4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

psychadellic one - I don't think anyone was intentionally implanting false memories; it's just that most of us didn't realize how much impact we could have on another person through suggestability and our own personal beliefs. However, if "therapists" are still doing this without using the results of the Loftus studies I would question their techniques, results, and ethics. A lot of people lost their licenses and credibility with that whole fiasco, and what's much worse, an awful lot of people were horribly traumatized by this and many family members were imprisoned by false accusations. Very sad.

LST69 - you are a doll, no matter how you spell your name. :-)

Hmm.. I spelled my own name wrong.

Lynne is da "person" tho, no matter how I spell my name.

Lynne,
Your comment about how 15 - 20 years ago if you couldn't remember being abused by your family, it means that you were abused by your family, is that related to what i remember around the same time period about some unreputable psychiatrists implanting false memory's in patients?

Once again, I applaud Lynne for eloquently speaking for those who dedicate thier lives to helping others!

8-)

I don't know how some people don't know about the Rosenhan study! I spent long hours talking to my Psych prof. about it and about Dr. Elizabeth Loftus' studies. It's really important to look at events without any preconception and enter a situation without a preconceived bias. I was talking to my advisor and my Social Work professors about the importance of this and I already know that there may be times when I'll feel a certain bias, such as, in child abuse cases. But the thing is I know that and I can detach myself from what I may think/feel it to be because it's an entirely different situation...in fact, you have to look at everything like that! You can never assume! That's what does the most damage to the person you're trying to help, and I can't believe how many "advocates" out there aren't able to pull off this seperation. I'm sure it may be hard, but you really have to make a conscious effort to do so. If you don't you're not really an advocate.

That's my Bri! :-)

Yes, I hate to admit my age here, but the Rosenhan study came out while I was in my first year as an undergraduate, and the reverberations were felt widely throughout the field. It was a brilliant study and remains one of the most powerful pieces of work I have ever read. Unfortunately, sometimes people somehow make it into the field without knowing about this incredibly key study.

We had something happen recently in the field (OK, recently to ME - 15 to 20 years ago is a lifetime for many of y'all ) where everyone was being taught that if you couldn't remember being sexually abused by your family, it meant you were obviously sexually abused by your family (but it was too traumatic for you to remember). A lot of well-meaning advocates and mental health personnel caused irreparable harm with that one until the very courageous researcher, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, published her studies on the fallibility of human memory and the power of suggestion. She and others in the field discussed looking at events without preconception and entering a situation without a preconceived bias, as that skews your results in the manner you expect to see. Ironically, although this has always been the basis of the scientific method, far too many people in the mental health field don't like to be encumbered by the "cold sterile clinical" approach of being neutral until you get all the facts. Pity, isn't it?

When I assist with investigations now (and in the past), the cardinal rule you enter with is NOT to make any assumptions and NOT to lead people. It is remarkably easy to lead people (especially vulnerable people) into saying what they think you want to hear, so you have to be deadly accurate in your interviewing techniques or someone who is innocent will end up wrongly accused or someone who is guilty will walk away free.

If you assume that everyone is an abuser the research is out there (for anyone who cares to look for it) that you will find it everywhere. Conversely, if you don't believe it happens you can't find it, even with piles of evidence staring you in the face.

In my current job as a risk management liaison we spend lots (and lots and lots and lots) of time looking at patterns of injuries - time of day, type of injury, number of injuries, concomitant medical issues, history of injuries - and after a while it is not that hard to see some things that some folks would automatically assume was abuse actually turning out not to be abuse, or vice versa.

Ironically, we are usually jumped more by the people we investigate, because the onus always has to be on protecting the clients. Often staff feel as if an automatic assumption of guilt is made if they are investigated, but the process in all state institutions at this point is that we have to investigate all injuries or unusual events - it's as simple as that. Because the consequences of accusing someone of abuse are also so major, we walk a tight rope of making sure that accusations are not made without a LOT of attempts at getting it right.

If you accuse the wrong person of abuse you sometimes do more damage to the client, who may know full well that this person didn't hurt them, but they lose the relationship they had with this person through an improper accusation. You also may lose a staff person who was the best thing ever to come along for a lot of folks. However, we always have to go with protecting the clients first.

That does not occur when we assume they are abusing people without checking it out first, and it's an insult to staff everywhere.

One additional point that I have to keep coming back to is this - why do we like to heap scorn and ridicule on the people who did what they did with no money and no resources and some of them in frustration became abusive - and we don't heap scorn on ourselves for not demanding better conditions for the clients and their staff? It is because it is cleaner (and we can feel holier) if we act like abuse is solely an internal, personal characteristic rather a reflection of how systems go wrong and how it degrades the people who have to work under these conditions, as well as how society looks at the people who often end up in institutions as being less than human.

I still say that those who act outraged about abuse in institutions need to look around first, because abuse happens everywhere. There are many, many, many of us right now whose entire lives are dedicated to keeping these folks safe. Please go police your own community before you heap your scorn on those of us who actually are doing something about it.

Oh, and for those of you who don't know about Rosenhan's experiment you can visit this site and read up on the primary study.

http://www.garysturt.f...e.co.uk/rosenhan.htm

Lynne, one of your points brings to mind the secondary study of Rosenhan's experiment...staff of a teaching and research hospital, which was aware of the first study, was falsely informed that during the next three months one or more pseudo patients would attempt to be admitted into their hospital. Of course, they identified some people as being Rosenhan's pseudo patients...the thing is, Rosenhan didn't send ANY pseudo patients!

Ergo, if you're looking for something you're going to find it whether or not it's really there. That's when you have to be careful. When working in the advocacy career you have to be sure you have the ability to distinguish the facts as to how what you perceive those facts to mean. It becomes very dangerous if you aren't able to do that.

***Gives Lynne a standing ovation.......(the heck with it) throws underwear....
Presents Lynne with the Golden Cumezekyame Award***

Allie Cat,

Pull in the claws - you are right on the edge of flaming some good people because you are a little full of yourself right now. You are doing an awful lot of judging of others without having any idea of what you are talking about. Most of us don't mind a healthy discussion about the ills of the system, given that most outsiders don't have the first clue or interest in the good things that have happened (which shows their own state of mind rather than being reflective of the system). But the point at which you start making public judgments about others merely because of the place they worked makes you as dangerous as people who actually do engage in abuse, because you have prejudged without any facts, and that is equally wrong. You have smeared some good people whose only "sin" was choosing to take care of people who have problems.

Once you have cleaned up the child care system you work for we will be happy to listen to the negative information you want to throw at us. I would say, however, that you may want to consider another job, because if all you are looking for is abuse, you will find it, whether it is there or not. People with that viewpoint scare me every bit as much as the people who engage in abuse. "Witch trials," we used to call them. All I have to do is think that someone is abusive and magically they are.

So we damn and fire all the facility caretakers for the terrible sin of having worked at a facility. Then there are no staff, so we hire pure and self-righteous people who often turn out to be ill-suited to work with this population and guess what? The rate of true abuse rises because the first group of staff actually knew how to deal with all the incredibly difficult scenarios that attach themselves to people who are fragile or who have illnesses of any sort.

You worry about me being in charge of abuse? Sorry, that's what I do and I am very good at it, which is why I feel I can comment about what happens in this field. What would worry me is having you come work a few shifts where I work. Of course, like others, if you made it through the initial criminal background screening you would still need 6 weeks of pre-service training and a minimum of a month being under the wing of a seasoned staff before you could work with my folks. Most people don't have that sort of patience to hang in there that long, especially not the sort of people who like to make snap judgments about things with which they are unfamiliar.

Some of the things you have said are true, but it's difficult to respond to someone who throws rotten garbage along with the mix. If you want to discuss issues, please disentangle them from your accusations. You sound like someone from a lynch mob who has prejudged the outcome and is rearranging the facts to fit the situation.

I have said all along that there have been and are problems with the system, some of them atrocious. But I have also tried to point out which of the supposed atrocities DIDN'T actually occur but were the product of feverish imaginations, why the REAL problems occurred, why we shouldn't prejudge the staff (many of whom kept alive some very fragile people or who championed people with some pretty horrendous problems), and what could be done to fix the problems of the system.

My guess - your favorite colors are black and white.

Just as long as none of you people ever sit on a jury, I'm happy...

I specifically said that I wasn't calling Marcia a liar, merely pointing out that people's testimony on their own behalf isn't unbiased. That has nothing to do with where Marcia works, what field she works in, or anything else specific to Marcia. It's very simple: people don't ordinarily admit to wrongdoing, so if someone is accused of wrongdoing, their claim that it didn't happen does not prove that it didn't happen. That's called he said/she said, and even a small child knows better than to put stock in it. But, well, whatever they taught in the school you went to, it sure wasn't logic! Lord save me.

Lynne, why so defensive? You may be an expert on the treatment of the mentally ill, but setting yourself up as an expert on abuse seems misguided to me. I would hope that you are not an expert when it comes to abuse within the system at all.

By the way, since the last time I posted, I've read the autobiography of the gentleman Marcia is accusing of "having been influenced" to say bad things about Pennhurst merely because he's retarded. Shame on her. He's the very last person to be influenced or controlled by anybody; he's a past president and a founding member of Speaking for Ourselves, a disability advocacy group run by the disabled for the disabled. His every word is laden with dignity. But don't take my word for it, go read it, let the man speak for himself.

Aww come one Lynne, we all know that the people who know most about the field are those who don't actually do anything in it! ;) It's like, I work in insurance, so of course MY view of what happens here is wrong because I actually see it.

To Lynne, Marcia, and everyone else in this field: Most of us realize that you are trying your best to do what can be done, and we don't think you're abusive. There are a few whack-jobs who won't believe the truth when it's right in their faces. Like Lynne said, the hell with 'em. They're too stupid to matter... :D

Marcia, my friend - ignore the above comment, darlin'. Sometimes people like to think that everyone else is horrible but themselves. I think it's time that you and I just give up on trying to educate people who are happy to believe the worst about others. Sad to have to come to this point, isn't it? Branded a liar and untrustworthy merely because of the place you worked. Almost seems undemocratic somehow, doesn't it?

So maybe we all need to just walk out of the institutions right now and let the criticizers and labellers and name callers come and do our jobs at the pay that is given and with the mandatory overtime hours attached. They'd be back here in 24 hours (if they could last that long and/or not kill off our fragile people with their lack of knowledge about how to do this very specialized job) and they would be begging us to come back. Luckily for them (and for the folks we work with!), that will never happen. So let 'em be righteous, let 'em throw stones, let 'em not call you a liar "directly", just by ugly insinuation. I say the hell with 'em.

But one day I'll tell you how I REALLY feel. :-)

Okay... let me get this straight... a woman who worked at Pennhurst is saying the people who worked at Pennhurst weren't all bad, and complaining that people don't believe her? Forgive me for being the one to point it out, but hers is not an unbiased perspective!

Forgive me, Marcia. I'm not accusing you of being a liar, just pointing out that your own testimony about yourself is by definition biased, and that any reasonable person would look for corroboration before believing the words of a person with a vested interest. It doesn't take a genius to know that people paint themselves in the best possible light.

Why are you so shocked that people don't accept your testimony (which, due to the wonders of internet anonymity, could be coming from anyone) without question? And do you really have to ask why people think someone who worked there might not be the best source of information about what the people who worked there were like?

This looks very much like a monitor used in monitoring rooms (some thing I did for over 4 years) to watch security cameras. The buttons control brightness, contrast typical tv style ajustments and the t bar . controls which camera you want to watch(usualy they can be set up for about 4 different cameras for ones I saw like this) and/or if you want it to split screan and watcn multiple cameras at once. How ever I am not sure. Though we had one were I worked that looked just like this only it was black and instead of a t bar it was a large round switch.