AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFERENCES

The supposed dramatic increase can be attributed to the fact that autism is an umbrella term in which certain behavioral characteristics which can arise from various causations are being placed together. It is an adjective, not a noun, Autism is not a entity in itself. Children with actual physical conditions can display the traits of autism, however there mauy also be other factors as to why a child expresses behaviors that fall under this categorization. In addition, children who in the past were labeled with mental retardation are now being reclassified in the category of autism. Also, various developmental challenges are being classified as PDD and there exists the diagnosis of Asperger's. These are considered part of a spectrum and thus are accounted in the rates of autism. Lastly, there is some indication that the diagnosis of Asperger's is frequently overly used and suggested for children who may exhibit any form of social awkwardness. The umbrella of autism can include the behaviors exhibited by those having actual actual organic disease, but this cannot be verified as the sole causation of autism (Sanua, 1983).
Hammersley, et. al (2003) reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry a linkage between childhood trauma and the development of later auditory hallucinations. McKenzie (2003) notes that those who develop features appearing as psychosis often experience a traumatic event in the first 18 months of life. In regards to autism, in examination of the over 70 children I have directly been involved with in therapy, it appears that there are a number of common themes. The majority of the children were Caucasian. Therefore, it would be of interest to further examine multi-cultural aspects of autism. The rates of autism have appeared more prevalent in Western cultures. The majority of the 70 children experienced birth trauma or a traumatic event usually in the first year of life. It is seen that autistic children have a rate 12 times higher of birth trauma than their non-autistic siblings. The rate of complicated pregnancy with these children was high. In addition, a majority also had exposure to toxicity- either through parental drug use, elevated levels of protein within the amniotic fluid, or heavy metal toxicity. Some children had a medical condition (such as cerebral palsy). All of the children displayed social deficits, however those in the more severe range of autism who had language and communication barriers, had both factors of toxicity as well as trauma within the first year of life. This is not to blame parents for the occurrence of the traumas. Most of these events, with the exception of parental drug use during pregnancy is beyond the control of the parent. It also appears that environment and the use of appropriate interventions has the ability to override the factors causing developmental challenges however where there existed a chaotic environment for the child that such reactivated the prior trauma and futher complicated the ability to resolve challenging behaviors. Thus, psycho-social challenges can further the isolation and withdrawal exhibited and continue to halt development. Psychotropic medications would be a means by which a new toxin would be introduced and the anti-psychotics such as Risperdal carry significant risks as far as potential for tardive dyskinesia, weight gain, and other adverse events. Their mechanism of actions is merely to subdue behavior and blunt the brain. Therefore, if children have developed challenges due to toxicity, then adding more toxins will not be to their benefit. It will be necessary as well to examine the trauma. This appeared to often be birth trauma or in some cases a physical condition (such as cerebral palsy) and many of these children were hospitalized in neo-natal care which would imply a separation from parents. This separation and the experience of intensive medical intervention could have a role in the sensory integration problems these children experience and why some autistic children may experience difficulties in regards to affection and touch. In addition, these children often have higher pain threshholds which could be accounted for in some instances to exposure to substances in utero which have caused them to develop a higher production of natural opiates. There appear to be more males than females diagnosed with autism. This is possibly due to males being more susceptible to the impact of environmental toxins. In addition, the males may have had higher testosterone levels in utero. Baron-Cohen (2004) noted that those children with higher testosterone levels showed more significant social deficits. As mentioned prior, appropriate intervention in a conducive environment can be overriding to these challenges. Therefore, an intervention plan should be established which does not seek to force or coerce the child towards conformity to what is 'typical' but is respectful of the inherent differences in the autistic person and helps them to navigate through the mainstream. We need to come to a greater level of acceptance of autistic persons and encourage their self determination and self-advocacy.

COME JOIN THE MASQUERADE and LISTEN

COME JOIN THE MASQUERADE

Come Join the Masquerade!
The spoiled rich boy wants to be a Bohemian!
Did you hear? He wants to be a Bohemian!
He will discard his riches and all the glittering trappings.
He will roam the streets and live among the simple ones, sharing his arts and tricks.
He will discard the ways of his people.
He will receive mommy and daddy's riches, but dare not let the simple ones know.
And he will say to the simple ones, "I know you well, I am one of you."
And the simple ones, seeing the mask will receive him.
But when they uncover the mask, they will find something more gruesome underneath, and the spoiled rich boy will escape again to the arms of mommy and daddyn and the bosom of the elite.


LISTEN

All I ask is to be heard.
Yet when I look at you, you turn away.
You do not have time for me. Your world created my pain, and when I seek to share a glimmer of my experience, you look at me with revulsion. Staring at the watch, pretending to listen, but really distant. And some of you seek to mock me further. Is it not the wish of us all simply to be heard? And because there is no one to listen, no one to understand, I retreat into myself, and I find my own to listen.



Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com

WHITE COLLAR, COLLEGE EDUCATED, DRUG DEALERS

Psychiatrists are college educated, white collar drug dealers who have received sanction to deal their drugs. Their drugs disable the brain, causing a chemical imbalance (which never existed before), subdue the person, and somehow the person becoming docile is interpreted as 'progress'. Rather than society truly addressing oppression in all its forms, we allow the psychiatrists to numb, so we do not have to think.

Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com
International Center for Non-Psychiatric Alternatives

STORY OF DR. RUFUS MAY FROM THE INDEPENDENT (UK)

I have been very inspired by the life and work of Dr. Rufus May. His humane approaches towards distressed persons is something I seek to encourage as well and I appreciate his explanation from actual experience of how the current mental health system operates and what we need to do to develop more understanding and compassion.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com













The mad doctor: The extraordinary story of Dr Rufus May, the former psychiatric patient

At the age of 18, Rufus May was diagnosed as an incurable schizophrenic and locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Now, he is a respected psychologist and a passionate campaigner on mental health issues. He is also the guest editor of this special issue. Here, he tells his extraordinary tale


Sunday, 18 March 2007


When I was aged 18, I witnessed first hand how society's approach to mental health wasn't working. I was admitted to Hackney hospital - a psychiatric hospital - and told that I could not leave. On the verge of adulthood, and feeling lost after my girlfriend had left me, I had invested in a spiritual search for guidance. The messages I picked up from the Bible convinced me I had a mission. Seeking to discover what my mission was, I slowly deduced that I was quite possibly an apprentice spy for the British secret service. I was eventually admitted to hospital when I became convinced that I had a gadget in my chest that was being used to control my actions.


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Psychiatric hospital was like another world entirely. Queues for the medication trolley punctuated the boredom and general sense of hopelessness. Any resistance to the regime was quashed by forcible restraints and powerful injections. Many friends felt too scared to visit me.

That experience coupled with being given a diagnosis of schizophrenia made me feel like a social outcast. When my parents were told my condition was probably genetically inherited, the die seemed irrevocably cast. Ward rounds felt like elaborate religious rituals conducted by the consultant psychiatrist, with an audience of medical students and student nurses observing, while my insanity was confirmed and long-term drug treatment prophesied. I found the medication made me feel empty and soulless; I could not think past considering my basic needs. The drugs made me physically weaker and affected my hormones so I became impotent.

I was concerned about this. However, to the outside world, because of the mind-numbing effects of the drugs, I was less focussed on my spy and spiritual beliefs. The doctors pronounced that I was responding well to the medication. I was determined to stop taking the tablets and injections as soon as I could find other ways of staying calm and centred.

The majority of fellow patients were revolving-door patients. I myself was told I'd be back. It was true: I was readmitted twice before I managed to escape the role of mentally ill regular customer. But I was luckier than most: as well as my parents visiting me daily, a close friend came back from selling pots and pans to US servicemen in Germany and began visiting me daily too. I started to pick up on her belief that this breakdown, or whatever it was I was having, was something I could get over.

When I was 12 years old, I had witnessed my mother make a strong recovery from a disabling brain haemorrhage, so instinctively I knew that I could turn my life around with the right support. So I decided not to believe in the doctor's wisdom and planned to get a job as soon as I left hospital. While I was still in hospital, I started going to churches and community centres offering to do voluntary work. Although I must have seemed a bit odd, I found many kind people who were willing to give me tasks to do and slowly I started to rebuild some social skills.

When a friend and fellow patient, Celine, took her own life after being heavily over-medicated, it became a turning point for me. It was a Caribbean funeral and hundreds of people turned up for it. It contrasted strongly with the absence of support she had had when she had been alive and hearing abusive voices from her past.

I realised then that I had found a cause that needed no delusions to support it. Like Celine, I had gone through the strange process of being talked to as if I was not there, of professionals trying to suppress my odd and disturbing behaviour with drugs without trying to understand why I was acting as I was. No one seemed willing to think what was it like to walk in my shoes.

We, as a society, were making people madder and maybe I could do something about changing that. What if I could make a different kind of come-back to the psychiatric ward, as a mental health professional? Then perhaps, in Trojan horse style, I could help dismantle the myths of the psychiatric hierarchy. The more I thought about this, the more I realised I would have to keep my former identity as a psychiatric patient strictly under-cover.

When a junior psychologist informally questioned my diagnosis of schizophrenia, suggesting I had had a temporary psychotic episode instead, it made me think maybe psychology was a way of doing things differently. So my mission was becoming clearer: I would train as a psychologist. I knew I needed to sort myself out to some extent before attempting this journey.

My first job, straight out of psychiatric hospital, was working as a night security guard in north London's Highgate Cemetery. I now think that patrolling the heavily wooded grounds in the dark was a deeply therapeutic activity. With no time to daydream, I had to stay aware and face my fears of the dark and the unknown. I also think just walking in close proximity to nature was a very healing process.

It was during this time that I successfully came off my psychiatric medication, against doctors' advice. I then spent several years doing a range of jobs and learning creative ways to express myself, using dance and drama. I shifted my focus from thinking about myself to trying to help others, while making sure I looked after my mind and body. I used the outdoor gym on Parliament Hill, sport and breathing exercises as natural ways to manage my moods. I was careful to avoid unreliable or abusive friends and stick with people who had stuck by me. Studying sociology helped me understand the wider structures of society, demystifying such things as the class system and power relations between men and women.

I was reminded of the prejudice against the subject of mental illness when a right-on community centre refused to support me and a group of amateur drama students putting on a play about a nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, from drama classes I learnt the art of re-inventing oneself through improvisation. I will always remember how one of my drama teachers impressed upon us all the message that "this life is not a rehearsal". My confidence in acting was to become useful over the next 10 years of carework and psychology training, where I chose to keep quiet about my previous role as a psychiatric patient, to avoid the possibility of discrimination.

For me, the dividing line between the mentally ill and the sane was more a question of social boundaries than actuality. I had found some very mad people in hospital very helpful and some of the so-called "well" nurses quite bullying and hostile, it suggested to me that to some extent madness was in eyes of the beholder. I also knew that my own madness had been meaningful; for example, my fantasies about being a spy had given my life meaning and my search for a spying mission was a metaphoric search for a meaningful quest in my life.

My training as a psychologist in the early 1990s, coincided with a time when psychology as a profession was beginning to interest itself in trying to understand and work with madness, an area which was usually associated with the more medical, drug-prescribing profession of psychiatry. For the past 10 years I have been working as a psychologist covering a broad range of mental-health problems. I know that to really help someone who is deeply suffering or confused, we need to be very creative and offer a wide range of resources.

In Bradford we have self-help groups where people are encouraged to help others as well as themselves. We also create spaces where for example art, spirituality and physical relaxation can be explored in a number of different ways. We have Tai Chi classes, dance classes and African art classes, as well as political and cultural discussion groups. If people hear troubling voices, I want to understand these beings that haunt them. I will sometimes communicate directly with the voices and try to facilitate a peace process between the voices and the person hearing them.

I must be living proof that people can resist so-called command hallucinations, because initially many voices feel threatened by me and tell the voice hearer to attack me. I am still unscathed, which is a strong testimony to the fact that people who hear voices can learn to resist the most bullying and aggressive of them. So instead of encouraging people to suppress their experiences, which I think generally makes them worse, I try to assist people to face their demons in their own time.

Is society any madder than 20 years ago when I was in hospital? It seems to me that some things are getting worse and some things are getting better. People are getting bolder in talking about their experiences of distress and madness. This is refreshing; the status quo, in which well-meaning professionals and charity heads are the only experts, is starting to be challenged. Britain is a leading light in this consciousness raising, where people are coming out more and more about their experiences of emotional distress. Consequently, a broader range of ideas and approaches to what helps us heal troubled minds is being listened to.

At the same time, the might of the pharmaceutical industry is stronger than ever before; drug companies are ruthlessly promoting the simplistic and misleading "chemical imbalance" theory of mental distress, while marketing our discontent as diagnosable medical illnesses. In the US, they have been very successful, with roughly 10 per cent of women taking anti-depressants and an astonishing 10 per cent of children being treated for ADHD with the amphetamine derivative Ritalin. Each year in this country, prescription rates rise for psychiatric medication.

While I am not against all use of mind-altering drugs, this trend is worrying. I think that when drugs appear to work, the main effect is that of masking a patient's problems, but as soon as you remove them the problems bounce back, often with a little more oomph due to the fact they have been artificially suppressed. You also need more and more of the drug to achieve the same effect, because our brains build up a resistance to all mood-altering substances. We are then likely to experience the more negative effects of the medication and develop a dependence.

So drugs are limited in their usefulness and are perhaps best used as a last resort and for short periods of time. This is not going to be popular in the board rooms of Big Pharma, the Big Brother of mental health. But if we are going to make progress in our quest for healthier communities, we are going to have to limit the pharmaceutical industry's influence on how we understand our minds and approach the recovery process.

SOME EXCERPTS FROM MY RECENT TEXT, "ROOTS OF DISTRESS"

ROOTS OF DISTRESS addresses the social, familial, and political processes that drive people 'mad' and leads to serious emotional distress. It examines the methods of communication within families, the social problems we face, and explores means of creating transformation in ourselves and how we interact with others and our world. The text is available to be ordered at http://stores.lulu.com/voice4kids.
Also available at this site are prior works-
CHILDREN OUR TREASURE: MEETING OUR CHILDREN'S TRUE NEEDS OUTSIDE OF THE BIO-PSYCHIATRIC PARADIGM(2006)
COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF DRUG FREE APPROACHES TO ADHD (2007)
EXPERIENCE: THE SOUL OF THERAPY (2008)
NAVIGATING THROUGH THE MAINSTREAM (2009)
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Our behaviors are how we communicate distress; they are for some the only form of communication they know.
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Is our work solely leading people to become proper conformists, to do what others are doing? Is our work solely to make people adapt to totalitarianism, to do what they are told to do? It has always been these two processes that have led to the most dangerous of outcomes. When freedom and autonomy are taken, and individuals can no longer be individuals, when critical thinking has ceased, we have entered a dreadful place. Maybe we are already there.
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Being a deviant from the structure can have dire consequences for the child, from within the family structure itself and as a result of the energies wasted in a struggle to change something where they have not been empowered to evoke change. They are left only to comply. Their unhappiness and discontent will be ignored to preserve the 'integrity of the family structure."
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Familial secrets exist, trust is lacking, and children are guarded about their expression. Children may be lied to and dilemmas between family members masked or suppressed. The real nature of things may be shrouded in confusion and 'mystery'. Mixed messages may arise, or the members of the family may see themselves placed in 'damned if you do and damned if you don't situations." Some family members may frustrate themselves in striving for the 'ideal' structure which never arrives.
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In the dysfunctional structure, as in oppressive societal regimes, there are those who seek rebellion. Rebellion against the structure becomes more pronounced in the stage of adolescence where already the teenager is beginning to exert a greater sense of autonomy and desire to be apart from the familial structure. However, because children lack the resources for which to engage in a rebellion that could be successful, the rebellion is always squashed. What does this leave the child to do? They can do little but endure and await the period where they can break free from the structure that they find oppressive.

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What exactly is a person? We live, but what does it mean to actually live? Who are we? Where are we going? What exactly are we doing? Must we do anything? Must we go anywhere? It is innate in us to search out for meaning, wherever it may lie.
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What is success? We may find many, many answers. It is often our view of what success is that shapes our vision, our goals, and ultimately who we are and will become. Our views of success should be tempered with the reality of our mortality.

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PSYCHIATRIC LABELING IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

We must look at the various psychiatric labels that are put upon persons as social constructs. If we take for instance, the label of "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)" this tells us alot about the society in which we reside. We have become a society based on competitiveness and where each must 'fight their way to the top', this becomes taught early on in schools and particularly the college admission process. We see the aftermath of these ideas in the corruption we are seeing as well as our current economic woes. ADHD is thus a direct product of a capitalistic society. And what is labeled as personality disorders and schizophrenia and other psychoses are resultant of familial, social, and political traumas, basically oppression inflicted on individuals. But, we have become a mechanical society, bent on seeking to fit in, thus individuals are finding various means to alter themselves (never really knowing or udnerstanding their actual selves) be it through cosmetic surgery or altering their personality and moods through the use of psychiatric drugs. We are being told that "if you become depressed because you lost your job, or you are being discriminated against, or your neighborhoods are not safe, do not worry- there is a drug that will make you feel better" all the while nothing in the environment changes. If we expect people to be more fulfilled, for a real sense of 'mental health' to arise, then we must focus on a radical transformation of ourselves and our society. If we choose not to do that, we will only become more and more mechanical, and we must ask- can such a society truly survive? Will there come a time where we are all driven mad?

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com

A few stories from my past therapeutic work...

I recall with with fondness, a 5 year old boy I had worked with who had been given a diagnosis of autism. He was completely non-verbal when I first encountered him. He came into my office and began to bang on the computer keyboard. So, out in the main room of the clinic was a large pit of plastic balls. So, I told him, "I am going to have to scoop you up and throw you in the ballpit." He smiled and walked away, only to return to the keyboard with his hand outstretched towards the keyboard, not touching it, just grinning. Just as he touched it, I picked him up and said, "yep, to the ballpit with you." He giggled and smiled, and then returned to the keyboard again, but this time he did not touch it, he just fell into my arms and then for the first time spoke to me, "Throw me in."
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In working with a gentleman with Down's Syndrome, I came to discover that he had a dream of being a minister and spent alot of time reading spiritual texts. He frequently would ask me the question- "how do I have a pure heart." And we would have various discussions on ways to treat others kindly and so forth. When he would be argumentative with his mother, she only need say "that's not a pure heart" for him to take a kinder tone. In wanting to help him to fulfill his desire for ministry, I wrote to the Bishop of the LCAC and explained I wanted to have a ceremony and give some sort of responsibility to this person so that he would feel his dream of being a minister had been fulfilled, if only partially. So, this is exactly what we did, a service was held at which he participated and he was admitted to the role of a cleric and given various responsibilities within his means. This event brought enormous joy to him and his family. Similarly, many years prior, I had helped an autistic person with the same dream to become ordained as a deacon in his church, and he later assisted me in my work as a chaplain at a facility for the elderly.
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AUTISTIC LIBERATION

I was informed of an autism telethon being hosted in my area (Northeastern Pennsylvania) and is to benefit "The Northeast Regional Autism Center at Friendship House". First, this program much like the Autistic Society of America are operated by non-autistics who believe that they know what is best for the autistic individual and whose basis is on forcing and coercing young autistic persons into being 'normal' (whatever that may mean). So, individuals who support such programs are led to believe they are helping, or that they are 'helping those poor autistic children." But they are not, maybe without even realizing it they are supporting their oppression. They fail to realize that autistic persons are seeking respect, dignity, and autism (just as left handedness or sexual orientation) is a part of who they are. Autistic persons may need supportive people to help them 'navigate through the mainstream' but they do not need programs that try to force them to be something they are not. I speak this as a person who it was suggested that I may be within 'the autism spectrum" but I have never been one for labels. I fully support the Autism National Committee and autistics.org- the real voice of autism as these groups are actually operated by autistic persons. I am also pleased to see that there exists an Autistic Liberation Movement. As this movement has stated many times-autistic individuals are persons, not puzzles.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.

FINALLY, NAMI TIES TO BIG PHARMA ARE TO BE LAID BARE

*It is very pleasing that FINALLY the corrupt schemes of NAMI is becoming to become made known to the public. Hopefully individuals will begin to realize that NAMI is NOT an advocacy organization but rather a front group for pharmaceutical companies.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com












Bloomberg News - 6 April 2009





Grassley Probes Financing of Advocacy Group for Mental Health


By Nicole Gaouette


U.S. Senator Charles Grassley expanded his investigation into drug
company influence on the practice of medicine by asking a nonprofit
mental-health-advocacy group about its funding.


In a letter sent today to the National Alliance for Mental Illness,
based in Arlington, Virginia, Grassley asked the nonprofit group to
disclose any financial backing from drug companies or from
foundations created by the industry.


The Iowa Republican, in a series of hearings and investigations, has
focused on financial ties between the drug industry, doctors and
academic institutions. His efforts have led New York-based Pfizer
Inc. to begin disclosing consulting payments to U.S. doctors, and
Harvard Medical School in Boston to reexamine its conflict-of-
interest policies. Now Grassley is expanding his inquiries to
nonprofit groups.


"I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical
industry shapes the practices of nonprofit organizations which
purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions," Grassley
wrote in his letter.


Officials at the National Alliance for Mental Illness didn't return
calls for comment.


The group identifies itself as the largest grassroots organization in
the U.S. for people with mental illness and their families. The group
came under scrutiny in 1999, when the magazine Mother Jones reported
that 18 drug companies gave the group $11.7 million from 1996 to
mid-1999. The article reported that at one point an executive of
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co. worked out of the nonprofit
group's headquarters.


A 2007 annual report showed that the group's corporate partners at
that time included Madison, New Jersey-based Wyeth; London-based
GlaxoSmithKline Plc; Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac; and the
Washington-based trade group Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America.


Financial Report


A separate financial report shows the National Alliance for Mental
Illness brought in $10.5 million in contributions in the year that
ended June 30, 2007. The donors aren't broken out.


Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection,
a New York-based nonprofit that promotes ethical research, said the
National Alliance for Mental Illness may have drawn Grassley's
attention because it lobbies Congress for mental-health funding.


"Academics and physicians give an appearance of authority," Sharav
said by telephone. "Industry gives them the money. Grassley has been
going after each group systematically, and the dots are being
connected."


In January, Grassley and Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat,
reintroduced the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which would require
manufacturers to report on payments to doctors and any physician-
owned facility.


Pfizer Announcement


Grassley's investigations have led to changes in industry and
academia. Pfizer made its announcement about disclosing physician
payments in February. In March, the American Psychiatric Association
said it would no longer accept industry support for symposiums and
meals at its annual meetings.


On April 1, Stanford University School of Medicine, near Palo Alto,
California, said it would post on a Web site all income faculty
earned from royalty payments and outside consulting.


In the March 31 issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association, a group of researchers and physicians called for
professional medical associations to transform their operations to
avoid conflicts of interest posed by "extensive funding from
pharmaceutical and device companies." The group included Steven
Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist.

In looking back upon the work of the radical psychiatrist, David Cooper, I was particularly impressed with his term of 'liberation zone'. In this psychotherapy should be a place where a person is able to feel free to be themselves and to be able to shake off the shackles that constrain them and lead them to distress and despair. In my book, ROOTS OF DISTRESS ( http://stores.lulu.com/voice4kids ), I have commented extensively on the social and political processes leading to emotional turmoil as well as emphasizing the need to return to understanding experience as well as creating community.
I have expressed as well the frustration with seeing children who are trapped in situations of mistreatment, situations that perpetuate distress and lead to madness, and that manys approach is to solely have them conform or 'adapt' or 'cope' with the injustices. Or worse, they are removed from the situation only to be subjected to new circumstances (hospitalization, residential 'treatment') that only further perpetuates distress and causes alienation. So, I suggest that we need to look carefully at this term of 'liberation zone'. We need to establish places where our sense of community can flourish, where children (and adults as well) can work through the injustices perpetuated upon them, to feel safe again, a place of true sanctuary. If we began to develop these sort of places, then we would be truly contributing to the well being and 'mental health' of persons. But, a situation as this would run very counter to our societal greed, of our expectation to make profit at the expense of another, or really to make profit off the suffering of another.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com

NEW CONCEPTIONS OF FAMILY

Many times I have seen the mistreatment of children who are subjected to horrors within their families, but because they are 'minors', nothing much is done. They are subject to 'endure' their private horor until they reach the age of majority, but by that time many are driven mad, the damage has been done.
Maybe we should redefine what 'family' is? What if children were allowed to build attachments to those they so chose? A child who would leave these scenarios and enter homelessness is once again subject to the horrors and control inflicted upon them by ruthless adults be it through prostitution or other travesty.
Maybe it is necessary to break down the barrier between being a youth and being an adult. Adults certainly have generated actions that have led to great despair and destruction. Maybe the innocence of the child could hold more value. What creates persons of hate? What creates persons who establishes barriers with others? We are not born this way, rather it is what adults teach to their children that causes them to act in these ways. Could it be any worse to give children rights? To respect their autonomy, to guide rather than control? The concept of the kibbutz, where persons live and collaborate together, and in where some kibbutzim, all have all role in guiding the children, could be a concept that expanded could be a better way to conduct a society.

SEEKING TO CREATE SANCTUARY FOR THOSE UNDERGOING EXTREME STATES OF MIND

In my text, ROOTS OF DISTRESS, I described the story of "Alan", a young man who had been painted by many as seriously troubled and unreachable. The excerpt is as follows:Alan was seen by most as an obstinate young man who had completed departed from any sense of reality. His hallucinations had earned him the diagnosis of a psychotic disorder not to mention he frequently displayed aggressive behavior when provoked by authoritarian "in your face' type of individuals. Reading the charts from before, it painted a monstrosity, but gave little detail to what Alan’s experience might have been. When I first encountered Alan, I did not demand that he speak to me or that he not speak to me. I made no demands. I solely informed him that I was a supportive person who wanted to know him for who he is. This opened the door to intense dialogues. Together we explored questions about life that we both may have never thought much on before. The topics would drift to purpose, impermanence, suffering, the human condition. He related to me the pain of years of abuse, how he felt dehumanized and humiliated by the various people he thought would help him. He told me of his feelings of being alone, of being nothing. This feeling of nothing for him was an end at the time, but really it was the beginning. It was the door for him to question life, to question what he had been taught, to become. He related to me about his hallucinations, and his imaginary friends became mine as well. I asked about their habits, and their words. I noticed that these beings he saw were him at various points in time. As I met each of these beings, I learned something a bit more about the experience of Alan. Gradually as his emotional needs were met and he began to see himself once again as a singular person in the present moment of time and space, these beings began to depart. I saw in Alan the resilient human spirit and I will not forget him.



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I recall as well the deep intense fear that Alan experienced. I recall on one occassion that Alan's father had been intoxicated and very abusive, Alan would run away from his home with no destination in mind. On one of these occassions, I went to search for Alan. At first, he ran from me, and I called out to him and let him no who I was and that I was safe and he would be safe. In the frame of mind he was in, he saw only enemies and he later told me that though he heard my voice, he was not sure if something ore someone was going to come do him harm. I knew that Alan needed a period of respite, and I admit I was also curious to know how Alan would be apart from the chaos of his family life. Whenever he was seen as 'troublesome', he would be taken to the hospital where he would be injected with anti-psychotics and various other 'treatments' would arise. Alan became accustomed to these trips to the hospital, but admitted that he felt he had no control over his life, he had no autonomy, and he did not feel heard or understood. I desparately wanted to create a sanctuary for Alan, if I could only provide it for a short time. I was able to arrange a situation where Alan could spend a week away from his home, I would meet with him as he so chose, and he would be able to feel he had some autonomy and was not going to be forced into anything or treated abusively. During this period, Alan settled greatly, and he appeared to smile and laugh more, it appeared a time where he was genuinely happy. The behaviors that many labeled as disturbed and disturbing faded. However, as I sadly predicted, when the time arose for him to return leave, he became agitated and depressed. On the evening before Alan was to return home, I was at a dinner gathering at which I delivered a speech. I did not realize Alan would also be attending. Following the dinner, Alan appeared to be angry and he stormed out of the building and began wondering the grounds, and then going into the nearby woods. I went to talk to Alan, he refused to go back to his family home with the person who brought him to the dinner. He told me he would only return if I accompanied him. So, though it was late in the evening, and I must admit Alan wore me out in his escapade through the woods, I rode with him to his home. I met with the family, and tried to mediate the situation, but though it was not possible to remove him from the challenges there entirely again, I sought to establish a support network for Alan, and met with him frequently. As I have also mentioned in some of my past writing, it appears sadly that many young people are trapped in situations that are almost like a prison sentence, and though we seek to be compassionate, and we seek to help ameliorate the situation, there appears many things beyond our control to change. But, if we can offer our time and our willingness to listen, as well as help the individual develop their strengths, their passions, and build for the future when they can part from this 'prison', we have accomplished much.

Where did the wraparound programs go?

In my prior research I conducted, I found that wraparound programs were an effective means to reach troubled and distressed youth and was a positive alternative to more restrictive settings. The concept of wraparound was to connect the child and their fmaily to community resources and to 'wrap' services around them to help them navigate through challenges. Today, this has all changed. With managed care companies at the helm, profits come first, not children and their families. Psychiatric drugs are often pushed to remain part of the services. There is no focus on community building and positive resources, everything has succumbed for the most part to the bio-psychiatric establishment and to the interests of a number of elites profiting from the system. Reumbursement rates for those going into the field to seek to help children have not changed in years, and agencies providing wraparound are barely staying afloat, some closing, while the managed care companies rake in money (all coming from taxpayers). What we will soon find with current societal conditions and with this lack of providing real support to families, is a generation of children largely drugged, numb, and apathetic. We will find a rise in anti-social behaviors. The money that these managed care companies sought to cut to put into their pockets will now cost taxpayers far more as children's needs become more costly because they never received the support they really needed.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info

Senator LeAnna Washington Seeks Sanction on ex-Luzerne County Judges

-Senator Washington has always been a dedicated advocate for children and had been previously involved in legislative hearings on the dangers of psychiatric drugs for children.-




Sanction on disgraced ex-Luzerne judges sought



BY ROBERT SWIFT
HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF
Published: Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 6:17 AM EDT
Senator: This should never happen again

HARRISBURG — A Philadelphia senator is the first to seek a legislative sanction against disgraced former Luzerne County judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan.

Sen. LeAnna Washington, D-4, Philadelphia, has sponsored a resolution condemning the two judges who pleaded guilty last month to taking kickbacks to help develop a privately owned juvenile detention center.

The senators’s resolution raises questions about a miscarriage of justice, citing the 25 percent of juvenile defendants sent in recent years to the detention center run by PA Childcare LLC in Luzerne County and noting that many youths appeared before the judges without legal representation.

“These two administrators of the court blatantly conspired with others to defraud county government and most egregiously conspired to have our youth subjected to confinement when in many instances it was not warranted,” said Ms. Washington in a statement.

The resolution calls on the state Supreme Court to study the state’s juvenile justice system and exercise greater oversight over its operations.

“We as legislators, as well as the Supreme Court, need to take a long critical look at the entire juvenile justice sys�tem to ensure that incidents like this never happen again,” added Ms. Washington.

Ms. Washington is the rank�ing Democrat on the Senate Aging and Youth committee.

Prospects for quick action on the resolution appear uncertain. Some senators and in-house attorneys believe the Senate should refrain from voting on resolutions or holding public hearings until the federal investigation into the Luzerne County courts wraps up.

SOME BRIEF THOUGHTS ON THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

Within capitalism, there has always existed the exploiter and the exploited. Today's economic crisis is the result of a select few bent on extreme greed being able to accumulate as much wealth and resources from others without consideration of those who they exploited to amass their wealth. There must be 'winners' and 'losers', the winners are those who have been able to play the game and obtain the resources. But this does not take into account that many were never allowed to be part of the 'game' to begin with, and that many of the 'winners' never played by the rules or chose to frequently change the rules. This has also been a part of how our government has interacted with other nations. The government has often occupied other nations or intervened in its affairs solely to advance the 'game' and to protect the interests of corporations and the elite. When our government commits violent acts and attrocities, we are told it is 'war', when others do it, we are told it is 'terrorism'. Both are wrong. While enslaving others, we are told that we are fighting for 'freedom', but whose freedom?
This translates to many going without basic human necessities or at best being in 'survival mode', and such is what is leading to a rise in anti-social behaviors as many are feeling hopeless and in despair, and families are being forced to 'abandon' their children to take on more work and responsibilities just to survive. At the same time, there are others who have accumulated many resources, but it is accomplished by exploiting others.
Hopefully, rather than falling into overwhelming and debilitating despair, we can begin to tackle the core issues, and to strive towards building a society where persons basic human rights and necessities are provided, where we begin to come together in community again, where workers are respected and provided an appropriate wage, where there is freedom and a real sharing together in the future direction of our nation.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info

CREATING PEACEFUL MINDS

All human beings have suffered from negative minds and delusions, yet we tend to become focused on ourselves, shifting blame for our errors to others, and creating barriers with others based on our own conceptions. Is it possible for us to love others without exception? Even those who we feel have wronged us? Even those we feel are deluded? Even those we feel are the 'lowest of the low?' If we can begin to look at individuals as having been shaped by their experiences and their circumstances, we will begin to develop love and hearts of compassion. If we realize that we all enter the world the same, but our experiences shape us, we can begin to see how that it is not only others, but ourselves who over time have developed negative minds, have taken upon us deluded thought. Yet, within each of us, lies that innate benevolence, the potential to do that which is good, to be happy, and to have peace with others. If we strive to create peaceful minds and to develop patient acceptance, we will see that this will influence our interactions with others, if even but a small way. This seed, once watered, will grow within ourselves, and if others are influenced and also seek to do the same, it is then possible that we can create a society where poverty, injustice, greed, violence, etc. are no more. We created them in our minds, we can erase them with a new mindset.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info

ARTICLE IN BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL LANCET SUPPORTS THE VIEWS DR. D.L. EDMUNDS HAS EXPRESSED

The Lancet

February 21, 2009 - http://www.thelancet.com - pages 621 to 622 - Vol
373

Perspectives

Book Review

~~~~~~~~~~

The fool on the hill

The spinning chair. Bloodletting (copious). Removal of possibly
infected viscera. Extraction of teeth. Electric shock. Forcible
restraint, for days or weeks. Wrapping in cold blankets. Brain
damage. Repeated coma. Back-breaking convulsions. Slicing through the
brain with an ice pick. Sterilisation. Female genital mutilation.

Since the Enlightenment, all the above have been used to treat the
"mad". Even the most grotesque treatments have often been introduced
as humane alternatives to existing options. In the 1950s, the
chemical lobotomy, or "hibernation therapy" was introduced. Patients
were given a drug that rendered them immobile and semiconscious for
days, on the assumption that they would emerge improved. The drug was
called a "neuroleptic", or brain restrainer. Its name?
Chlorpromazine. Since marketed as an antipsychotic, it is used, at
lower doses, today. So too are a host of related drugs. Many doctors,
and some patients, swear by them (other patients swear at them).

Antipsychotics are, at times, cruel drugs. Some cause shaking,
salivation, restlessness, infertility, stiff ness, agitation, and
frail bones; others cause obesity, somnolence, and increase the risk
of heart attack, diabetes, and stroke. Antidepressants also have side-
effects, although theirs are typically less dramatic: sickness,
sexual dysfunction, a feeling of being numbed, or losing one's
personality, and acutely increased risk of suicide. But side-effects,
when they occur, seem justified, since mental illness is extremely
unpleasant; and evidence indicates that the drugs work.

What if they didn't? In "The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of
Psychiatric Drug Treatment," psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff has
amassed copious evidence that perhaps the drugs don't work. What have
we missed, all these years? Selective and misleading outcome
measures; inadequate follow-up; selective attention to evidence;
publication bias; and our ability to define questions whose answers
are predictable, but partial. Robert Whitaker's "Mad in
America" (2001) provided a breathtaking overview; Moncrieff, by
contrast, examines many studies in detail. "The Myth of the Chemical
Cure" is not always easy reading, but I do not think that serious
psychiatrists can afford to ignore Moncrieff's book. It is a mine of
information; a provocation to think creatively and compassionately
about patients; and a momento mori, the equivalent of a mediaeval
scholar's skull staring back from his desk: our works are mortal, and
our paradigms always limited.

Psychiatrists are widely regarded (and not just by other
psychiatrists) as insightful and intelligent people. How can
systematic research errors influence practice? In "Side Effects: a
Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on
Trial," Alison Bass illustrates the method. The book lacks a little
in intensity; it could be shorter than it is. However, it manages to
illustrate that drug companies fund and design research; academic
advancement depends on procuring research grants; and, especially
with materialist approaches to the mind requiring expensive tools,
ambitious doctors often have little choice about the paymaster. Bass
indicates, as William Broad and Nicholas Wade did many years ago,
that research fraud is not merely anomalous, but the result of
pressures placed on academics, some of them self-generated. Even in
the absence of research fraud, the mechanisms of research would often
not be conducive to original or patient-centred thinking. Moreover,
acceptance of (in retrospect) bizarre and cruel remedies predates the
growth of the pharmaceutical industry.

This occurs although psychiatry, of all disciplines, ought to be
based on the art of listening. A patient's story is a symphony of
suffering, longing, meaning, understanding, hope, fear, loss, wit,
and wisdom. Not to accompany the person afflicted on his journey is
inhumane. People will always need psychiatrists. But do people always
need psychiatry? Instead of the art of expert companionship,
psychiatry has become the discipline of brain mechanics. Experiences
are matched to labels of descriptive poverty. "Depression" implies a
low level of something, presumably mood, rather than the rich and
complex turmoil felt by the patient. "Schizophrenia" means several
contradictory things, but does not reflect the search for meaning
that is at the heart of the disorder.

Is it a disorder at all? Madness is to sincerely hold beliefs that
society regards as insupportable. But no society's knowledge is
complete. Our ancestors would regard us as mad, or, charitably, as
ill-informed; we observe with relief that we do not share all their
beliefs. Healthy societies have often regarded at least some madness
as serendipitous. If reason follows from incomplete assumptions,
madness, by outflanking reason, can complete the human picture. The
notion was enshrined in the King's Fool: a measurelessly eccentric,
often holy, man who told the state, embodied in the king, what it
otherwise could not hear (the tradition died out in Britain after
Charles I was deposed, not long after his fool was expelled from
court, at the behest of a jealous archbishop). Our assumption that
madness is necessarily a disorder assumes that we are necessarily
sane. I would hate to make that an article of faith.

In focusing on, and stigmatising, people with mental illness, we tend
to ignore the context. In our fervour to understand mental illness,
we have applied grossly oversimplified biochemical models to the
brain, with usually unhelpful results. The search for a
"schizophrenia gene" has been heroic and, so far, labyrinthine; but
to be black, isolated, and urban in the UK increases the risk
manifold. Society, and circumstances, can drive people mad; the
epidemic of depression and anxiety is otherwise inexplicable. To
focus research on the person who has become ill can be a little like
concentrating on a damaged house after a tsunami has hit a village.
The cause may be elsewhere.

Some would argue that even if drugs work, they do not work. The
margin over placebo is not large; the number needed to treat is not
vanishingly small; prognosis may be worse than with the "moral
treatment" (rest, respect, good food, work, prayer) of 200 years ago;
patients' adherence, especially to antipsychotic drugs, is patchy;
drug treatment attends to the symptoms, but not to the human being
who has the symptoms. We would, as a society, achieve a great deal by
listening to patients' demands for good food, companionship, respect,
practical support, and gainful activity. As doctors, being with the
patient is one of the most powerful healing tools we have. It can
sound trite; but the phrase describes receiving the patient's
humanity, and allowing it to come through crisis intact and enriched,
without the loss of dignity and self almost inherent in labelling. We
rarely have the time, or encouragement, to treat patients according
to their story, rather than our diagnosis; outcome measures are too
coarse to consider whether the patient has been allowed to preserve
and fulfill his or her humanity. The work of Moncrieff and Bass is a
warning that the doctor must be intellectually and morally free.

Athar Yawar

The Lancet, London NW1 7BY, UK

EXPOSING CORRUPTION- EXPLORING SOLUTIONS- PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

http://www.pogo.org/about/

PUBLIC CORRUPTION AND THE PROCESS OF DEHUMANIZATION

I wrote to Steve Corbett who hosts a radio program in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania in regards to my thoughts on why the former Judges Ciavarella and Conahan possibly were unable to show remorse for their actions. I have been very pleased with Mr. Corbett's coverage and commentary in regards to the public corruption scandal and his being a voice of integrity. It was an honor that he read my comments in full on his program today (February 17, 2009). What I noted was that throughout history, where individuals have been able to classify a certain group as 'less than human', that has led to tragic consequences, examples can be seen with the Holocaust and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. In these situations, a group of people were seen as 'apart' and thus individuals felt justified in committing attrocities. It appears in the situation with the Judges, that they saw the youth they were dealing with as 'troubled' and not worth their attention, as people not of any intrinsic value, thus they could sadly feel justified in profiting at their expense because these youth were seen as without worth or purpose.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info

JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE LAW/ ROTTEN JUDGES

http://www.jail4judges.org
http://rottenjudges.blogspot.com

CIAVARELLA AND CONAHAN ARE ONLY THE BEGINNING...

It is very positive development that Judges Ciavarella and Conahan of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania have entered their guilty pleas in regards to public corruption for tkaing kickbacks for sending youth into detention facilities. I am hopeful that many will continue to keep their eyes on these scoundrels and insure that they do not receive any special treatments as they violated the trust of the people and have impacted negatively the lives of countless children. This should be seen as a victory, but only the beginning. There is far more to uncover, and I am convinced that these issues of corruption will be found further within the judicial (and other systems) of Luzerne County, as well as the neighboring counties. Sadly, situations such as this are probably even more far reaching. In coordination with other advocates and activists, I personally remained committed to exploring the practices and possible corruption of others and seek to bring this to light so that true justice may arise. Whereas it is preliminary to make specific statements, many have brought to my attention questionable practices and unethical and harmful agendas by those in the judicial and child protective service systems within not only Luzerne County, but the neighboring counties. Hopefully individuals who are involved in disgraceful and harmful actions realize that particularly with the recent developments regarding Judges Ciavarella and Conahan, that the public is watching more closely and with greater scrutiny, and their actions will too be brought to light, they can no longer deceive the public and harm others.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info

FACT SHEET ON CHILDREN IN RESIDENTIAL CENTERS FROM THE BAZELON CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH LAW

Fact Sheet: Children in Residential Treatment Centers
I. Tens of thousands of children with mental health needs are being placed in expensive, inappropriate and often dangerous institutions.
The number of children placed in residential treatment centers (or RTCs)[1] is growing exponentially.[2] These modern-day orphanages now house more than 50,000 children nationwide.[3] Children are packed off to RTCs, often sent by officials they have never met, who have probably never spoken to their parents, teachers or social workers.[4] Once placed, these kids may have no meaningful contact with their families or friends for up to two years.[5] And, despite many documented cases of neglect and physical and sexual abuse, monitoring is inadequate to ensure that children are safe, healthy and receiving proper services in RTCs.[6] By funneling children with mental illnesses into the RTC system, states fail—at enormous cost—to provide more effective community-based mental health services.[7]

A. RTC placements are often inappropriate.
RTCs are among the most restrictive mental health services and, as such, should be reserved for children whose dangerous behavior cannot be controlled except in a secure setting.[8] Too often, however, child-serving bureaucracies hastily place children in RTCs because they have not made more appropriate community-based services available.[9] Parents who are desperate to meet their kids’ needs often turn to RTCs because they lack viable alternatives.[10]


To make placement decisions, families in crisis and overburdened social workers rely on the institutions’ glossy flyers and professional websites with testimonials of saved children.[11] But all RTCs are not alike.[12] Local, state and national exposés and litigation “regarding the quality of care in residential treatment centers have shown that some programs promise high-quality treatment but deliver low-quality custodial care.”[13] As a result, parents and state officials play a dangerous game of Russian roulette as they decide where to place children, because little public information is available about the RTCs, which are under-regulated and under-supervised.


To make it worse, far too many children are placed at great distance from their homes. For example, most District of Columbia children in RTCs are placed outside the District—many as far away as Utah and Minnesota.[14] Many families, especially those with limited means, find it impossible to have any meaningful visitation with their children.


B. Evidence is limited on the effectiveness of RTCs.
Children frequently arrive at RTCs traumatized by the process that delivered them there. They are often forcibly removed from their homes in the middle of the night by “escort companies.”[15] Other times, children are placed in RTCs not by their parents or doctors, but by overburdened child-serving state agencies, who know little about the children’s individual needs.[16]


Even more appalling, many children’s conditions do not improve at all while at the RTC.[17] In fact, there is little evidence that placing children in RTCs has any positive impact at all on their mental health state[18] and any gains made during a stay in an RTC quickly disappear upon discharge, creating a cycle where children return again and again to RTCs.[19]


There are many reasons why RTCs fail to deliver the results they promise, but most center on the type of services provided, the environment they are provided in and the lack of family involvement.


First, the reality of what occurs within an RTC is often quite different from the highly individualized, highly structured programs that are advertised. The RTCs often provide less intense services and the staff are often under-trained.[20] Children spend much of their day with staff who are not much more qualified than the average parent and they spend less time face-to-face with psychiatrists than they would if they were being served in appropriate community settings.[21]


The environment is also problematic because children in RTCs enter a situation where their only peers are other troubled children—a major risk factor for later behavioral problems.[22] Research has demonstrated that some children learn antisocial or bizarre behavior from intensive exposure to other disturbed children.[23]


Children are usually far from home in RTCs, often out-of-state.[24] Removed from their families and natural support systems, they are unable to draw upon the strengths of their communities and their communities are unable to contribute to their treatment. Few children thrive when they are hundreds or thousands of miles from their parents, friends, grandparents and teachers. Few can flourish without the guidance of consistent parenting. Yet, we expect that our most vulnerable and troubled youth will miraculously turn around in just such a situation. Instead, this isolation further reduces the efficacy of treatment and increases its cost.[25]


The fact that children and their families are far from one another creates a host of problems. For one, it makes family therapy difficult or impossible. As a result, when children leave the RTC, they return to an environment that has not changed. Also, because the RTC environment is inherently artificial—children are not asked to negotiate the obstacles that occur within their family setting or deal with the difficulties that trigger their behaviors in their neighborhoods or schools—the child does not gain new skills to better negotiate life outside of an institution. As a result, neither the children nor their parents learn better ways to overcome the obstacles that led to the RTC placement. Without family involvement, successes are limited.[26]


Among the rare children who are able to overcome these obstacles, few can sustain the gains they have made. In one study, nearly 50% of children were readmitted to an RTC, and 75% were either renstitutionalized or arrested.[27]


C. Children suffer because there is no watchdog.
The RTC industry is largely unregulated.[28] RTCs need only report major unusual incidents (or MUIs), but the interpretation of what constitutes an MUI and the reporting requirements vary widely.[29] Some RTCs fail to report MUIs at all—with little consequence.[30] Vulnerable kids are placed far from home where parents, social workers, or the state can offer little oversight or protection. Worse, many of the facilities limit children’s ability to have contact with their parents for extended periods, further restricting the parents’ ability to monitor the facilities.[31]


D. Children are abused in RTCs.
Children placed in RTCs have been sexually and physically abused, restrained for hours, over-medicated and subject to militaristic punishments; some have died.[32] The following are just a few documented examples of tragic occurrences at RTCs:

Medication is often used (and overused) to control behavior.[33] Children have been permanently disfigured because of over-medication.[34]

In some programs, the children’s shoes are confiscated to keep them from running away.[35]

There have been reports of behavioral ‘therapies’ being misused. As one author noted, “Such therapies do little more than systematically punish children, all under the guise of treatment . . . .”[36]

Sexual abuse by staff members and other residents is all too frequent.[37] In one case, a 13-year old girl performed sexual favors for staff members in return for snacks and carryout food.[38] At one RTC, four boys were accused of trying to sodomize another with a cucumber.[39] At another, a 19-year-old woman was charged with sodomizing a 14-year-old girl.[40]

Physical abuse is also too frequent an occurrence. For example, a 13-year-old boy was forced against a wall and slammed to the floor by employees of an RTC.[41]

Children are often restrained—sometimes for hours on end. The overuse of restraint has resulted in child deaths.[42]


E. Tragic outcomes at great public expense.
RTCs have grown to a billion-dollar, largely private industry.[43] Residential treatment care is exorbitantly expensive—costing up to $700 per child per day.[44] Annual costs can exceed $120,000.[45] Most of the time, the public foots the bill for these services.[46] In fact, nearly one fourth of the national outlay on child mental health is spent on care in these settings.[47]

II. Other Interventions Work Better for Less
Home- and community-based services are much more therapeutically effective than institutional services, and are also markedly more cost-efficient. As the Surgeon General reported, “the most convincing evidence of effectiveness is for home-based services and therapeutic foster care” and not for RTCs.[48] A comprehensive system of care would dramatically reduce the number of children in RTCs.[49]

Community-based alternatives produce better short- and long-term results and are less disruptive to children and families. These alternatives provide intensive mental health treatment, mobilize community resources and help children and their families develop effective coping mechanisms. Some models endeavor to “wrap services around” the child, while others emphasize multi-systemic therapy and crisis intervention. Randomized clinical trials found greater declines in delinquency and behavioral problems, greater increases in functioning, greater stability in housing placements and greater likelihood of permanent placement.[50] In Milwaukee, a wraparound project that has served over 700 youth involved in juvenile justice has shown similar promise; use of residential treatment has declined 60%, use of psychiatric hospitalization has declined 80%, and average overall care costs for target youth have dropped by one third.[51]

Notes
[1] According to the Surgeon General, a RTC is a “licensed 24-hour facility (although not licensed as a hospital), which offers mental health treatment.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 1999. Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. Washington, DC: Author. Available at: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/chapter3/sec7.html#treatment.

[2] In 1982, when Jane Knitzer wrote the seminal book, Unclaimed Children, the growth in the RTC industry was only beginning. Ms. Knitzer wrote that: “In contrast to the minimal efforts to create nonresidential services, 18 of the 44 states responding to our survey were working to increase residential care.” Knitzer, J., Unclaimed Children: The Failure of Public Responsibility to Children and Adolescents in Need of Mental Health Care, Children’s Defense Fund, 1982, at 45. By 1986, the number of children in RTCs had grown to 25,334, an increase of more than 30% over a three-year period. Rivera, V.R. & Kutash, K. (1994), Components of a System of Care. What Does the Research Say?, Residential Services: Psychiatric Hospitals and Residential Treatment Centers, at 8, Tampa , FL: University of South Florida, Florida Mental Health Institute: The Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health. This growth in continuing. See infra, at note 3.

[3] Latest Findings in Children’s Mental Health, Nearly 66,000 Youth Live in U.S, Mental Health Programs, Vo1. 2, No. 1 (Summer 2003). In 1997, the year in which the most recent data was available, more than 42,000 children were living in RTCs. Given the expansion of children living in RTCs, see supra note 2, this figure is likely well over 50,000 now.

[4] Reports to staff attorneys at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. For example, in Washington, D.C., children are certified to go to RTCs by a “Multi-Agency Planning Team” process (or MAPT process). The MAPT meetings often do not include the voices of the people who know the child and family best.

[5] Ohio Rights Service Review of Fifteen Children’s Mental Health Facilities (October 2004) (on file with the Bazelon Center)

[6] See infra at sections I(C) and I(D).

[7] This development of long-term residential care occurred at the expense of community-based alternatives. Jane Knitzer, as far back as 1982, noted that: “In general, funds were used to develop long-term residential care, with few efforts to support or create emergency shelters, respite care programs, or specialized foster care for disturbed children and adolescents.” Unclaimed Children, supra note 2, at 46. Further, the Surgeon General noted that one of the primary reasons that RTCs are considered to be justified is because community-based alternatives are lacking. See Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1.

[8] Duchnowski, A.J., Hall, K. S., Kutash, K, and Friedman, R. (1998) The Alternatives to Residential Treatment Study, in Outcomes for Child and Youth with Behavioral and Emotional Disorders and Their Families. See also Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1.

[9] Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1, (“Concerns about residential care primarily relate to criteria for admission . . . .”).

[10] Lou Kilzer, Desperate Measures, Rocky Mountain News, July 2, 1999, available at: http://www.denver-rmn.com/desperate/site-desperate/front-pg.htm.

[11] Id.

[12] Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1, (“Settings range from structured ones, resembling psychiatric hospitals, to those that are more like group homes or halfway houses.”); Rivera, V.R. & Kutash, K. (1994), Components of a System of Care. What Does the Research Say?, Tampa , FL: University of South Florida, Florida Mental Health Institute: The Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health.

[13] Jane Knitzer noted this fact in 1982 in Unclaimed Children, supra note 2, at 46. The calls for reform have only increased as the population of children served in RTCs has grown. See infra at note 29 and accompanying text.

[14] Scott Higham and Sewell Chan, District Reexamines Out of Town Centers, The Washington Post, July 16, 2003, available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A61386-2003Jul15¬Found=true. See also, D.C. Department of Mental Health Data from 2003 Children in Residential Treatment Centers (on file at the Bazelon Center).

[15] Kilzer, supra note 10.

[16] Supra, note 4.

[17] Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1.

[18] Burns, B.J., Hoagwood, K. & Maultsby, L.T., Improving Outcomes for Children and Adolescents with Serious Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: Current and Future Directions. (“A dominant observation is that the least evidence of effectiveness exists for residential services, where the vast majority of dollars are spent.”); Chamberlain, P. , Treatment Foster Care, US Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Juvenile Justice Bulletin, December, 1998.

[19] Brown, E.C. & Greenbaum, P.E., Reinstitutionalization After Discharge from Residential Mental Health Facilities: Competing Risks Survival Analysis.

[20] Kilzer, supra note 10.

[21] Client reports to Bazelon Center staff attorneys.

[22] Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1.

[23] Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1.

[24] See, e.g., supra note 14 and accompanying text.

[25] National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Focus Newsletter, July 16, 2002 (“[Residential treatment centers] are usually some distance from the youth’s community, alienating the youth from his or her known environment and adding communication and travel costs to the families and communities.”)

[26] Myrth Ogilvie, Transitioning From Residential Treatment: Family Involvement & Helpful Supports, in Focal Point (2001), available at: http://www.rtc.pdx.edu/FPinHTML/FocalPointSP01/pgFPsp01Transitioning.shtml.

[27] Supra note 25.

[28] Since their inception, RTCs have been under-monitored. As Jane Knitzer noted in Unclaimed Children, supra note 2 at 46: “States have not emphasized continued monitoring of children’s care once they are in residential treatment.” Many RTCs are not accredited at all. Further, the RTCs that are certified are accredited by the Joint Organization on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), an independent, nonprofit organization. But as many have pointed out “JCAHO’s standards are geared mainly toward monitoring surgical and pharmacological procedures. And so RTCs, which are more like boarding schools than traditional hospitals, can become accredited under standards that have little to do with the daily programs and activities practiced in them.” Meza-Wilson, A. & Harrison, C., Safe Choices for Troubled Teens: Residential treatment centers for troubled teens are plagued by allegations of abuse and ineffectiveness. But do anguished parents have an alternative?, August 12, 2004, available at: http://www.askquestions.org/articles/teens/.

[29] Ohio Rights Service Review, supra note 5.

[30] Id. Further, the Bazelon Center has been contacted by federally funded Protection and Advocacy organizations who never or rarely received MUIs from the RTCs serving children within their jurisdiction.

[31] Friesen, B.J., Kruzich, J.M., Robinson, A., Jivanjee, P., Pullmann, M. & Bowles, C., Straining the Ties that Bind: Limits on Parent-Child Contact in Out-Of-Home Care, in Focal Point (2001), available at: http://www.rtc.pdx.edu/FPinHTML/FocalPointSP01/pgFPsp01Straining.shtml.

[32] See e.g., Scott Higham and Sewell Chan, Poor Care, Abuses Alleged at Riverside, The Washington Post, July 15, 2003, available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A56180-2003Jul14¬Found=true; Kilzer, supra note 10; Associated Press, Death At Residential Treatment Center Ruled a Homicide, May 16, 2002, available at: http://www.geocities.com/ahobbit.geo/residential_treatment.html; Tim Weiner, Parents Divided Over Jamaica Disciplinary Academy, The New York Times, June 17, 2003; Ohio Rights Service Review, supra note 5; Tanya Eiserer, Death of teen at therapy facility investigated: Richardson 17-year-old died being restrained by staff in Hill Country, Dallas Morning News, October 17, 2002; Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, Leah Rae and Shawn Cohen, Treatment Often Hampered By Bureaucracy, The Journal News, June 23, 2002, available at: http://www.nyjournalnews.com/rtc/rtc062302_01.html.

[33] Higham and Chan, supra note 32.

[34] Reports to staff attorneys at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

[35] Kilzer, supra note 10.

[36] Unclaimed Children, supra note 2, at 46.

[37] Kilzer, supra note 10.

[38] Higham and Chan, supra note 32.

[39] Fitz-Gibbon, Rae and Cohen, supra note 32.

[40] Id.

[41] Higham and Chan, supra note 32.

[42] Associated Press, supra note 32.

[43] Fitz-Gibbon, Rae and Cohen, supra note 32.

[44] Kilzer, supra note 10.

[44] Higham and Chan, supra note 32.

[45] Fitz-Gibbon, Rae and Cohen, supra note 32.

[46] Id.

[47] Mental Health: Report of the Surgeon General, supra note 1.

[48] Id.

[49] Id. The Surgeon General suggests that RTCs are often utilized because of the under-availability of community-based alternatives.

[50] Bruns, E.J., Serving Youths with Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Maryland: Opportunities for the Use of the Wraparound Approach, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, September 17, 2003 (on file at the Bazelon Center).

[51] Id. at 2.

SSRI ANTIDEPRESSANT DRUGS LEAD TO VIOLENCE AND SUICIDAL IDEATION

http://www.kurtdanysh.com

Bill Would Help Children Undergoing Psychiatric Abuse in Residential Facilities

http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/youth-mental-health/teen-residential-psychiatric-abuse

This link to the site of the advocacy organization, Mind Freedom also contains link to the Government Accountability Office's report which details concerns about abuses and deaths in residential facilities for juveniles.

SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS

"Desire and anger are born of unrest. The former has limitless appetite; the latter is the greatest of all sinners. Know that they are the real enemies."
-Bhagavad Gita 3:37

"A person not committed to higher good is mindless- he lacks right thinking, he is bound to be restless. How can a restless person be happy." -Bhagavad Gita 2:66

"The good and the pleasant are two different things- they motivate a person to pursue different goals. The one who embraces the good meets with auspiciousness, but the one who chooses the pleasant is lost." Katha Upanishad 2:1

CHANGING OUR THINKING, CHANGING OUR SOCIETY

"Because our society has become so focused on greed and what is best for the individual rather than for others, because we have focused only on what we desire rather than looking for the good of all, that we have effectively begun a campaign of destruction of an entire generation of children. We have abandoned them, left them with no guidance, no acceptance. All we have provided them is the aftermath of our own fauly decisions. We have made our children frustrated and angry. This anger has become rage. It is no wonder that we see a rise in anti-social behaviors, for they are the product of this rage which we have created ourselves. In early childhood, children think little of whether one is black or white, Jew or Christian, or whatever. Over time, they learn to establish barriers between others, because they have learned this from us. Sadly, I would say by the age of 10, we have indoctrinated our children. If what we have modeled is faulty, it will be very hard for them to unlearn. Vicious cycles will sadly continue. Hope often appears dim in a society as we have, but I do believe that buried within in of us lies potential, a potential for benevolence, a potential for change, a potential to re-create ourselves, re-create our world, and ultimately to turn away from the destructive course we are choosing to head at present."

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D., B.C.S.A.
www.DrDanEdmunds.com
International Center for Humane Psychiatry

MODELFAMILY.ORG- TACKLING ABUSES IN THE CPS/FOSTER CARE SYSTEMS AND ISSUES OF JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT

http://www.modelfamily.org

This is a wonderful organization tackling issues of CPS/foster care abuses, judicial and public defender misconduct, and taking a stand for the rights of children and families.

JUVENILE DETENTION/ RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT CENTERS- FOCUS SHOULD BE SHIFTED TO TRUE REHABILITATION- SCRANTON TIMES TRIBUNE

Editor: It is a positive development that Luzerne County Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan are being brought to justice for their actions in profiting from placing youth in detention facilities.

However, it is necessary for us to examine the problems inherent with residential and detention facilities themselves. In these settings, youth are placed often under conditions that lead them to further emotional distress. The decisions to place children is often not based on a genuine interest in the child’s best interests, but what will be profitable and the easiest way out of having to actually rehabilitate youth and meet their emotional needs.

It is no wonder that the socio-economically disadvantaged youth are the ones that are so frequently seen in this system. How does placing a child into a detention center or residential facility, which often is geared toward the concept of staff forcing conformity through rewards, punishments and often deprivation, teach a child who seeks to use power inappropriately that this is wrong?

How does a militaristic system teach anything but that children must submit to someone stronger than themselves? It only reinforces wrong ideas about power and domination.

These facilities are bound to create new emotional problems for these children. But the system profits here, as well, because then they are able to label and drug the children and make money in the process of billing for this injustice.

A youth is removed from the home, programmed, and when they conform to the expectations, released back to the setting that led to their distress and misbehavior to begin with. It becomes a vicious cycle.

These facilities are also very costly and their efficacy is questionable. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law noted the ineffectiveness of these facilities in treatment of youth as well as the many documented abuses that occur in such places.

Community-based options have proven effective and need to be more readily available and implemented.

We need to shift our focus to true rehabilitation and to addressing actual social problems, not locking our children away, drugging them into submission, and ignoring their needs.

DAN L. EDMUNDS, Ed.D.

Residential Treatment for Youth- Do No Harm- by Charles Huffine, M.D.

Residential Treatment for Youth: Do No Harm! Charles Huffine, MD
AACP Newsletter, Volume 15, Number 3, Summer 2001

A few months after the tragedy of 10 year old Candace Newmaker’s re-birthing death in Evergreen, Colorado, come reports of further brutality against our most vulnerable and troubled children.

In June 2001 in Fountain Hills Arizona, a 14-year-old boy was taken from a residential treatment facility dehydrated and delirious and was pronounced dead when he arrived at the hospital. Prior to staff calling 911 they had forced him, along with other residents, to stand in the Arizona sun in temperatures that were regularly over 100 degrees. They were forced to wear black sweats and were punished if they asked for food or water by being forced to eat mud. These teenagers were often beaten. The "sergeants," or staff members, stomped on the boys chests and arms with boots if they didn’t perform tasks required of them. On one occasion a staff held a knife to the throat of a boy.

Earlier, at a school for troubled teens in Prince Georges County Maryland, a 17-year-old boy died of asphyxia as a teacher cut off his airway in the act of restraining him.

More recently, at a Christian school for troubled youth in Newark Missouri, five staff members were arrested and charged with felony child abuse. Their punishment for youth who were deemed disrespectful was to stand in cow manure pits in depths of a few inches to chest high.

These incidents are the latest in a steady drum beat of reports of egregious behavior on the part of staff members of some residential programs for troubled youth. These facilities go by a variety of names: attitude adjustment schools, behavior modification camps, social service shelters, wilderness survival camps. Others present themselves as psychiatric residential treatment facilities.

These programs claim to help troubled youth, but they often operate with minimal, ineffectual or absent psychiatric oversight. Reports of abusive practices in these facilities come from all over the United States, but more often from states with weaker laws protecting the rights of adolescents.

How common are such incidents?

Do they occur in violation of an agency’s policies, or do they result from practices that should be considered child abuse but are seen by program leaders as valid treatments for behaviorally disordered youth?

Why do parents seek out such programs for their troubled sons and daughters?

What are our obligations to seek oversight and regulation of residential programs for troubled youth and to educate parents and the public about risks and questionable practices in these facilities?

These are a few of many unanswered questions that trouble advocates and professionals concerned about the humane treatment of children and youth with psychiatric disorders that manifest as troublesome behavior.

What we do know is that there are many programs for such youth around the country. Some have contracts within their home states for serving difficult to manage youth and others receive reimbursement from private insurance carriers. Oversight of these contracts appears to be inadequate in many cases.

Many such programs are responsible only to the parents for the way they serve children and youth. Many programs tell parents to stay out of contact with their children for a period of time and provide parents with explanations of the treatment that may not represent what their child experiences.

Too often, prior treatment is viewed as failed treatment. Records are not obtained and prior therapists are disrespected or shunned if they try to coordinate.

There is no one regulatory agency that has responsibility for such facilities in any state as programs fall outside of usual regulatory frameworks for psychiatric facilities or schools. Deaths, serious harm and frank abuse have been reported on by journalists, starting with the 1998 Hartford Currant article on death and injury from restraint and seclusion.

To date, the medical and nursing professions have had little to say about troubled facilities and the reports of tragic incidents arising from them. Our professions have not defined best practices for addressing behavioral symptomology in such programs.

A psychiatrist speaking on behalf of a program that had a recent death stated in a legal setting that such incidents are rare, but can be unfortunate side effects of restraint, and are unavoidable.

At the very least, states should develop regulatory policies defining the various forms of residential care and assuring that all residential programs in their state are covered by some regulatory system. Regulatory policies should be placed in law and should hold the program administration accountable for assuring the safety of each youth in their care. Regulations should define the boundary for staff between allowable physical interventions and behavior with youth that is frankly abusive.

Psychiatrists and nurses should be on the forefront of advocating for such reforms and assurances for our youth.

The issue of residential treatment should be looked at from the perspective of community psychiatric, or community nursing practice.

What have we learned from nearly twenty years of practicing values and principles articulated for the Children and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP) and the System of Care (SOC) reform movement it spawned?

The core values of the SOC reforms were the following:

Services should be

1) family centered
2) child and adolescent focused
3) community based and well coordinated
4) culturally competent

Sending youth across the country to a residential program, or limiting parental access to their children in a local program, is the antithesis of a family centered practice. Parents must be included in the assessment of each child, involved in regular contact with their child and central to planning the child’s reentry into their life outside the institution.

Programs that offer rigid programming, or frankly misuse behavioral paradigms, are not providing individualized and tailored care as is becoming a standard "best practice" for ever more child care communities around the country.

To provide a quality service, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners and other mental health professionals should have a strong hand in overseeing the treatment process.

Children and youth taken out of their communities, when those communities have seemed unable to help a youth modify their behavior, are not optimally served. They are deprived of the opportunity to learn social adaptations in the context of family, culture and all that is familiar to them.

When care is placed in the hands of a single entity, when information is not obtained from prior providers, and when parents are excluded from meaningful participation in treatment, the power and control of the staff over a resident in the facility is extreme and unlike most other situations except prisons.

This gross inequity of power is, understandably, fertile ground for abusive practices. The facility becomes the new culture for the child. Treatment becomes for the child the game he or she needs to master in order to survive, or curry favor so as to get privileges.

This is the essence of institutionalization that was recognized as harmful by the movement toward community based and culturally competent care. Regulations based on best practices might include a definition of what specific circumstances demand residential placement. They might assure that this aspect of care is brief, limited only to a period when it meets standards of medical necessity, and is well integrated into community based services.

The CALOCUS would be an ideal tool for such a level of care determination process as it offers alternatives to residential placement when intensive treatment is indicated. Regulations based on best practices should assure that parents be full participants in the care of their child in a residential treatment facility.

Best practices based regulations would demand documentation of critical incidents and would create a certainty of outside investigation of incidents involving death or serious injury. They would create a quality assurance protocol for licensed agencies providing residential care that would address such issues as treatment effectiveness and individualization, resident rights and humane practices and acceptable interventions for troublesome behavior.

Clearly more examination of the network of residential treatment, schools and other programs is warranted by the AACP and the International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses (ISPN).

On the heels of two more tragic deaths and police action against residential care staff we would hope that the discussion might look more broadly at the phenomenon of residential care for children and youth. We would encourage an examination of the role of residential care as a treatment option and social intervention, and its impact on the life of a developing youth.

Charley Huffine, MD, AACP Immediate Past-President
Wanda Mohr, RN, ISPN
Carol Bush, RN, ISPN

LUZERNE COUNTY JUDGES INDICTED IN CORRUPTION PROBE- PROFITING FROM SENDING JUVENILES TO DETENTION FACILITIES

These judges in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania violated the public trust and have harmed children. I had spoken in the past about these concerns, and it is very positive that action to bring these public officials to task. However- I have also noted that Luzerne County is not the only place where this sort of corruption appears to be occurring. We must continue to be diligent and expose these sort of situations and do what is right for our children! I will certainly be collaborating with a number of grassroots organizations and others on these issues throughout Pennsylvania and nationwide. I am pleased to say that in all of the situations I have been involved in that seemed grim and hopeless, with much determination and patience, justice was won. We must press on.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info





Update: Judges indicted in Luzerne corruption probe



The Luzerne County Courthouse.


By MICHAEL R. SISAK AND MICHAEL P. BUFFER
STAFF REPORT
Published: Monday, January 26, 2009
Updated: Monday, January 26, 2009 1:43 PM EST
Two Luzerne County judges were indicted this morning on charges relating to the operation of two juvenile detention centers.

President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, 58, and former President Judge Michael T. Conahan are accused of collecting more than $2 million from the construction, expansion and operation of juvenile detention facilities, and for placing juveniles in those facilities in Luzerne County and Western Pennsylvania.

The indictment charges both judges with engaging in a scheme to defraud the public of their honest services and with conspiring to defraud the IRS.


Ciavarella and Conahan have filed a plea agreement, signed by both judges. The judges stipulated they will resign their judgeship and be disbarred. They will serve 87 months in federal prison and make restitution as stipulated by the court.


Earlier today, Judge Chester B. Muroski announced Ciavarella resigned as Luzerne County president judge.

Muroski's secretary, Sean Duesler, handed out copies of a one-line note Ciavarella sent to Gov. Rendell dated Jan. 23. It said, "Please accept this letter as my official notice to you that I am resigning effective immediately from my position as President Judge of the Eleventh District." (Read Ciavarella's resignation letter / Watch video of Muroski's press conference)

Ciavarella sent copies of the letter to the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts and to his eight colleagues on the Luzerne County bench.

Muroski, the eldest member of the Luzerne County judiciary, will oversee the administration of the courts until an en banc meeting can be scheduled and a vote of the judges taken. State law requires the meeting be held after 72 hours notice is given.

"I am confident that the current members of this court are prepared to address the following priorities in an expedition manner," Muroski said at an 11:30 a.m. news conference in his court room on the third floor of the Luzerne County Courthouse.

"First, to maintain the function of this court by conducting the business of our court on a timely basis.

"Second, to make every effort to restore public trust and confidence in the judiciary. And third, to make a concerted effort to resolve the county-court budget impasse and the related litigation."

U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson scheduled a 1:30 p.m. press conference at the federal courthouse to discuss an ongoing probe into the Luzerne County Courthouse.

COMMUNITY ALLIANCE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF YOUTH

I was very delighted yesterday to have a telephone conversation with Dr. Charles Huffine, M.D., a psychiatrist in Seattle, Washington who has been a dedicated advocate for children and has written extensively on reisdential treatment centers, particularly the abuses that occur in these facilities as well as their being costly and ineffective. I was also pleased to learn of his work with CAFETY (Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth) and the winderful work this organization is doing towards advocating for the true needs of our young people.
http://www.cafety.org
I believe that the more we work together, the greater difference we can make. I know many (including myself) feel disillusioned at times by the enormous problems within the system, but if we can work together, and each make our contribution as people of ethics and goodness, the difference will be seen in time, we must be patient.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info

SUPPORT HR6358- THE STOP CHILD ABUSE IN RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMS FOR TEENS ACT

This important legislation has been passed in the House and will be introduced in the Senate in 2009. Please contact your Senators to support this legislation!

RD LAING AND THE NATURE OF EVIL

http://laingsociety.org/colloquia/peaceconflict/natureofevil.jgm.htm

THINKING ABOUT MYSTIFICATION

RD Laing had often discussed the conception of mystification, of how individuals can justify enormous evils by saying that are doing the action for someone's own good. It appears that the psychiatric establishment and the systems intimately connected to it (child protective services, justice system, educational system) are often involved in mystification. The Nazi era is one of the most tragic examples of mystification, and such examples today as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal are a more graphic example. In these situations, mystification involves dehumanization, of erasing the person's experience, and making them something other than a person. And so we see this occur in psychiatric hospitals, detention centers, residential treatment facilities, etc.

LIES AND VESTED INTERESTS- THE CORRUPTION INHERENT IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE AND CPS SYSTEMS

In one of my more heartbreaking situations, I had worked with a 14 year old young man in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania for some time. This young man had encountered domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse, and witnessed the drug use of his father and a suicide attempt of his mother. His situation was very complicated, yet through this I was able to develop a strong relationship with this often very distrustful young person. Through this alliance, he was able to share with me much of the darkness of his world, many things he found difficult to share with his family members, and until an incident last year, he had been progressing to the point where the psychologist and treatment team were recommending his discharge. However, after this incident, I noticed a gradual change and unfortunate decline, and he began association with a number of negative peers. I knew things were bound for trouble and warned him of this. I knew as well that his deep need for attention, affection, and validation were becoming confused in the midst of his awakening sexuality and in light of the past trauma and abuse he experienced. I noticed that as the new school year began, he began putting up distance with me, and it was shortly thereafter that 'all hell broke loose' with him becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. He was charged in regards to an incident where he had thoughts in regards to sexual abuse, but did not actually follow through with this action. The juvenile system as well as the Wyoming County Human Services Agency handled this young man's situation in a means that was far from compassionate, far from rehabilitative, and actually detrimental to his emotional well being. After investigation and obtaining information from colleagues, I determined that a number of youth with similar charges had received far less harsh treatment by the system. I also found that while the system wrangled over who paid for what, they allowed this child to be ripped from his family (causing trauma for his young siblings as well who remain confused as to this circumstance) and to languish with no connections to anyone and his prior therapeutic alliance completely cut off and no help provided. He was 'evaluated' but never was any information in regards to his past victimization or prior treatment considered. He has been recommended for a residential treatment facility in Erie, PA. Curious enough, this facility (which is 6 hours away) houses another youth from the same area. In light of the recent charges brought against Luzerne County Judges Conahan and Ciavarella in regards to taking kickbacks for sending youth to detention facilities, one could easily suspect a similar situation occurring here. According to F.E. Zimring (2004) of the University of Chicago, 90% of juvenile sex offenses are a one time event that do not recur. The NCSBY indicates that the vast majority of these youth can be helped in community based programs. However, this information was obviously ignored. According to a report from the Judge Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, residential facilities have often had low rates of success, are highly costly, and abuses have occurred (overuse of psychiatric drugs, injuries involving restraint, and seclusion).
See: http://www.bazelon.org/issues/children/factsheets/rtcs.htm
In addition, the residential treatment facility that was recommended was asked to provide a plan of correction in 2007 because of inappropriate incidents that occurred at the facility. This information is publicly available from the Department of Public Welfare. In addition, after dialoguing with a person previouslt affiliated with the managed care company which often provided funding fot this residential treatment facility in Erie, Pennsylvania, I was informed that there have been a number of incidents of abuses, particularly improper restraints, and children have been hurt by inappropriate staff. But this did not prevent the Wyoming County caseworker from trying to sell this facility as it were a 'godsend'.
In spite of this information as well, the system continues its agenda as it appears evident that there are vested interests.
I am sadly quite sure that this is not the first of many incidents of distressed and disadvantaged youth whose needs are not truly being met by a corrupt system claiming to help but only concerned for their own interests. It is a travesty, and it is necessary for those truly concerned for the well being of our youth to continue the struggle to insure that our children's voices are truly heard, and that we address the needs of troubled youth in a rehabilitative and compassionate manner.
I so greatly appreciate the efforts of those who have stood with me in this important struggle. We will NEVER give up, no matter what games are played, what corruption we must tackle. Our kids are too important.

-Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.
www.humanepsychiatry.info