Even I'm Shocked - and I've Grown Very Hard to Shock...

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The headline for a certain article on the main page of the news site read "Shock Therapy Controversy", and showed the logo of the Judge Rottenberg Center (misspelling deliberate). So, of course, I was expecting that - finally - there was starting to be a public outcry over this.

Of course, I wanted to read the article. When I got there, I discovered the controversy is because the Rottenberg torture camp administration is protesting a proposed ban on their torture of helpless individuals. I'm pretty sure anyone reading this post can guess just how much sympathy I have for them...

How dare they? How @#$~! dare they? How can even the slimiest of sleazeball lawyers accept cash to stand up and whine because their clients might not be allowed to torture anyone anymore? And the news reports this with a straight face? We have no claim at all to be a civilised society as long as things like this can happen.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/07/09/school-questions-governors-plan-to-ban-shock-therapy/?utm_source=home&utm_medium=dl&utm_campaign=shock-therapy-controversy

*wanders off to calm down before I grind every single one of my teeth down to stubs*

It makes me feel like saying we should be allowed under law to tazar NT's when they start acting violent or stupidly around us because of their differences to us. However it's not straightforward as a simple inversion form theirs to our logic. But I can understand some guys very getting wound up over this.

What is the basic reason for them conducting these experiments/techniques ?

( I'm stuck on a novel as well which is why I'm here for a while.)

meme

To paraphrase the justification they use: we are terrible, we must be cured, and torturing us for every tiny behaviour in which we deviate from the NT norm will eventually cure us - or at least teach to hide who and what we are from the world.

If it is not torture, then I propose a very simple experiment - let those in charge at the Rottenberg "camp" wear their own devices, and hand the controls over to those of us who have AS; let us shock them whenever we feel it is appropriate. What's that? They'd rather not? Gee, I wonder why... It's only "therapy", so what could be so bad about experiencing their own "therapy"?

Sorry. I'm frothing at the mouth right now. Their logo ought to be those SS runes superimposed over a swastika. With maybe a death's head thrown in, just to be clear.

Hmm I guess many of us think "hey if it was the other way around then..."

We gotta stay real icy calm here.(-HellsAspies ," Zaspies," like hells angels without the wheels but with that kind of zen-hard attitude. ) We can do that, we can stay calm.

Ok so they are using shock therapies- with or without the consent of our guys in there?

I don't think this is allowed under California law. The Lanterman act has certain statements about shock therapy and says no one has the right to do that to "us".

Has anyone ever consented to getting zapped for stupid crap like not making eye contact? I mean, if you wanted to act NT that badly, I'd think you could find easier ways to learn.

No, as far as everything I've ever heard about the place, they don't consent, although I think in most cases their families do. Which provides fuel for another good sized rant, now that I think of it. As for the excuse that some of them are violent, hell, if my family shipped me off to someplace like that, and I was locked up there, I'd get pretty violent myself. As far as I'm concerned, they're teaching them to be violent. After all, what's the lesson you get from being zapped, over and over? (Besides learning to hide who you really are and what you really think.) Violence works. Violence is how you make people do what you want. That's what they're teaching them.

This isn't happening in California. It's in Massachusetts. Where I happen to live. Suddenly, earthquakes, mudslides, and wildfires aren't looking so bad... (Sorry if you like California; I'm just not used to those threats, and normally, I wouldn't consider risking them to move to California.)

Is it a republican state?

Here's the JR lawyer giving their side -2009 case.

Now can we stay objective enough to critically look at his arguments . If we can we can deconstruct them and if there are grounds, genuine grounds, then maybe we will have some leverage against this kind of thing.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip45wLd6uKY[/youtube]

Violence/coercion is learned through useing forceful coercive programmes - that's very perceptive and a strong point.
This is a demonstrable relationship- dehumanise groups of people in order to carry out inhumane tasks. Ok, does the JR have anything built in the programmes to prevent this from happening? You are looking something like a behavioural positive reinforcement , rewards for constructive social behavior.

The argument as I see it from MF's satement in the video , these kids were so far gone ,this was the only way to get them to a functional level- what studies were done to see if they became inclined to violent coercive behvior after treatment if they did reach functionality?

How many did reach functionality or is it a management technique?

Ok this is really uncomfortable for me to contemplate . I can feel for those guys in there and in this age of technology we should have a better way , is there a better way? A demonstrable one?

Last edited by memesplice on 09 Jul 2011, 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Where do you stand on this Ci?

Massachusetts???? Home of the Kennedys?

This is not my advocacy focus so I have no relevant study.

I am reminded of a video on YouTube which I cannot find. The parents of someone with autism with head banging wanted to put on a shock collar. The shock was not that great and more so a prompt. It worked in correcting the self-harm behavior to the point it no longer happened. When someones heart fails they are given shocks to the chest. Although more life threatening over time head banging causes harm or even in the short-term if hard enough. Do we outlaw medicines which alter the mind over that of a shock?

These issues are subjective and individual. I tend to think if one is an immediate risk to another person or themselves they have the right to quality of care. Alternatives to shock must be made available when an individual chooses when over the age of eighteen. However when younger and a shock is effective over that of other treatments is the pain worth while enough to correct an immediate threat to oneself or others. How painful is it and can alternatives assist similarly even if not as effective.

If I was the head of a facility or a policy maker in elected government I'd make alternatives the standard whilst using shock as a last resort in only certain circumstances where there is an immediate threat to oneself or others. Shock should not be used so very freely just the same as confinement over simple behavioral abnormalities / differences. When psychological professionals get to much power they can abuse it and be comfortable with it. I've seen confined isolation with full body straps for simply clapping out of turn and just because the individual was substantially cognitively impaired. These are obvious human rights violations and no man or women would expect themselves to be free should they not honor the freedom of them.

Last edited by ci on 09 Jul 2011, 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am not aware of politics as much as others that seem have it as an interest.

I think shock treatment is acceptable only under the following conditions:

* the behavior is so severe that 24/7 restraints or death/serious injury are the only other alternatives

* all the gentler treatments shown to be effective in reducing self-injury have been tried and already failed, or had side effects worse than potential PTSD

* the program is closely supervised so the person administering shocks can't start using them for milder behavior problems

* if the shock program is not effective, it is terminated as soon as it's ineffectiveness becomes evident

Very few of the JRC kids have behavior severe enough to meet my criteria (honestly, I'm talking Jeff Apple level, which is very rare). They have been using shocks for milder behavior problems, such as swearing at a teacher. They have kept using shocks when the kid's behavior is clearly worsening. And I have no data about what other treatments were tried for those kids - most have had several, but I can't say if everything was tried.

This is difficult to separate an emotive response from a rational one .

On the one hand we a have a method of managing levels of dangerous self harm. Might not be the best method we can imagine but as a last ditch stop gap until we can come up with something less 'primitive' , it works in extreme cases.-

On the other hand some guys here are saying the JRC has overstepped the bounds of what that treatment was sanctioned for, and it is being applied to minor behavioral issues which could be delt with using other methods.

Generally what gets AS fired up here is, we can relate to the JRC kids situation. It triggers that question, the issue that sits powerfully in our minds, the one we've asked ourselves growing up a zillion times," how far should we have to adapt to NT behavior and how much should they adapt and adjust to ours, given that our nurologies aren't going to change magically overnight ? " That's a huge evolutionary process we are adressing, where one group challenges another over who has the right to define what goes in a society.

On an individual level I can't help wondering if some AS guys working in a team dealing with extreme cases like the JRC could find a less primitive way than electric shocking, and everyone would reach a solution for these kids a lot quicker and more directly. There might be things obvious to us we could figure straight away that it would take them years of research- like TG with cattle behavior? Have the JRC staff even thought of asking us- have we thought of suggesting this to them.

AS are excluded from such projects and occupations ( and many areas of society in general) by prejudice and these two points, the big evolutionary thing and the personal, are deeply interrelated. What really fires us up is the postion and power of NT's to almost casually and deftly lock us out of inclsuion in areas of work and social life we don't deserve excluding from, and we know this.

In the actions of the JRC towards these kids maybe we see an intense metaphor for our own lives and exclusion experiences-and we reduce it all down to a singular image - a kid getting zapped by some NT's with total control and the ability to define the rules of behaviour , and this image poignantly resonates with us in a much deeper way than it does in NT's .Which is probably why they don't get why some of us get so wound up about this kind of thing?

Meme

I forgot how big a deal clapping out of turn is to some groups of NTs, forgot thankfully.