I was on the GED, I displayed few inappropriate behaviors, however, once I became acclimated to the fact that I was on the device and was aware of what the GED felt like, I would start displaying lots of more minor behaviors that were not treated with the GED. Once on the GED, instances of me acting out became fewer and more far in between. Although when my contract was broken, I would display lots of inappropriate behaviors, but I would be selective as to not exhibit GED behaviors, although I would occasionally slip up and receive a GED application. By the spring of 2001, it had been several months since my previous major behavioral incident. JRC then began to rapidly fade me off the GED (although the fading process started nearly a year prior, bouts of behavioral episodes impeded the fading process). In July of 2001, I was completely faded from the GED and was moved into a less restrictive residence (apartment), with a student/staff ratio of 4:1. In the apartment, I enjoyed many privileges, such as grocery shopping, going on weekly field trips to the movies, to the arcade, YMCA, local parks etc. I even attended a few sporting events, including the Providence Bruins, Harlem Globetrotters, and even a Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park. I was also given independence to move about the residence and school unsupervised. All of these were privileges I could not even dream of prior to being placed on the GED. From September 2001-September 2002, I would have a few bouts of behavioral incidents and was placed on and off the GED. However, in October of 2002, I was faded from the GED for good. In the fall of 2002, I attended a culinary class at Blue Hills Technical school, and in November I worked in the computer department as an in school job. Also, I began preparing for the New York Regents exams, and in 2003 I began taking the Regents exams. In the fall of 2003, it became clear to JRC, my parents, and school district that I had accomplished all I could while at JRC and in January 2004 I was transitioned back to public school in New York and mainstreamed. I moved to Florida in August of 2004 and graduated from high school with honors in May 2005. Since then, I took and passed a couple of college courses and had a few jobs, including a seasonal position working for a bank as a data capture specialist, a job that I obtained because of my quick typing skills that I acquired while at JRC. Currently (as of March 2010) I am employed at a call center working as an IT assistant and data entry clerk. I’m very active with my church and currently head up some of the functions within the church. Although I have lived independently since leaving JRC, I currently live with my parents, which I don’t mind all that much because that makes it much easier financially on both them and I.
About the GED, it saved my life. There are lots of opponents to this controversial, yet potentially life-saving treatment, and understandably so. For someone who has never had the kind of problems I had nor has dealt with anyone who has my kind of problems, when hearing about the GED for the first time, it is only natural to cry torture. However, in reality, being on the GED is a much nicer alternative than being warehoused in a hospital, incarcerated, or being doped up on psychotropic drugs to the point of oblivion. A brief 2-second shock to the surface of the skin sure beats out spending my days restrained and drugged up on drugs and not making any academic progress. I did not like being on the GED when I felt like acting up because it prevented me from being able to do so. But in the end, I’m thankful for the GED because of the enormous progress I made with it and have continued to make once I no longer needed it.
Some people may wind up spending the majority of their life at JRC while being able to enjoy the benefits and privileges the program has while others, like myself, are able to go on to live an independent life. The bottom line is, if those who opposed the GED had their way, I would currently be locked up and heavily medicate at a hospital or in jail or possibly even dead. So for those who have set out to ban the GED please don’t.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Brian Avery
:shamrock: :shamrock:
I am going to hate saying this with all my heart but it is better if used properly then being drugged, it is a last resort before you are restrained every day and put back on drugs. I wish more people would get this. I am not talking about abusing people but you must understand folks there are limited options here whether you want to admit this or not. Most of the patients are in worse shape then Brian Avery with disabilities. They are not getting the shock therapy, why not because there is no need they are never getting any better. You see they are trying everything possible to give Brain some shot at a fulfilling life. His parents know this.
Danny
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If you believe that was written by Brian Avery without the aid of ghostwriters or lots and lots of "help", I'd like to sell you a bridge.
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The bottom line is, if those who opposed the GED had their way, I would currently be locked up and heavily medicate at a hospital or in jail or possibly even dead. So for those who have set out to ban the GED please don't.
Mmmm. The standard refrain rears its ugly head again. How very predictable.
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About the GED, it saved my life. There are lots of opponents to this controversial, yet potentially life-saving treatment, and understandably so. For someone who has never had the kind of problems I had nor has dealt with anyone who has my kind of problems, when hearing about the GED for the first time, it is only natural to cry torture. However, in reality, being on the GED is a much nicer alternative than being warehoused in a hospital, incarcerated, or being doped up on psychotropic drugs to the point of oblivion. A brief 2-second shock to the surface of the skin sure beats out spending my days restrained and drugged up on drugs and not making any academic progress. I did not like being on the GED when I felt like acting up because it prevented me from being able to do so. But in the end, I’m thankful for the GED because of the enormous progress I made with it and have continued to make once I no longer needed it.
What jumps out here, for me, is not just the shock treatment but the alternative of being locked up and having a life of psychotropic drugs. This is only one case but I think it shows that shock therapy can be beneficial and therefore deserves a closer look.
...
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(http://http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/300W/i/2010/015/4/4/Shut_Down_The_JRC_by_bigtimesynesthete.jpg)
(http://http://www.arcmass.org/Portals/0/mother%20jones%20cover%20image.jpg)
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If you believe that was written by Brian Avery without the aid of ghostwriters or lots and lots of "help", I'd like to sell you a bridge.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Why is what he has wrote supported by ghostwriters and bla..blka..bla but all of the folks you put forth are of stellar reputation. No side is telling the truth as far as fornits have it.
Very sad when we bring our own life of paranoia and project it all over the posts, so much of our life is shown here.
Danny
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Why is what he has wrote supported by ghostwriters and bla..blka..bla but all of the folks you put forth are of stellar reputation. No side is telling the truth as far as fornits have it. Very sad when we bring our own life of paranoia and project it all over the posts, so much of our life is shown here.
Danny
Danny Writing Lesson Plans http://www.theteacherscorner.net/lesson ... ditors.htm (http://www.theteacherscorner.net/lesson-plans/writing/skills/rules-for-editors.htm)
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The bottom line is, if those who opposed the GED had their way, I would currently be locked up and heavily medicate at a hospital or in jail or possibly even dead. So for those who have set out to ban the GED please don't.
Mmmm. The standard refrain rears its ugly head again. How very predictable.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Ursus, can I ask you a honest question and get a honest answer. Your post above do you really believe that and where you continue to go with your posts. You really believe there is wholesale abuse going on and these children could get other care and have the same results.
I am just asking, it would go a long way in helping me understand you on this particular thread. I know we have our times, I would rather not experience this on this thread it means to much to me.
Danny
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Actually,
The glowing review of the brutality of JRC for Child Torture doesn't even really matter. The discussion about "alternatives" *wank wank* doesn't even matter. What matters is when someone rolls an M-1a2 MBT right through the front doors of the place and the TC says to Mr. Israel, "Say hello to my little friend" right before he pumps a 120 mm Beehive anti-personnel round directly into Israel's sick face.
One glowing review of JRC means nothing. 10 glowing reviews of JRC means nothing. 1000 Glowing reviews of JRC means nothing. 10 Million glowing reviews of JRC means absolutely nothing. The fact that Brian's inability to process what was done to him means nothing to me other than myself getting the impression that this Brian kid is a raving idiot for not being able to muster up the rage over being hooked up to a dog collar and being treated worst than an animal. JRC uses a sick, abusive, and dangerous child abuse technique to scare children straight.
So fuck you Danny for even supporting something like this right after I read this:
Employees shocked him for aggressive behavior, he says, but also for minor misdeeds, like yelling or cursing. Each shock lasts two seconds. "It hurts like hell," Rob says. (The school's staff claim it is no more painful than a bee sting; when I tried the shock, it felt like a horde of wasps attacking me all at once. Two seconds never felt so long.) On several occasions, Rob was tied facedown to a four-point restraint board and shocked over and over again by a person he couldn't see. The constant threat of being zapped did persuade him to act less aggressively, but at a high cost. "I thought of killing myself a few times," he says.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock (http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock)
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In December of 1999, I was placed on the GED. For the first month or so that I was on the GED, I displayed few inappropriate behaviors, however, once I became acclimated to the fact that I was on the device and was aware of what the GED felt like, I would start displaying lots of more minor behaviors that were not treated with the GED. Once on the GED, instances of me acting out became fewer and more far in between.
Really? Somebody subjected to that really talks like this? You seriously believe that this was genuinely written by him, of his own accord, without any coaching? Actually if it WAS, that's even worse because that would mean that his mind is utterly, completely, institutionalized.
I'm guessing that this originally started as some kind of sick-fuck "report" and they just ran through it with Search and Replace, substituting "he" for "I" and "him" for "me", and made him put his name to it.
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Submitted by Notorious Forever (not verified) on Thu Aug. 30, 2007 5:06 PM PDT.
I worked at JRC for almost 2 years. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly...all under the same roof, and extending to almost every residence I supervised. I saw everything from corruption to torture. Yes, a school collecting Millions $$$ in different states' funds to deprive children of clothing, entertainment, and food. The head honcho, mentioned in the above article, uses that money to accumulate his wealth in properties, all of which are listed as being his, meaning under his name, and not under the Judge Rotenberg Center. Maybe his culture plays into it, since most are running this country, and do whatever they please. Let's get to an example of how to become a real-estate guru (20-30+ residences), using a non-profit organization to accumulate your wealth. The following are estimates, and can probably be found out because they're state funds provided by states sending these students to JRC. When I was there, I was given a figure of $200,000 per student coming from NY, and that can range up to $300,000+, depending on if the student needs staff 1-1, 2-1 with him/her at all times. A conservative estimate per additional staff needed to a student is $100,000 per year....but staff will never earn more than $40,000 per year working full-time with various students, so there's profit right here. When states are footing the bill, organizations love to charge $$$. This is ridiculous, since most of the time, these students never have a staff 1-1 with them 24 hrs./day because JRC is known for understaffing houses by all those who work there. Now, you take a house with 4 bedrooms, double-bunk beds, or 2 beds per room, and that adds up to 8 students. Take the 8 students and multiply that by $200,000 (minimum) = $1.6 million dollars. Next, you go out house hunting, and you find a run-down home, or foreclosed homes for about $100,000-$300,000. Next, you renovate/furnish the house up to desired operating condition...beautiful furniture, nice art, wired with cameras, mics, video equipment, etc. You just made out with a top-of-the-line, fully furnished house for yourself, after using it a few years in the program, and you throw the remaining $1.3 million into the program. So, since you're making out in Real-Estate, you decide to take a cut in pay, even though you still get an annual Salary to accompany your Jewish lifestyle. ;) In addition, with the remaining money ($1.3 million), you deprive students of clothing, force them to eat foods they don't like, or put them on portions, and then you purposefully put students into situations to break their contracts, at the last minute, so that you can prevent them from participating in any kind of social activities (ex: movies, trips, etc.). There's no oversight over how money's spent, how much is spent on each student, or where the money's ultimately going. That school is run by the seat of its pants...literally. Parents are manipulated into believing that all's well, when their lower-functioning son/daughter can't express himself/herself when being tortured, deprived, or ignored. This self-righteous master of deception lives the ultimate lifestyle...real-estate, $$$, the ability to manipulate employees, and free will to torture students. From my experience supervising many of the residences, as needed, they always put the least amount of staff necessary to a house to avoid having to employ all of its staff. Many times, this left staff at risk of becoming frustrated and abusing students, or causing students to notice this and attempting to attack staff. Many times, we used JRC’s intranet site to post our concerns/opinions, but they were either ignored and never posted for others to see, or you were looked at as a threat to the "status quo". Let's get into aversives... I have never in my life seen the torture that goes on in this school. Many times, I would personally stand in front of a camera when I suspected that a student was going to exhibit a behavior so that I wouldn't have to administer a GED (shock). Many times, I felt guilt, pity, or shame for being a part of this system, which derives its profit from the misery of others. Yes, it's said that parents have to give permission to go on GEDs (Graduated Electronic Devices), and that the judge also has to approve the treatment, but those kids are the ones ultimately being tortured. If I had to be on those devices, and was administered more than 1 per day for ridiculous JRC socially-unacceptable behaviors (ex: nagging, failure to raise my hand to speak out in class), I would have gone insane and killed someone. There have been students receiving up to 50+ more/day. I'm surprised that many of those kids actually tolerate such cruel form of torture. I feel for them because on many occasions, when I had to rotate their GEDs on an hourly basis, I noticed scars that were months old, and marks that would remain with them, possibly, for the rest of their lives. These marks were actual burns from this device, which is powered by a battery (12v, 24, and even 36v), and lasts for 2 seconds. I administered one to myself in training just to see what it would be like to be giving them to the students. The 12v alone will bring a tear to your eye, even if you don’t flinch, and leaves a red burn mark…imagine a 24v, or even a 36v device. These GEDs can either be placed on your arms, around your waist, on your lower legs, in the center of a special shoes, on a board from which you can't remove your hand, or even in a glove. There are artists at the school who build these devices, and are constantly trying to come up with new methods under Mr. Torture’s approval to get the most aversive effect from its administration. In the end, These people who work there (staff or EE's) are encouraged to write nice letters to all participating agencies associated with them, the parents, etc...all in order to keep their jobs, and the school open. There are many things I could go on about, but if they found out who I was, I would be legally responsible, since they make us sign papers, as they do all employees, to never say what goes on there, to avoid a lawsuit , and prosecution against us. However, being one of God's own, human laws don't apply to me, especially when it concerns inhumane treatment. I'm here to motivate, and teach people on how to fight against laws, policies, and procedures of unethical human beings who deceive people to make $$$.
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This is why we need to step back and look at all facets and weigh each one carefully. You may feel Brian is out of touch, how do we know that Rob is mentally sound or has an accurate memory of events which occurred. We don’t……maybe all the reports positive and negative are inaccurate or tainted. This is one of the problems of playing this out in the media spot light… negative reports sell a lot more papers.
I don’t think any of us should make up our minds about JRC based on a single report or several even. What I think is encouraging is that many organizations are getting involved to investigate JRC and their treatment of children. If JRC is abusing kids then they should be shut down. But if the shock treatment is found to improve childrens/peoples lives and can be better regulated then we would see an increase in the quality of lives of many children and adults.
...
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Excerpted from the quote in the post above Who’s prattle.
Submitted by Notorious Forever (not verified) on Thu Aug. 30, 2007 5:06 PM PDT.
I worked at JRC for almost 2 years. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly...all under the same roof, and extending to almost every residence I supervised. I saw everything from corruption to torture...
... These people who work there (staff or EE's) are encouraged to write nice letters to all participating agencies associated with them, the parents, etc...all in order to keep their jobs, and the school open. There are many things I could go on about, but if they found out who I was, I would be legally responsible, since they make us sign papers, as they do all employees, to never say what goes on there, to avoid a lawsuit , and prosecution against us. However, being one of God's own, human laws don't apply to me, especially when it concerns inhumane treatment. I'm here to motivate, and teach people on how to fight against laws, policies, and procedures of unethical human beings who deceive people to make $$$.
See that’s the upshot of the DoJ involvement. Those non-disclosure agreements don’t preclude employees against answering the inquiries of such investigations (re: abuses and restraint deaths etc.).
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Actually,
The glowing review of the brutality of JRC for Child Torture doesn't even really matter. The discussion about "alternatives" *wank wank* doesn't even matter. What matters is when someone rolls an M-1a2 MBT right through the front doors of the place and the TC says to Mr. Israel, "Say hello to my little friend" right before he pumps a 120 mm Beehive anti-personnel round directly into Israel's sick face.
One glowing review of JRC means nothing. 10 glowing reviews of JRC means nothing. 1000 Glowing reviews of JRC means nothing. 10 Million glowing reviews of JRC means absolutely nothing. The fact that Brian's inability to process what was done to him means nothing to me other than myself getting the impression that this Brian kid is a raving idiot for not being able to muster up the rage over being hooked up to a dog collar and being treated worst than an animal. JRC uses a sick, abusive, and dangerous child abuse technique to scare children straight.
So fuck you Danny for even supporting something like this right after I read this:
Employees shocked him for aggressive behavior, he says, but also for minor misdeeds, like yelling or cursing. Each shock lasts two seconds. "It hurts like hell," Rob says. (The school's staff claim it is no more painful than a bee sting; when I tried the shock, it felt like a horde of wasps attacking me all at once. Two seconds never felt so long.) On several occasions, Rob was tied facedown to a four-point restraint board and shocked over and over again by a person he couldn't see. The constant threat of being zapped did persuade him to act less aggressively, but at a high cost. "I thought of killing myself a few times," he says.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock (http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock)
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Che you don't even know this to be a fact and your telling me to fuck myself. Ok, great.
Now I know where all this anger is from now, thanks for dragging it all over fornits.
Well I don't know what to say you think you have it all figured out and I don't and I also don't think
you do either.
Danny
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I think it should be pointed out that it doesn’t seem to be JRC this “Notorious forever†guy has a problem with and he also doesn’t seem too concerned with human rights:
Excerpt from “Notorious foreverâ€:
I also feel a need to mention that Mr. Israel is not only Jewish, but the actual judge, Rotenberg, who allowed Mr. Israel to establish this center in MA, for who it is named after, was also Jewish.
So, since you're making out in Real-Estate, you decide to take a cut in pay, even though you still get an annual Salary to accompany your Jewish lifestyle.
...
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See that’s the upshot of the DoJ involvement. Those non-disclosure agreements don’t preclude employees against answering the inquiries of such investigations (re: abuses and restraint deaths etc.).
Almost every company has their employees sign a non-disclosure. It is intended to protect the company from theft of proprietary information and processes.
For example an employee of JRC probably could not discuss the specifics of the GED with people outside the company.. how it is applied, monitored or procedures used to control it etc. But if there are abuses going on then the non-disclosure doesn’t prevent employees from speaking about them.
But I do agree with you that the Department of Justice investigation will put to bed many of the conflicting reports that we have been reading about here and get down to what is really going on at JRC. I think the controversy will continue either way, though, because many people just have a fundamental aversion to shock therapy from what I have read here.
...
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http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-school-f (http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-school-f) ... hocks.html
US school for disabled forces students to wear packs that deliver massive electric shocks
Diana Sweet
Raw Story
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has filed a report and urgent appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts, violates the UN Convention against Torture.
The rights group submitted their report this week, titled “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center,†after an in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of its disabled and emotionally troubled students.
Findings in the MDRI report include the center’s practice of subjecting children to electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso — in many cases for years — as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child’s back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).
The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45 milliamps — more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.
A former employee of the center told an investigator, “When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is ‘like a bee sting’ and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids.â€
Noting that it believes United States law fails to provide needed protections to children and adults with disabilities, MDRI calls for the immediate end to the use of electric shock and long-term restraints as a form of behavior modification or treatment and a ban on the infliction of severe pain for so-called therapeutic purposes.
“Torture as treatment should be banned and prosecuted under criminal law,†the report states.
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a “routine investigation†of the center in February of this year in response to a September 2009 letter signed by 31 disability organizations claiming that the center violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge Rotenberg CEO and founder Dr. Matthew L. Israel began his first program in California back in 1977. In 1981, a 14-year old boy died face down, tied to his bed, while living in the California center. Dr. Israel was not held responsible for the death. After an investigation by the State of California, Israel relocated to Rhode Island, and then to Massachusetts, where his facility still operates today.
Mother Jones magazine published an extensive investigative report on the Rotenberg Center in 2007 titled “School of Shock.†Reporter Jennifer Gonnerman asked, “How many times do you have to zap a child before it’s torture?â€
Children at the Judge Rotenberg Center are often shackled, restrained and secluded for months at a time, the report says. Social isolation, and food deprivation as forms of punishment are common. Mock and threatened stabbings — to forcibly elicit unacceptable behaviors resulting in electric shock punishments (Labeled as Behavioral Research Lessons or BRLs, by the center) were reported to MDRI as well as state regulatory bodies.
A former student of the center reportedly tells MDRI, “The worst thing ever was the BRLs. They try and make you do a bad behavior and then they punish you. The first time I had a BRL, two guys came in the room and grabbed me – I had no idea what was going on. They held a knife to my throat and I started to scream and I got shocked. I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn’t even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror.â€
Behaviors that the center deemed “aggressive,†as well as those considered “minor,†or “non-compliant†— such as raising one’s hand without permission — are all considered punishable by electric shocks, restraints, and other punishments to students.
“One girl who was blind, deaf and non-verbal was moaning and rocking,†a former teacher says in the report. “Her moaning was like a cry. The staff shocked her for moaning. Turned out she had broken a tooth. Another child had an accident in the bathroom and was shocked.â€
The rights group investigation found that the Rotenberg center is the only known facility in the United States, “Or perhaps the world,†that employs the use of electricity, long-term restraints and other punishments to deliberately inflict pain upon its children and then refer to it as “treatment.†The electric shocks alone are cited as having possible long-term effects such as muscle stiffness, impotence, damage to teeth, scarring of the skin, hair loss, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), severe depression, chronic anxiety, memory loss and sleep disturbances.
The MDRI report states that more than any other source for its information, they relied upon information readily obtained from the Judge Rotenberg Center’s own website.
In response to MDRI’s report, the Judge Rotenberg Center said, “There is no credible evidence that for these most severe forms of behavior disorders, there is any pharmacological or psychological treatment that can effectively treat these students or even keep them safe. JRC is the only program willing to address the reality of these children’s disorders and endure the political firestorm in order to save these children and give them an education and a future.â€
The complete rebuttal from the center can be read in full at JRC’s website.
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Report Filed By Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) (http://http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf)
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Secret Dwarf Hooker
:rofl: :rofl:
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Secret Dwarf Hooker
:rofl: :rofl:
"If I find out that you're lying, I'll cut your hairless little prick off before you even figure out what it's for. Do you understand me?"
(http://http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/movies-mark-adams/Orphan%20020809.jpg)
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Secret Dwarf Hooker
:rofl: :rofl:
"If I find out that you're lying, I'll cut your hairless little prick off before you even figure out what it's for. Do you understand me?"
(http://http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/movies-mark-adams/Orphan%20020809.jpg)
Good movie. Great acting by the little psycho.
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http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-school-f ... hocks.html
US school for disabled forces students to wear packs that deliver massive electric shocks
Diana Sweet
Raw Story
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has filed a report and urgent appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts, violates the UN Convention against Torture.
The rights group submitted their report this week, titled “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center,†after an in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of its disabled and emotionally troubled students.
Findings in the MDRI report include the center’s practice of subjecting children to electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso — in many cases for years — as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child’s back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).
The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45 milliamps — more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.
A former employee of the center told an investigator, “When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is ‘like a bee sting’ and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids.â€
Noting that it believes United States law fails to provide needed protections to children and adults with disabilities, MDRI calls for the immediate end to the use of electric shock and long-term restraints as a form of behavior modification or treatment and a ban on the infliction of severe pain for so-called therapeutic purposes.
“Torture as treatment should be banned and prosecuted under criminal law,†the report states.
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a “routine investigation†of the center in February of this year in response to a September 2009 letter signed by 31 disability organizations claiming that the center violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge Rotenberg CEO and founder Dr. Matthew L. Israel began his first program in California back in 1977. In 1981, a 14-year old boy died face down, tied to his bed, while living in the California center. Dr. Israel was not held responsible for the death. After an investigation by the State of California, Israel relocated to Rhode Island, and then to Massachusetts, where his facility still operates today.
Mother Jones magazine published an extensive investigative report on the Rotenberg Center in 2007 titled “School of Shock.†Reporter Jennifer Gonnerman asked, “How many times do you have to zap a child before it’s torture?â€
Children at the Judge Rotenberg Center are often shackled, restrained and secluded for months at a time, the report says. Social isolation, and food deprivation as forms of punishment are common. Mock and threatened stabbings — to forcibly elicit unacceptable behaviors resulting in electric shock punishments (Labeled as Behavioral Research Lessons or BRLs, by the center) were reported to MDRI as well as state regulatory bodies.
A former student of the center reportedly tells MDRI, “The worst thing ever was the BRLs. They try and make you do a bad behavior and then they punish you. The first time I had a BRL, two guys came in the room and grabbed me – I had no idea what was going on. They held a knife to my throat and I started to scream and I got shocked. I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn’t even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror.â€
Behaviors that the center deemed “aggressive,†as well as those considered “minor,†or “non-compliant†— such as raising one’s hand without permission — are all considered punishable by electric shocks, restraints, and other punishments to students.
“One girl who was blind, deaf and non-verbal was moaning and rocking,†a former teacher says in the report. “Her moaning was like a cry. The staff shocked her for moaning. Turned out she had broken a tooth. Another child had an accident in the bathroom and was shocked.â€
The rights group investigation found that the Rotenberg center is the only known facility in the United States, “Or perhaps the world,†that employs the use of electricity, long-term restraints and other punishments to deliberately inflict pain upon its children and then refer to it as “treatment.†The electric shocks alone are cited as having possible long-term effects such as muscle stiffness, impotence, damage to teeth, scarring of the skin, hair loss, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), severe depression, chronic anxiety, memory loss and sleep disturbances.
The MDRI report states that more than any other source for its information, they relied upon information readily obtained from the Judge Rotenberg Center’s own website.
In response to MDRI’s report, the Judge Rotenberg Center said, “There is no credible evidence that for these most severe forms of behavior disorders, there is any pharmacological or psychological treatment that can effectively treat these students or even keep them safe. JRC is the only program willing to address the reality of these children’s disorders and endure the political firestorm in order to save these children and give them an education and a future.â€
The complete rebuttal from the center can be read in full at JRC’s website.
Anne, Do you really think that the staff hold people down with a knife to their throat to administer the shock therapy? You swallow this whole, no questions asked? You dont question why a place like JRC would issue knives as part of the procedure and train their staff how to hold people down at knife point? Are you so far off onto the fringe that you buy this without question?
Then you reject the personal accounts of how the shock therapy has help people move on with their lives? Have you read the rebuttal by JRC? The reason why fornits has lost much of its credibility is because people like you are not forth coming and swallow every negative article you can find and then reject the rest as brainwashed babble.
Like I said I am not advocating shock therapy because I dont have all the facts but "rush to judgments" like yours just shows how dishonest the information presented on fornits really is. why are you afraid to look at both sides fairly and make up you mind after the department of Justice finishes their investigation? or read the rebuttal that JRC put out? They have a right to defend themselves too.
Look at the good with the bad... maybe this place should be shut down or maybe shock therapy has a place in our society to really help some people. Why close your eyes to this possibility?
...
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Anne, Do you really think that the staff hold people down with a knife to their throat to administer the shock therapy? You swallow this whole, no questions asked? You dont question why a place like JRC would issue knives as part of the procedure and train their staff how to hold people down at knife point? Are you so far off onto the fringe that you buy this without question?
I can't actually speak for Anne, but I don't see where she explicitly said that. And I myself don't know whether they use real knives or fake knives in this exercise of wanton power run amok. But this point is but secondary, unless an accident occurs.
The primary and most relevant issue or truth here is that the student is under the impression that the knives are real. THAT is the whole point behind the Behavior Rehearsal Lessons (BRLs), which are intended to elicit so-called unacceptable behaviors or reactions to stimuli, e.g., F-E-A-R, and for which the kids then get zapped. I imagine the intended lesson is that the student viscerally associates the unacceptable behavior with the aversive electrical accompaniment. S/he is not going to react if s/he knows the knives are fake.
This of course brings up the likelihood of residual trauma from all this. But that's for another post.
From Torture not Treatment (http://http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf): Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center, Urgent Appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Presented by Mental Disability Rights International:
Additionally, children are shackled, restrained and secluded for months at a time. Social isolation and food deprivation as punishment is common.
Mock and threatened stabbings – to forcibly elicit unacceptable behaviors which then result in electric shock punishments (known as Behavioral Research Lessons or BRLs) - have been reported to MDRI and state regulatory bodies as well.
The worst thing ever was the BRLs. They try and make you do a bad behavior and then they punish you. The first time I had a BRL, two guys came in the room and grabbed me – I had no idea what was going on. They held a knife to my throat and I started to scream and I got shocked. I had BRL's three times a week for stuff I didn't even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror. – MDRI interview with former JRC student[/list][/list]
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"If I find out that you're lying, I'll cut your hairless little prick off before you even figure out what it's for. Do you understand me?"
At least Esther had the foresight to wear gloves.
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Anyway, the relevant issue or truth here is that the former student was under that impression. THAT is the whole point behind the Behavioral Research Lessons (BRLs), which are intended to elicit so-called unacceptable behaviors or reactions to stimuli, e.g., F-E-A-R, and for which the kids then get zapped.
We don’t know that,Ursus. Maybe he was under the impression. Maybe he isn’t telling the truth. The point is I find it interesting that out of all the reading, all the positive accounts and all the negative accounts that you and Anne tend to believe this “Shocking at knife point†over all the other articles.
There are kids who did really well there and never indicated that they were held down at knife point and administered shock therapy. They never indicated that they were in Fear.
So what we are seeing is many conflicting reports of how business is conducted inside JRC and there is an ongoing investigation. Why close your mind to only one possible outcome? Your handling of this discussion is very telling of how you cherry pick articles to suit your precluded outcome. I get the impression many here really don’t care about the truth. They just want places shut down without ever knowing if there was value there that could help children live a better life.
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Anne, Do you really think that the staff hold people down with a knife to their throat to administer the shock therapy? You swallow this whole, no questions asked? You dont question why a place like JRC would issue knives as part of the procedure and train their staff how to hold people down at knife point? Are you so far off onto the fringe that you buy this without question?
I can't actually speak for Anne, but I don't see where she explicitly said that. And I myself don't know whether they use real knives or fake knives in this exercise of wanton power run amok. But this point is but secondary, unless an accident occurs.
The primary and most relevant issue or truth here is that the student is under the impression that the knives are real. THAT is the whole point behind the Behavior Rehearsal Lessons (BRLs), which are intended to elicit so-called unacceptable behaviors or reactions to stimuli, e.g., F-E-A-R, and for which the kids then get zapped. I imagine the intended lesson is that the student viscerally associates the unacceptable behavior with the aversive electrical accompaniment. S/he is not going to react if s/he knows the knives are fake.
This of course brings up the likelihood of residual trauma from all this. But that's for another post.
From Torture not Treatment (http://http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf): Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center, Urgent Appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Presented by Mental Disability Rights International:
Additionally, children are shackled, restrained and secluded for months at a time. Social isolation and food deprivation as punishment is common.
Mock and threatened stabbings – to forcibly elicit unacceptable behaviors which then result in electric shock punishments (known as Behavioral Research Lessons or BRLs) - have been reported to MDRI and state regulatory bodies as well.
The worst thing ever was the BRLs. They try and make you do a bad behavior and then they punish you. The first time I had a BRL, two guys came in the room and grabbed me – I had no idea what was going on. They held a knife to my throat and I started to scream and I got shocked. I had BRL's three times a week for stuff I didn't even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror. – MDRI interview with former JRC student[/list][/list]
:shamrock: :shamrock:
This has gone from surreal and into insane. Now you folks are going to tell me you actually do believe knives are being used or "at least the impression" they are being used to elicit a reaction, which then because of his reaction to the knives he can be shocked so they can study the reaction. Well shit that happens in prison everyday unscripted only there not using electricity.
I was under the impression this said patient was being held by knives so he could be shocked for misbehavior. This was not a treatment or a study or a BRL, this was just abuse by some crazy staff who should be shot on site. Now I am not saying this was written verbatim in the article. It was just my take on it, could be wrong. Then again I am on the other side of the issue so of course I see it differently.
Danny
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The primary and most relevant issue or truth here is that the student is under the impression that the knives are real. THAT is the whole point behind the Behavior Rehearsal Lessons (BRLs), which are intended to elicit so-called unacceptable behaviors or reactions to stimuli, e.g., F-E-A-R, and for which the kids then get zapped.
We don’t know that,Ursus. Maybe he was under the impression. Maybe he isn’t telling the truth. The point is I find it interesting that out of all the reading, all the positive accounts and all the negative accounts that you and Anne tend to believe this “Shocking at knife point†over all the other articles.
Oh, I'm sure he was telling the truth as far as the usage of knives are concerned. Matthew Israel himself is quite unabashed about using knives in the context of treating students who have a history of self-harm in that manner. But I'd agree with you that Israel's description doesn't entirely comport with the overall impression one is left with from MDRI's above quoted "Torture Not Treatment (http://http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf)" report. That may or may not make a difference to folks. I think there are other problems even in a best case scenario that are certainly not addressed by Israel.
Just so that we're all on the same page as far as the source material is concerned, here is a lengthy excerpt re. the usage of knives during BRLs from JRC's faq page (http://http://www.judgerc.org/):
There are certain behaviors that are so dangerous to the student or to others that one wants to prevent them from occurring even one more time, if one can.
<snip snip>
In such situations behavior rehearsal lessons are applied as follows. One prompts the student to engage in the first phase of the behavior. For example one prompts a student to pick up a knife and begin to direct it toward his arm as though to cut it with the knife. Then one arranges an aversive stimulus, for example one administers a GED skin shock. This is called a behavior rehearsal lesson. The student is prompted (against his will if necessary) to begin the undesired behavior (i.e., to move the knife in the direction of the arm) and is then receives an aversive stimulus while engaging in that beginning phase of the behavior.
The purpose of the procedure is to transfer some of the aversive properties of the GED stimulus to the internal stimuli that are generated by the beginning phase of the behavior. This transfer is accomplished by the pairing the beginning phase of the behavior with the GED stimulation. The intention is that if this can be done, then the following will happen: when, on a future occasion, the student begins to engage in the problem behavior, the beginning phase of the behavior will automatically generate conditioned aversive properties and the student will then terminate these conditioned aversive properties by refraining from engaging in the behavior. Typically the student will be given a certain number - say 3 or 4 - such lessons during a week at random times. Then as the student progresses, the frequency is diminished to a zero level.[/list]
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Here is the key part I have a real problem with:
The student is prompted (against his will if necessary) to begin the undesired behavior (i.e., to move the knife in the direction of the arm) and is then receives an aversive stimulus while engaging in that beginning phase of the behavior.[/list]
My best guess, and it is truly naught more than a guess, is that the student quoted above (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30485&start=135#p363944) was "prompted" against his will to move said knife in whatever direction as was his particular predilection for self-harm. Who knows what that exactly entailed. One could certainly picture staff forcing the knife into his hand and then forcibly holding that hand with the knife as they go through the motions of the scenario for which he will be subsequently shocked.
Again, I really don't know this for sure. It is but one scenario that is consistent with both Matthew Israel's description of his "therapeutic" methods, as well as the student's consequent trauma over said "cure."
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“The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulsesâ€
-Bertrand Russell
In this case, methods at Judge Rotenberg Center appear to at least entertain Matthew Israel’s sadistic bent.
For as long as there are those who would sanction unconscionable acts of cruelty under the auspices of therapeutic intervention there will be places like JRC to inflict and profit from suffering.
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Re: new JRC Article
Postby Ursus » Today, 20:48
Ursus wrote: The primary and most relevant issue or truth here is that the student is under the impression that the knives are real. THAT is the whole point behind the Behavior Rehearsal Lessons (BRLs), which are intended to elicit so-called unacceptable behaviors or reactions to stimuli, e.g., F-E-A-R, and for which the kids then get zapped.
Whooter wrote: We don’t know that,Ursus. Maybe he was under the impression. Maybe he isn’t telling the truth. The point is I find it interesting that out of all the reading, all the positive accounts and all the negative accounts that you and Anne tend to believe this “Shocking at knife point†over all the other articles.
Ursus wrote: Oh, I'm sure he was telling the truth as far as the usage of knives are concerned. Matthew Israel himself is quite unabashed about using knives in the context of treating students who have a history of self-harm in that manner. But I'd agree with you that Israel's description doesn't entirely comport with the overall impression one is left with from MDRI's above quoted "Torture Not Treatment" report. That may or may not make a difference to folks. I think there are other problems even in a best case scenario that are certainly not addressed by Israel.
Just so that we're all on the same page as far as the source material is concerned, here is a lengthy excerpt re. the usage of knives during BRLs from JRC's faq page:
There are certain behaviors that are so dangerous to the student or to others that one wants to prevent them from occurring even one more time, if one can.
<snip snip>
In such situations behavior rehearsal lessons are applied as follows. One prompts the student to engage in the first phase of the behavior. For example one prompts a student to pick up a knife and begin to direct it toward his arm as though to cut it with the knife. Then one arranges an aversive stimulus, for example one administers a GED skin shock. This is called a behavior rehearsal lesson. The student is prompted (against his will if necessary) to begin the undesired behavior (i.e., to move the knife in the direction of the arm) and is then receives an aversive stimulus while engaging in that beginning phase of the behavior.
The purpose of the procedure is to transfer some of the aversive properties of the GED stimulus to the internal stimuli that are generated by the beginning phase of the behavior. This transfer is accomplished by the pairing the beginning phase of the behavior with the GED stimulation. The intention is that if this can be done, then the following will happen: when, on a future occasion, the student begins to engage in the problem behavior, the beginning phase of the behavior will automatically generate conditioned aversive properties and the student will then terminate these conditioned aversive properties by refraining from engaging in the behavior. Typically the student will be given a certain number - say 3 or 4 - such lessons during a week at random times. Then as the student progresses, the frequency is diminished to a zero level.
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Re: new JRC Article
Postby Ursus » 57 minutes ago
Here is the key part I have a real problem with:
The student is prompted (against his will if necessary) to begin the undesired behavior (i.e., to move the knife in the direction of the arm) and is then receives an aversive stimulus while engaging in that beginning phase of the behavior.
My best guess, and it is truly naught more than a guess, is that the student quoted above was "prompted" against his will to move said knife in whatever direction as was his particular predilection for self-harm. Who knows what that exactly entailed. One could certainly picture staff forcing the knife into his hand and then forcibly holding that hand with the knife as they go through the motions of the scenario for which he will be subsequently shocked.
Again, I really don't know this for sure. It is but one scenario that is consistent with both Matthew Israel's description of his "therapeutic" methods, as well as the student's consequent trauma over said "cure."
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Thanks for your informative comments and the excerpts from the articles, Ursus. I mean this don't know if it matters to you but it does to me.
From first hand knowledge I have witnessed the bodies prior to coming in to a place like JRC. Especially the patients that harm themselves. The arms, legs and torso's look like they were hit by a land mine in some cases in others it looks like they walked into a hail storm of knives, just ask around here I am sure there are folks not commenting that know exactly what I am talking about. These children did not have any help either they did this to themselves over and over. The scars on their heads and upper face, around the forehead and eye sockets from banging their heads constantly. How much swelling of the brain has happened with each incident.
Ursus I am not defending abuse I have said this over and over, you know this but I am also not going to just drop a form of treatment for these kids that can help them from doing this. I don't have enough info to keep me from changing my mind. I want to see the results of the investigation.
Danny
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Former Teacher Statement (http://http://www.dpcma.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=yoHzsOYWtg4%3D&tabid=790&mid=2065)
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Jesus fucking Christ.. That report made me slightly ill to my stomach.
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Former Teacher Statement (http://http://www.dpcma.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=yoHzsOYWtg4%3D&tabid=790&mid=2065)
"I would like to share memories with you that I have of observing students displaying significant signs of traumatic stress from watching other students receive electric shocks at the Judge Rotenberg Center."
Despite the atrocities in the article, I thought I might just point out this specifically. That it is not just one shock, but engages an alterd state of consciousness (fear) in the group of peers. We can't predict the amount of dissociation that a single shock will produce in an individual based on how their individual experience of it, and it is probably less likely that we can determine the traumatic effect on each ...student (? ... i believe we lack a language) when they watch each other suffer. There is just no way to know. Even more disturbing is that they cannot go to ease the one suffering, actually are supposed to act ignorant of it.
Personally, I thought I was tough enough to watch the latest SAW movie, but I pretty much had to look away half the time. Even in a fake context I just can't help but imagine it happening to me and cringe at it, But that is a movie. In an intense interpersonal context where we strongly identify with each others position it can very easily be the case that someone would rather be shocked than watch the other suffer.
This is not treating an individual with a symptom, it is highly dependent on developing a peer group homeostasis within this context.
It is important to consider that some people may display abnormal behavior that we may not yet know how to treat with conventional means, but if we answer problematic behavior by justifying equally abhorrent behavior we are allowing one persons problem to become pathological on the social level. When we let extremely unique conditions that exist in an individual become a reason that we should react on a societal level with abnormal behavior, forceful, abhorrent behavior it means we have bought into an answer where there is none. As an answer to the unanswerable we accept these institutions into our society and then the individual symptom becomes a symptom for the rest of us.
This may very well affect many people's decision to have children. Who would want to bring up a child in a world where this is a possibility? Is it really one shock if it has such a widespread effect?
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Anne, Do you really think that the staff hold people down with a knife to their throat to administer the shock therapy? You swallow this whole, no questions asked? You dont question why a place like JRC would issue knives as part of the procedure and train their staff how to hold people down at knife point? Are you so far off onto the fringe that you buy this without question?
I never said that....but they do admit to using knives in their role playing "therapies" for cutters. Which I find horrific as well.
Then you reject the personal accounts of how the shock therapy has help people move on with their lives? Have you read the rebuttal by JRC?
Never said that either and yes, I've read it throughly.
The reason why fornits has lost much of its credibility is because people like you are not forth coming and swallow every negative article you can find and then reject the rest as brainwashed babble.
Your words, not mine. And what am I not forthcoming about? A bit of the pot calling the kettle black, right "just a program parent"?
Like I said I am not advocating shock therapy because I dont have all the facts but "rush to judgments" like yours just shows how dishonest the information presented on fornits really is. why are you afraid to look at both sides fairly and make up you mind after the department of Justice finishes their investigation? or read the rebuttal that JRC put out? They have a right to defend themselves too.
Never said they didn't. I have a right to my opinion about their "therapy". Who's the one threatened by a differing opinion??
Look at the good with the bad... maybe this place should be shut down or maybe shock therapy has a place in our society to really help some people. Why close your eyes to this possibility?
Who's the one threatened by a differing opinion??
The line has to be drawn somewhere. For me, constant shocking of kids and having them live in a constant state of fear goes way beyond that line. Obviously you feel differently. In fact, I've never seen a line you won't cross....all in the name of "help", mind you. Time for the Lewis quote again!
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
English essayist & juvenile novelist (1898 - 1963)
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This has gone from surreal and into insane. Now you folks are going to tell me you actually do believe knives are being used or "at least the impression" they are being used to elicit a reaction, which then because of his reaction to the knives he can be shocked so they can study the reaction.
Yes. Sick, isn't it?
Well shit that happens in prison everyday unscripted only there not using electricity.
And that has...ummm, what to do with this situation?
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Who's the one threatened by a differing opinion??
I don’t want to go through the whole thread (jotting down names) but it appears yourself, Ursus, Pile are a few that don’t seem to want to discuss any of the positive feedback received from former students when it comes up. You only seem to focus on the negative reports. Just pointing out that it is healthy to recognize all the facets of the issues and leave everything on the table.
The line has to be drawn somewhere. For me, constant shocking of kids and having them live in a constant state of fear goes way beyond that line. Obviously you feel differently. In fact, I've never seen a line you won't cross....all in the name of "help", mind you.
You said it goes way beyond the line but you never defined where the line is drawn for you. Can you be more specific? Just curious. If you haven’t seen a line I wouldn’t cross then you haven’t been reading here very much prior to posting. I don’t think the kids should be in a constant state of fear or continuously shocked either. The whole introduction of a knife into therapy baffles me. I don’t understand why that is needed and it is difficult to decipher where the facts end and the stories begin.
But none of those issues, so far, negates the use of Shock therapy (in my view).
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You just don't get it Whooter! Anybody who ever talks about a positive experience in treatment is brainwashed or too stupid to know what's good for them. Here the geniuses at fornits think tank debate the inner workings of child treatment and come up with the best solutions in the world, that is why they are paid so much. Don't forget about the fornits definition of abuse and oppression, according to fornits everybody is a victim.
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LOL...Oh, Whooter. STICC it up your ass. Until you free your mind from the group think of your TTI cronies, you'll always be thrashing around in the dark. Anne Bonney or anyone else with spare time thrashes you until you cry out in butt-hurt anguish. Squeal a bit louder for me, boy.
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Here are some links for those interested:
November 2009 Testimonies at the State House:
Here is a guy who was on shock therapy for several years Left in 2008 and only received 5 to 7 shocks his whole time there. Married now with 2 kids and says the GED really turned him around
Pucha Marcos Link (http://http://www.judgerc.org/StateHouseTestimonies/22.%20Marcos%20Pucha%20State%20House%20Testimony%2011.4.09.wmv)
A woman who was helped after a long history of being institutionalized in various other settings:
Arecelias Sanchez Link (http://http://www.judgerc.org/StateHouseTestimonies/43.%20Robert%20vonHeyn%20Aracelis%20Sanchez%20State%20House%20Testimony1%2011.4.09.wmv)
The 3 didn’t feel they were in fear during the time they were under the GED therapy. They all seemed to be on a rewards system.
Q&A State House Testimony (http://http://www.judgerc.org/StateHouseTestimonies/38.%20Q&A%20Marini%20Pucha%20Sanchez%20vonHeyn%20State%20House%20Testimony%2011.4.09.wmv)
Sitting thru these testimonies it becomes obvious that the therapy can be successful and help people but then reading the horrors of the more negative accounts raises the questions: How is this therapy controlled? Are the staff allowed to go off the procedures or are the procedures not detailed enough to control when a child is to receive a shock? Why would they need to hold a knife to the throat of a person receiving the shock when they have a backpack on? This doesn't add up or make sense.
There are still a lot of open issues but it doesnt seem likely that Shock therapy (as defined here) will be considered abusive or inhumane.
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Until you free your mind from the group think of your TTI cronies, you'll always be thrashing around in the dark. Anne Bonney or anyone else with spare time thrashes you until you cry out in butt-hurt anguish. Squeal a bit louder for me, boy.
Ironically this is the same type of "brainwashing " and "emotional abuse" that people here claim gives them a right to claim victimhood for life, but yet Whooter is subjected to this exact same "abuse" that people claim happened to them in programs and he doesn't claim to be a survivor of intense LGAT brainwashing fornits sessions. I think it's high time that Whooter label himself a survivor of abuse like the other people here! Free your mind whooter or we will subject you to continued abuse and try to find out who you are in real life so we can harrass you and make websites that slander you and your work so that you lose your salary and your family is moved out onto the street! Hell yeah, fornits is not hypocritcal and psychotic at all, right???? :roflmao: :roflmao: WHooter has been through more abuse and threats here on fornits than most of the "survivors" can say happened to them in treatment, fucking psycho losers this cult of fornits is. Long live Whooter and his rational common sense argument!
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Until you free your mind from the group think of your TTI cronies, you'll always be thrashing around in the dark. Anne Bonney or anyone else with spare time thrashes you until you cry out in butt-hurt anguish. Squeal a bit louder for me, boy.
Ironically this is the same type of "brainwashing " and "emotional abuse" that people here claim gives them a right to claim victimhood for life, but yet Whooter is subjected to this exact same "abuse" that people claim happened to them in programs and he doesn't claim to be a survivor of intense LGAT brainwashing fornits sessions. I think it's high time that Whooter label himself a survivor of abuse like the other people here! Free your mind whooter or we will subject you to continued abuse and try to find out who you are in real life so we can harrass you and make websites that slander you and your work so that you lose your salary and your family is moved out onto the street! Hell yeah, fornits is not hypocritcal and psychotic at all, right???? :roflmao: :roflmao: WHooter has been through more abuse and threats here on fornits than most of the "survivors" can say happened to them in treatment, fucking psycho losers this cult of fornits is. Long live Whooter and his rational common sense argument!
:guesswho:
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Former Teacher Statement (http://http://www.dpcma.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=yoHzsOYWtg4%3D&tabid=790&mid=2065)
"I would like to share memories with you that I have of observing students displaying significant signs of traumatic stress from watching other students receive electric shocks at the Judge Rotenberg Center."
Despite the atrocities in the article, I thought I might just point out this specifically. That it is not just one shock, but engages an alterd state of consciousness (fear) in the group of peers. We can't predict the amount of dissociation that a single shock will produce in an individual based on how their individual experience of it, and it is probably less likely that we can determine the traumatic effect on each ...student (? ... i believe we lack a language) when they watch each other suffer. There is just no way to know. Even more disturbing is that they cannot go to ease the one suffering, actually are supposed to act ignorant of it.
Personally, I thought I was tough enough to watch the latest SAW movie, but I pretty much had to look away half the time. Even in a fake context I just can't help but imagine it happening to me and cringe at it, But that is a movie. In an intense interpersonal context where we strongly identify with each others position it can very easily be the case that someone would rather be shocked than watch the other suffer.
This is not treating an individual with a symptom, it is highly dependent on developing a peer group homeostasis within this context.
It is important to consider that some people may display abnormal behavior that we may not yet know how to treat with conventional means, but if we answer problematic behavior by justifying equally abhorrent behavior we are allowing one persons problem to become pathological on the social level. When we let extremely unique conditions that exist in an individual become a reason that we should react on a societal level with abnormal behavior, forceful, abhorrent behavior it means we have bought into an answer where there is none. As an answer to the unanswerable we accept these institutions into our society and then the individual symptom becomes a symptom for the rest of us.
This may very well affect many people's decision to have children. Who would want to bring up a child in a world where this is a possibility? Is it really one shock if it has such a widespread effect?
What struck me, in reading Greg Miller's Affidavit (SDH's link), was how very much these kids have to suppress their own humanity in order to psychologically survive there. Just how "healthy" is that kind of dissociated state in the long run? Trauma generally has a long-lasting impact far out of proportion to the original harm. And when you consider that a number of these kids are non-verbal and may never be able to fully articulate the impact of their time there...
Here's an excerpt, the story of G.M. (the entirety of Miller's affidavit is copied out HERE (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22955&p=364180#p364178), in another thread):
I would like to share one more memory that stands out in my mind of students showing signs of severe stress in response to watching others get shocked. G.M., a high functioning adult male with a long history at JRC, had swallowed a small blade from an eX-Acto Kife kit. It embedded in his gut and had to be removed surgically. So JRC's response was to leave him strapped up in leg, arm, and waist restraints all day while at school. Then three days or more per week, when G.M. was least expecting it, a staff would rush in the large classroom with a plastic knife, repeatedly yelling loudly the words, "Do you want to swallow a knife?" The staff would put the blade up to G.M.'s mouth, and while G.M. was screaming at the top of his lungs in fear, moving the best he could, unable to defend himself due to the restraints, someone hiding with the GED remote control box would press the button. G.M.'s scream would change to the loud sound one might make with their last breath that they take that could be heard from the opposite side of the cement building. It was much like the movie, "Clockwork Orange" in principle.
G.M.'s "treatment" did not take place in a small classroom, or even in a room where G.M. was isolated from the rest of the students. This took place in a classroom with over 40 students. Sometimes new staff were not forewarned, and were confused whether they should protect the student from the aggressive staff. These "treatment" sessions were very violent for anybody to watch, and sometimes students sitting elsewhere in the classroom would jump up or scream out of fear. Staff were absolutely required to follow student programs and shock any student for "screaming" or for "Out of Seat without permission," or any other behavior, even though they were reacting out of fear and panic in seeing what was happening to their classmate. Students had to continue their task of counting 12 popsicle sticks and double-wrapping a rubber band around them as though oblivious to their classmate being violently attacked in front of them. Even stopping work had to be pinpointed during those intense moments and student plans followed — no exceptions.[/list]
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Just to keep it in perspective, why did Mr. Miller stay there three years? If abuse really did occur like he said it did why didn’t he report it to the authorities?
…..Greg Miller, a disgruntled former employee who appeared with Ms. Gonnerman on a National Public Radio piece that was stimulated by her article. Mr. Miller worked enthusiastically for JRC for three years during which he failed to raise any objections to JRC’s treatment to anyone. If he had seen anything abusive and failed to report it while employed at JRC, he violated his duty to report any suspected abuse to the appropriate state agency. After three years of employment, he was disciplined for insubordinate actions and then promptly resigned. No space is given to the hundreds or thousands of current or former staff members who have positive things to say about JRC.
Link to Article (http://http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf)
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Look, I am not saying that Mr. Miller is not telling the truth...... but......
One more thought to consider as we examine this place and those that speak:
Though laws vary from state to state , teachers in Massachusetts, like Mr. miller, are well aware that reports of child abuse are strictly confidential and that he would be protected from losing his job.
Investigators in Massachusetts can be jailed and fined for violating confidentiality laws. Professionals from a variety of fields are mandated to report suspected abuse like : Dentists, doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, social workers, teachers, photo lab developers, day care workers, foster parents, and law enforcement to name a few. Some states require anyone, even a neighbor, who suspects child abuse to report it.
So 3 years is a long time.
Why did Mr. miller wait until after he lost his job to cry foul? Why didn’t he feel this was abuse at the time?
...