Shock Therapy For Kids: Torture or Cure?

[Breukelen advocaat]

I just saw this on CBS News (NYC)
Includes Video Report:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_073175920.html

The shocks can last two to three seconds and are usually administered several times a week.

Mar 14, 2006 8:59 pm US/Eastern
Shock Therapy For Kids: Torture or Cure?

Jennifer McLogan
Reporting


(CBS) MELVILLE â??This has saved all our children's livesâ?�, said a shaken Dorothy Mirro in Melville today.

She was among twenty emotional parents supporting controversial shock-therapy treatment.â??The school is a god-send. My wife and I suffer. You don't know what it's like to have a violent son who could kill you--but who you dearly love.â?�

The school that Jenkin Washington speaks of, The Rotenberg Center, is in Massachusetts but approved by New York State as a facility for extremely troubled youths. It uses modern-day electric shock therapy by way of back packs, belts--sometimes strapped to arms and legs. The shocks can last two to three seconds and are usually administered several times a week.

Ralph Antonelli of the Rotenberg Center was with the supportive parents explaining. He explaioned: â?�We use supportive behavior modification fifty percent of the time. But it doesn't aleways work with the most severe cases. This is a last resort. We hate schizophrenic drugs. A judge must pre-approve each individual caseâ?�

But Antwone Nicholson, 17, began complaining to his adoptive mother Evelyn, and to his sisters, that ever since the Freeport School District sent him out of state for therapy, he's been suffering emotional and physical injuries as a result of being repeatedly shocked.

Evelyn Nicholson told us she was â??surprised to learn â?? in phone calls â?�he was scared, pitiful sounding., fearful and in pain.â?�

Antwone's sister, Joann Nicholson, said,â?�If anything, his behavior has declined.â?�

Mrs Nicholson acknowledged although she and all parents must sign a waiver allowing shock treatment if approved by the courts, she now believes it to beâ?� barbaricâ?�, and will sue her village and the state.

Kenneth Mollins, Nicholson's attorney, wonders â??why is this abuse-therapy is allowed when it goes against state law. I want answers from the governor and our lawmakers in Albany. $209,000 dollars per child-per year-taxpayer money.â?�

Jennifer McLogan reported from Freeport: Why they ask, is shock therapy, corporal punishment and this type of behavior modification illegal in this state, but acceptable for New York children elsewhere?

Mrs. Nicholson sees it one way; other parents say their sick children are finally able to be mainstreamed if they are wearing the shock therapy packs.The debate has just begun.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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Family suing over therapy

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedi...y-linews-print

Freeport teen's mom alleges Mass. center used excessive shock treatment on her son, violating his civil rights

BY KARLA SCHUSTER
STAFF WRITER; Staff writer Joseph Mallia contributed to this story.

March 14, 2006

The family of a Freeport teenager is accusing the school district of violating his civil rights by sending him to a Massachusetts facility for troubled youths that uses electric shock therapy.

Antwone Nicholson, 17, and his mother, Evelyn, say he has suffered emotional and physical injuries as a result of being repeatedly shocked at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., according to the notice of their intent to sue the school district filed last week.

The private facility is on the state Department of Education's list of approved out-of-state special education providers, even though electric shock therapy cannot be used as corporal punishment to discipline students in New York. The New York law does, however, permit its use as a therapeutic treatment in some instances.

"We're sending our kids out of state to be tortured," said attorney Ken Mollins of Melville, who is representing the Nicholson family.

In Massachusetts, electric shock therapy is legal so long as parents sign a release and the facility gets individual court orders from a Massachusetts judge approving it, all of which was done in the Nicholson case.

Officials from the Freeport district could not be reached for comment last night.

An attorney for the Rotenberg Center said the facility tried other therapies on Mitchell, who is diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, before using shock therapy as "a last resort."

Some mental health experts estimate about 100,000 people nationwide get electro-convulsive therapy each year.

New York state education officials noted that the Rotenberg Center got all the necessary approvals, including parental permission, before using the shock therapy. "The decision of whether to consent to the use of this type of aversive therapy is a personal one that is made by the family," said Jonathan Burman, a spokesman for the state Education Department. "These are individual and personal choices."

The center is the only special education facility on the agency's approved provider list that uses electric shock therapy, Burman said. A total of 171 New York state students are being treated at the Rotenberg Center, including several from Nassau and Suffolk, state officials said. Evelyn Nicholson said she didn't understand the nature of the shock therapy when she signed a release to have her son placed in the Judge Rotenberg Center three years ago. Nicholson is still at the center, but is no longer receiving shock treatment, officials there said yesterday. He began to complain to his mother about a year ago.

"I didn't know what it [shock therapy] was until I actually saw the thing on Antwone," Evelyn Nicholson said last night. "I don't see why you should ever do that to kids."

Between August 2004 and February, according to legal papers and Mollins, Nicholson was sometimes shocked as many as six times a day with a device that is strapped to students like a small backpack and delivers a 45-milliampere jolt.

Michael Flammia, the attorney for Rotenberg, said students who receive the aversion therapy get shocked an average of once a week for two seconds.

"I've had [the shock] and it feels like a bee sting," Flammia said. "It hurts, but it has no side effects."

"It's an accepted, effective treatment," Flammia said.

Staff writer Joseph Mallia contributed to this story
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

Breukelen advocaat Reviewed by Breukelen advocaat on 03-15-2006. Shock Therapy For Kids: Torture or Cure? I just saw this on CBS News (NYC) Includes Video Report: http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_073175920.html The shocks can last two to three seconds and are usually administered several times a week. Mar 14, 2006 8:59 pm US/Eastern Shock Therapy For Kids: Torture or Cure? Jennifer McLogan Rating: 5

[Psycho4Bud]

I spent three months in the psych for marijuana when I was 16. Back in the "70's". That was a big thing at that time. The kids would go into a session, normal as hell, and come out looking like zombies. I thought they did away with that shit back in the early "90's"?

[Miss Green]

That's got to be torture for sure I don't see how that would benefit the child I think at the end of the day it's got to do with the attention and not getting enough of it.I'm really surprised that there is even a school like that but i did assume even before reading the article that it was in america.

[Psycho4Bud]

but i did assume even before reading the article that it was in america.

LOL...you appear to be a very smart lady.....you should tell us of the
Aboriginal History and how Australia served its own "white" purpose in their genocide.

Look in your own backyard sweetheart before ya piss into mine!!!:thumbsup:

[Miss Green]

LOL...you appear to be a very smart lady.....you should tell us of the
Aboriginal History and how Australia served its own "white" purpose in their genocide.

Look in your own backyard sweetheart before ya piss into mine!!!:thumbsup:

yeah mate i'll piss in your because i already know what we have done but at least we have pretty well turned the tables around unlike the good ol usa. :thumbsup:

[Psycho4Bud]

yeah mate i'll piss in your because i already know what we have done but at least we have pretty well turned the tables around unlike the good ol usa. :thumbsup:

You'll piss???? Sounds kinky!!!

So what have you turned around? The Aboriginal History? Wheat for oil? Involvement in not only this war but past wars? Usually a turn around is a 180...not a 360! Have a good one!:thumbsup:

[psychocat]

Zapping teenagers with electric ?? WOW Do you think I should send a CV ? I could do with a new job.

[Psycho4Bud]

I find this whole subject absolutely "shocking"!:thumbsup:

[VoidLivesOn]

I find this whole subject absolutely "shocking"!:thumbsup:

OMG!

[Breukelen advocaat]

One Way to Handle Those "Problem" Ancestors

The Smiths were proud of their family story. Their ancestors had come to America on the Mayflower.
The family tree included Senators as well as Wall Street millionaires.
They decided to compile a family history as a legacy for their children and grandchildren. But as they gathered facts, a huge problem arose.
How could they possibly include that unwanted information about great-uncle George, who had been EXECUTED IN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR!!!

They hired a professional writer, who told them, "NO PROBLEM".
He promised to handle the story tactfully. And so he did.
The book was published, and here's what it said about Uncle George:

"Great-Uncle George occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and indeed his death came as a great shock."
* * * * * *:dance: