Being responsible for the welfare of others can make people really anxious. When people are less inhibited and less predictable responding to them requires creative thinking and for some people in authority the creative state of consciousness is a vulnerable place. Not being in control has led to them being abused so as they struggle for control and dominance of a situation, they inspire this anxiety based consciousness in others.
When children grow up eating dinner in an environment that is overly restrictive, they often have digestive issues as adults. Digesting food has become associated with an anxious state of mind.
Mental digestion is also impaired by an over emphasis on restricted performance. When school teachers experience the anxiety from that sense of vulnerability which they associate with being abused, they risk losing control of a classroom because they aren't thinking creatively about the kinds of responses to students in a given situation that would encourage a relaxed and trusting environment.
When control and manipulation are the root cause of the vulnerability that leads to abuse, more of the same (which is how American bureaucrats typically attempt to protect the reputation of a broken system) will not produce different results.
As I have written about in my last two blog posts,( here and here), creating better control over students is what's behind the goal of demanding state school systems to train teachers in the experimental philosophy of behaviorism. Behaviorism as it has been defined by Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) has been rebranded as Positive Behavioral Support (PBS).
Trained supporters of Applied Behavioral Analysis have recently sought to be absolved of their bad reputation by obtaining the endorsement of parent and disability advocacy groups. The legislation which claims to be providing regulations so that school systems can be held more accountable for their abuse HR 4247 will instead further establish schools as an environment for using brands of psychology.
Behaviorism is one such method that cannot be integrated with the ideals of accepting a broader group of people with different ways of thinking and therefore, responding to their environment. The goal of behaviorism is one of exploration and experimentation into how masses of people can be controlled with a narrow view of their identity as the sum of their primal reactions.
Today methamphetamine (a similar drug as the one used in this therapy) is thought to be one of the leading causes of murder, theft, and other drug related crimes as well as causing the death of many who use it.
This is one example of a behavioral therapy for school children that has encouraged even worse problems than it was originally treating.
The comprehensive understanding of what the problems in the system really are continues to be avoided for the protection of those in authority who made it that way. This is how the cycle of abuse in schools continues.
There has been a progressive merging of the U.S. school systems with the reform and rehabilitation industry. This merger is part of a tradition in the US for having an institutional approach to handling large masses of citizens who are seen as uncooperative and disposable.
Dependence on the federal government as regulator of all behavior is a convenience too often used to disguise oppressive methods of control. Too many of what are considered "necessary evils" become seen as necessary when there's too much emphasis on everyone following a narrow set of standards.
Statewide Positive Behavioral Support is an effort to promote a single set of specific ideals for standard behavior by a public institution where compulsory attendance is demanded for impressionable children.
Once such a merger is created with the companies that train people in Applied Behavioral Analysis, there are fewer opportunities for independent advocacy and as the dependence on such a system is reinforced more otherwise benign behaviors can be defined as inappropriate or unhealthy.
The support for ABA becoming more widely used in our society has been greatly encouraged by Matthew Israel at the Judge Rotenberg Center.
Wikipedia says here about JRC:
"The Center makes use of aversives as part of their intensive, 24/7 behavior modification program. Until the late 1980s, aversion therapy was administered in the form of spanking with a spatula, pinching the feet, and forced inhaling of ammonia.
Currently the Center administers 2-second electric skin shocks to residents using a Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), which was invented to administer the skin-shocks by remote control through electrodes worn against the skin."
The Judge Rotenberg Center was named after a judge who helped them in their legal battles to continue with their experiments. These inhumane experiments were first tested on animals on now used on humans who are seen as dispensable.
Matthew Israel describes here regarding the history of the Judge Rotenberg Center:
"While this litigation was taking place, in late 1985 and early 1986, JRC brought one of its seriously self-abusive, autistic students before the Bristol County Probate Court for a substituted judgment hearing that was held by Chief Judge Ernest Rotenberg. After hearing testimony on both sides of the issue, Judge Rotenberg determined: (1) that the student was incompetent to make her own medical treatment decisions; and (2) that the child, if competent, would have chosen treatment that included the use of the aversives that JRC had been employing, prior to the decision by the administrative judge. This substituted judgment hearing was the same type of hearing that was required in Massachusetts for individuals for whom agencies wished to employ psychotropic medication (or other intrusive medical procedures) and who were incompetent to make their own treatment decisions."
Advocacy for the mentally ill from NAMI encouraged this "it's therapy for their own good, and they need to have others make decisions for them" when they helped pass laws such as Kendra's Law in New York and Laura's law in California, which encouraged forced institutionalization.
TASH and other such disability advocacy groups have corporate sponsors and are bound by the political compromises of lobbyists that continue to aid in the abuse and exclusion of the majority of disabled people. Many such groups recently supported HR 4247 providing more authority to bureaucratic agencies and again discouraging the voice of disabled people from being heard. This continues to encourage the "everything about us without us" traditional oppressive attitude about disabled people.
Standardized testing in schools exclude most disabled students many of whom are later institutionalized in jails and mental institutions. If and when they enter vocational rehabilitation, the counselors are given incentives to provide the most help to the clients who need it the least. Again, this excludes the majority in the same ways as public schools.
A dependence on the litigation process which is dominated by people with the most political and financial resources is an essential aspect of protecting the bureaucracy and the way they do things. People with disabilities who are in the most need of protection are served the least by this system. The stricter and harsher rules that can be incorporated into this system provides a way for it to become even more exclusive so that there is always at least some regulation that can be used to exclude anyone they choose.
The Protection and Advocacy agency provides litigation based on what they need to show in order to maintain their funding. They are more than willing to provide aid for any client that can help create or change a law that aids the objectives of the agency. In this way, they have no authority to defend the public from the bureaucracy at all. This keeps all resources and legal aid supporting the bureaucracy and hiding their abuses.
When enough of the public began to understand the realities of the abuses within state mental institutions, the problems with bureaucratic self-regulation became apparent to many people and there was a request for independent investigations into the matter. However, changes were made from within the system to prevent very much of this from occurring.
The changes to the institutions were minimal but what changed much more dramatically was the development of more effective methods that were used to discourage people who were being abused from reporting it. The bureaucracy in the United States is defined by government contracts and informal mergers with private industries and by their ability to create documents to be used for litigation.
It's not responsible or reasonable to expect that the bill HR 4247 will provide protection for the public. It was designed within a self regulating system that protects itself from the public who is seen as unworthy of protection.
Excellent post Ed.
Posted by: Macsen Rex | March 09, 2010 at 09:09 AM
Thanks Macsen.
Posted by: Ed | March 09, 2010 at 05:12 PM