Death Goes to School | Psychology Today.
"Seclusions and Restraints: Selected Cases of Death and Abuse at Public and Private Schools and Treatment Centers". If you've been reading about the horrors of the Irish reform schools in the past, this report will make you aware that we in the United States are doing just as badly, and what's more we're doing it right now.
Death Goes to School -- Part 2A clue giving a partial explanation of all these adult actions may be found in the term "therapeutic holding". A small number of articles in professional journals have used this term. They use the expression "therapeutic holding" in claiming that children receive psychotherapeutic benefits from being physically restrained when agitated and having the restraint continue for a period of time afterward. However, there is no research supporting this claim. In articles where authors have cited empirical research as supporting the idea of therapeutic holding, many of the articles cited have actually been about "holding therapy", a different, though equally disturbing, technique which I will discuss in a later blog. It is possible that some school administrators or staff have come across references to therapeutic holding, have failed to understand the lack of evidence for its usefulness, and have employed their limited knowledge in making decisions about teachers' restraint practices.treatment before the development of tranquilizing
But why would anyone at any time have thought of physical restraint as a form of treatment for emotional disturbance and "misbehavior"? Of course, restraint and various forms of asphyxiation have long been favored by torturers, as they create enormous pain and terror in the victim but are reversible (if the asphyxia is not allowed to go too far). I need not comment on our present national discussion of this matter. I should also note that restraints in the form of strait jackets and "wet packs" (immobilization by wrapping in wet sheets) were very much part of psychiatricdrugs. These methods were not simply a matter of maintaining physical control of patients, but were thought to calm agitation.
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