MassPRC monitors proposed legislation related to emotional/mental health. From time to time we will share surveys for opinion-gathering and petitions for legislative advocacy.
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Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities
State House Room 413-B, 24 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02133
Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities
State House Room 70, 24 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02133
Written Testimony on Bill H.255: An Act Regarding the Use of Aversive Therapy
Thank you Chair Gomez and Vice Chair Velis for hearing MassPRC’s testimony. My name is Thomas Brown and I am president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Rehabilitation Collaborative (MassPRC). MassPRC is an organization of people in recovery, providers, families, funders, trainers and researchers promoting full access to the highest quality psychiatric rehabilitation services in support of wellness and recovery. The MassPRC Board of Directors wishes to comment on House bill H.255, An Act Regarding Aversive Therapy, of which we are in favor.
MassPRC stands in solidarity with families who are searching for ways to mitigate extreme and sometimes violent behaviors of their children, and we express our deepest empathy with these situations.
I’d like to begin my testimony by defining traumatic experience. The three core components of traumatic experience are helplessness, hopelessness, and horror/terror. Helplessness is the inability to protect oneself from threat or harm. Hopelessness is the understanding that there are not enough internal resources with which to protect oneself, and that no outside assistance is forthcoming. Horror/terror is the physiological comprehension that one’s existence is threatened. Torture is the weaponization of each of these three core components of traumatic experience to derive a desired outcome that will satisfy the torturer. Survivors of the Judge Rotenberg Center have expressed repeatedly, to reporters and to advocates, that they have been tortured through the center’s use of shock treatment. One is rendered helpless in preventing the shock, hopeless that any help will be forthcoming, and physiologically terrorized by the pain induced by the shock. The repeated use of aversive therapy means that trauma has set in and will govern almost all future behaviors in times of even minor stress. Survivors of the Judge Rotenberg Center have expressed to me that they are paralyzed by fear in decision-making; are terrified of working because the fear of scrutiny and ‘punishment’ by supervisors is intolerable; and are hypercritical of themselves to the point of complete exhaustion, having internalized the dangerous reality of continuous surveillance with which they once lived.
In addition to the internalized trauma from shock therapy, survivors of the center have internalized a carceral sense of self. When an individual’s behavior is deemed ‘bad’ and these behaviors are punished, there develops in the staff culture a belief that their role is that of punisher. A tone of criminal punishment bleeds through in most communications. This spoiled sense of identity impedes the building of meaningful relationships and community post-treatment, leading to painfully isolated lives.
It has been staunchly argued that there is no gray area in the treatment of JRC patients — that these individuals will be violent toward themselves or others, or must undergo aversive shock therapy. It has been stated as a proven fact that all other options have been tried and have failed. However, I know for certain that no form of certified peer support has been used with these individuals. I am not naïve in believing that certified peer support would be the answer to ameliorating these behaviors entirely, but it could be an important piece of a more humane solution. If certified peer support has not been attempted with this demographic, then it is likely that other potential non-violent supports have not been investigated.
Lastly, I would like to urge committee members to view the submitted video testimony of a survivor of the Judge Rotenberg Center, and a former student of mine in the Certified Peer Specialist Training Program of Massachusetts who speaks powerfully and eloquently of many of the lived experiences at the center that I write of in this testimony.
MassPRC asks that you vote H.255 favorably out of committee. Thank you for reading our written testimony.
Thomas Brown
President, Massachusetts Psychiatric Rehabilitation Collaborative
president@massprc.org