3,181 Comments Posted by Lynne

Ron, my little buddy,

You win the gazillion dollar prize! That has been a huge problem in my field. For years (and even today, I am ashamed to have to admit) when someone with an intellectual disability talked to an imaginary friend they ran the risk of being labeled schizophrenic and put on meds. If you look at their developmental level, however, you see that this is not abnormal or unexpected. Lots of young children at the very same developmental level have imaginary friends and they are not (normally, thank God) put on medication because of it. As well, when there was crappy funding and staffing levels were low, there were times when some folks had no one else to talk to who was verbal, so a good way to pass the time was to make up an imaginary friend.

If people bother to take the time to look (and many don't), there is a world of difference between an imaginary friend and a hallucination. Imaginary friends are generally positive experiences and the person with one doesn't change their overall functioning level. They still interact with others, they remember to eat and drink and take care of hygiene, etc. Hallucinations, on the other hand, are generally very frightening or upsetting and the person shows general signs of deterioration along with them, such as forgetting about hygiene, getting paranoid over almost anything, etc.

psycadellic one,

This drawing prompted to look back through some of my old testing materials. I couldn't find my cognitive scoring paperwork, but I am now going to stake $1.20 (that's a large sum for me) that the bunny was indeed drawn by someone at the 4 to 6 year developmental level. Since I mainly test children of all cognitive levels and adults with intellectual disabilities, I like using drawings to start a testing session to warm the person up and give them something "fun" to do. I have had good luck using drawings to estimate cognitive level - the results correlate fairly well with standardized intelligence tests. I *rarely* use them for emotional interpretation, as they sometimes reflect more about the interpreter than the interpretee. :-)

I couldn't find anything about a circle being drawn around the drawing, and again we are merely speculating here (think of this as a sophisticated parlor game, y'all), but I am remembering that a circle around a drawing would probably be interpreted as one of several things. 1-) The person has some organicity (brain damage) and needs to draw a boundary for the drawing so it "stays in one place." People with brain trauma or other organic issues sometimes have a hard time knowing where one thing stops and another starts, so they will sometimes draw a boundary to help them establish edges. If they draw on a piece of paper they sometimes can't "negotiate space" and will start too close to the edge of the paper and their drawing may end up being squished so it will all fit on the paper, or sometimes parts are left off because they can't orient themselves to start the drawing in the middle of the paper and they run out of room. 2-) The person feels closed in or trapped. 3-) The person feels secure and homey and all nestled up.

So you see, there is a way to interpret it as either bad or good. You have to put it in context with a bazillion other variables.

I did some quick research scanning and there is definitely some support for prominent teeth in a drawing being indicative of hostility. However, it doesn't indicate whether YOU feel hostile or whether you feel others are being hostile TOWARD you.

OK, more than anyone ever wanted to know about the interpretation of drawings. :-)

http://www.arttherapy.org/aboutarttherapy/faqs.htm

Of course I am - ~Me was the leader of the aliens on the last ship that abducted me.

Dr. Sketch, I doff my hat to you. 8`-)

Ron, little buddy, here ya go:

http://members.aol.com/pa22495/DevilClown.jpg

PB, that's a very personal question if you are familiar with aliens and anal probes. ;-)

Ha! Ye olde spousal unit came in the room as I was writing this and said that if you think about it, that would be a pretty good price, since a good straightjacket that is working as it should needs to be a well-crafted piece of equipment to do its job correctly. The ones we used to use back in the old days were canvas with leather straps to close in the back and then they had metal buckles. If you figure the stated reason for them is for containing a person who is out of control, they need to withstand some fairly terrific pressure and activity.

He said $100.00 is probably a deal.

Jesus, the things you get me into, Sketch! 8`-)

P.S. If my spouse now gets me a straightjacket for Christmas I'm coming to kick your ass, Sketch! >:-P

P.P.S. Guess I could give it to ~Me, though . . . . .

It looks like they sell them on eBay, but they are a tad pricey in my eyes (the three or four that just came up on eBay were around $100.00 American). I don't know if a medical supplies company would sell them to the general public and if so, what they might cost. Looks like a lot of "kinky" folks like 'em from the few attempts I just made to check it out on the web.

By the way, Sketch darlin', you better be my alibi when my husband uses the computer over the next few days and all the ads start coming in for kinky stuff. 8`-)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0229260/

~Me is right (as always). They are not uncomfortable if you are placed in one that is the right size and if it is secured the way it is supposed to be. Most of us would hate being in one just because we don't like not being able to get out and we tend to get claustrophobic. They ARE rather difficult to get out of (although there is always someone who manages somehow), but there are a number of folks who know when they have passed the point where they are no longer in control and seem to relax as soon as they are in one. Interestingly (to me, at least), many of the folks who relax when they are in one would sometimes get all worked up and upset when they saw the jacket was being taken off if they knew they weren't yet back in control of themselves.

Temple Grandin, a woman with Asperger syndrome, writes in her books that a number of years ago she made herself a "squeeze machine" and the consistent pressure on her from the machine helps her relax when she is upset or stressed. This is a similar concept to the straightjacket or being held in a physical restraint, and folks who respond positively such as this may have sensory integration issues.

Rather than using mechanical restraints, I used to use physical restraint if I had someone who was out of control, if a simple time out in the other side of the room didn't work. It was my experience with the vast majority of the folks I worked with that they relaxed as soon as they knew I had them in a crossover hold (cross their arms in front of them and stand or sit behind them while holding their arms). Since I am 5' 1" standing on my tiptoes and as wimpy as anyone can get, I obviously don't have the ability to hold anyone for very long "against their will," but I was always amazed at how many folks would just relax and sit back calmly as soon as I had my arms around them to keep them from hurting themselves or others. They knew I was never going to hurt them or let them get hurt, and they just needed to be able to get themselves together without anyone overstimulating them by talking to them or lecturing them or yelling at them - just basically letting them calm themselves down so they could learn to do it by themselves at some point, which most eventually learned.

The majority of facilities for folks with intellectual disabilities stopped using straightjackets 20 - 25 years ago, and that was actually my job at the first facility I worked at back in the mid-80s. 24 of the 45 folks I "inherited" on my caseload had behavior "treatment" programs that included mechanical restraints of some sort (straightjackets, wrist restraints, 4 point restraint, helmets, papoose boards, etc.) and we were able to get all 24 programs discontinued within a year at the same time we decreased their psychotropic medications. That was pretty swell. This was a group of heavy hitters with multiyear histories of restraint and excessive amounts of medication, so I myself was amazed we all made as much headway as we did that year.

Anyway, at some point we had a number of straightjackets that we discovered somewhere that we hadn't yet scrapped. One of them was "just my size", so one of my coworkers tried it on me, secured it, and walked me down the hall, laughing, and as we turned the corner we walked into a conference room full of important executives, so to get out of the embarrassing spot I had to drool and shuffle and make strange noises, and then everyone looked away in embarrassment to be "polite", so we were able to get the hell out of there before anyone actually looked up and saw that it was just us.

The violent ward was generally an entire wing or a separate section of a facility. Most of the other sections had seclusion rooms as well; just not as many of them. If someone became overly agitated, one of the options was to take them to a seclusion room so they would have a chance to calm themselves down away from the stimulation of the other folks and also for the protection of the other folks and/or staff. These rooms were more common before the days of psychotropic medications. Your options back then if someone was getting agitated were pretty much limited to straightjackets, pack, tubs, or seclusion rooms.

'Tis true, 'tis true! The Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan was one of the more expensive places to go for R & R.

I "collect" old institutions, and there are/were several interesting ones in South Dakota - the "State Training School and Juvenile Prison" in Plankinton, the "Yankton State Hospital for the Insane" in Yankton, the "Northern Hospital for the Feeble-Minded" in Redfield, and the "Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians" in Canton. Don't know if any are still in operation.

"People who was held hostege" - chuckle chuckle. :-)