When therapists go bad 2

There’s an item in the Times today about the Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachussets, a residential institution for children with severe behavioural problems, where students are wired up to electric shock machines in an attempt to address their aggressive, self-harming or violent behaviour. This regime was inspired by the works of Skinner, who fathered behaviour modification, with its system of negative and positive reinforcers. It’s rather a long article, but well worth a read. Here’s a snippet (the GED referred to in the extract is the shock delivery device): -

Before we set off on our tour of the institution, there’s something Israel wants me to see: Before & After, a home-made movie featuring six of his most severe cases. He has been using some of the same grainy footage for more than two decades, showing it to parents of prospective students as well as reporters. It shows how in 1977, an 11-year-old girl, Caroline, arrives at the school strapped on a stretcher, her head encased in a helmet. Next, free from restraints, she tries to smash her helmeted head against the floor. In 1981 it shows Janine, also 11, who shrieks and slams her head against the ground, a table, the door. Bald spots testify to the severity of her troubles; she’s yanked out so much hair it’s half gone. Compared with these scenes, the “after” footage looks almost unbelievable: Janine splashes in a pool; Caroline grins as she sits in a chair at a beauty salon.

“These are children for whom positive-only procedures did not work, drugs did not work,” says Israel. “And if it wasn’t for this treatment, some of these people would not be alive.” The video is very persuasive: the girls’ self-abuse is so violent and so frightening it almost makes me want to grab a GED remote and push the button myself. Of course, this is precisely the point.

Considering how compelling the after footage is, I am surprised to learn that five of the six children featured in it are still here. “This is Caroline,” one of my escorts says later as we walk down a corridor. Without an introduction, I would not have known. Caroline, 39, slumps forward in a wheelchair, her fists balled up, head covered by a red helmet. “Blow me a kiss, Caroline,” Israel says. She doesn’t respond.

There have been “successes”, and some parents approve of the treatment, particularly when no other school has been willing to deal with their children’s often extremely challenging behaviour: -

Marguerite Famolare brought her son Michael to the Rotenberg Center six years ago, after he attacked her so aggressively she had to call the police and, in a separate incident, flipped over the kitchen table onto a tutor. Michael, now 19, suffers from mental retardation and severe autism. These days, when he comes home for a visit, Marguerite carries his shock activator in her purse. All she has to do, she says, is show it to him: “He’ll automatically comply to whatever my signal command may be, whether it is ‘Put on your seat belt’ or ‘Sit appropriately and eat your food.’ It’s made him a civilised human being.”

However, it seems to me that being stripped of your dignity and forced to undergo treatment that’s best applied to cattle is rather a hefty price to pay in order to be “a civilised human being”. Especially when that treatment is being applied to the voiceless and powerless, like Michael. So, to my mind, this is another case of Therapists Gone Bad.