Matthew Israel Interviewed by Jennifer Gonnerman
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JG: Is that parallel—to the surgeon—how you think about your work?
MI: I think this is a treatment, and that is where the advocates who are opposed to it will not accept that notion—that it can be seen as treatment. They seize upon describing it as torture and abuse. But of course it's treatment. Why else would I want to encounter all these objections and controversies, and put my work in jeopardy every couple of years? What good reason would there be for this? Why would I do this if there wasn't some reasonable reason for it? Psychologists shy away even from doing research in this. They know in their hearts that it's effective. But they're afraid because psychology is so political. A consultant of ours once said, "If you made a discovery in physics or astrophysics, it might turn the whole field around." Psychology is much more politically encumbered in some ways. Education is that way too. Procedures that are effective don't get adopted because they're effective. For example, there was a study decades ago on how to teach children to read, comparing all different procedures. The best results were two behavioral procedures. Nobody adopted them. There's a politics to education and psychology. You could have a procedure that worked, but it wouldn't be adopted. Skinner developed a whole field of instruction and education procedures, but that doesn't mean it was going to be adopted.
JG: Do you think that if you were in a different field things would be different?
MI: Well, maybe I am underestimating the degree of politics in the field of physics and astrophysics. But in psychology…I'll give you one example. They did a study in positive behavior support—these are the people who should be completely against shock. So they did a survey of all the most prominent people in positive behavior support. They sought out the journal editors at journals like the Journal of Positive Behavior [Interventions]. I think they surveyed 140 people and got like 70 responses or something. And they asked, "What procedures would you consider using?" Their purpose was to try to show something like "people used to be using these terrible procedure called aversives." But what they found was that 10 percent of these people admitted, because it was done in a way that they could answer without using their names, 10 percent of these people who are committed to using non-aversive procedures admitted they would use shock in some circumstances, including self-abusive behaviors. If 10 percent—and that's not even asking those who aren't philosophically opposed to it…
JG: Do you think a lot of your opponents secretly would use this if they could?
MI: Well, that data is what it is. They answered that way. I do know that you'll find a lot of psychologists who acknowledge that this is an effective procedure, but they wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Why should they? Their career would be jeopardized. They would not be invited to speak at conferences, they would not be held in high regard. [Pauses.] It's just politically difficult.
JG: Do you think this is a price you've paid for going down this path over the years?
MI: It obviously is. I think so, but I mean behavioral psychology was just politically incorrect when it began. It still is not. But science is supposed to be a search for the truth.
JG: So if people are taking shots at you, that's just part of it?
MI: You'll find in the field of nutrition, how some people have made discoveries. There is one physician who has reversed heart disease, and at the Cleveland Clinic they will not offer that treatment. It's too politically incorrect, but the clinic still has places like McDonald's and fast food in their corridors. Yet members of the board of directors of that clinic will come to him privately for help. Every field is probably like that.
JG: What kind of negative effects have you seen with the GED?
MI: The only one is that it leaves a mark, and in some students it creates a mark that may last for days. I can't think of a single one except that it leaves a mark.
JG: You never see loss of appetite, or someone having a seizure? Nothing negative? It must affect everyone differently since everyone is so different.
MI: It feels different because everyone's skin is so different, and the resistance is different. But it has the most dramatically positive effects. Because suddenly, once the behaviors, once they change, the student is happier; he's more relaxed; he's enjoying life more. This has even been reported in the use of SIBIS. They have reported that some children help the experimenter put the device on. They weren't resisting. Some students seem to recognize that this is helpful to them. I can't think of a single negative effect other than the fact that there is a mark. And obviously it's painful—that's a direct effect that happens at the time.
JG: Have individuals ever become less affectionate or more withdrawn?
MI: No, just the reverse. They're able to now go home and enjoy their family. Their family will take them home. They become more a part of their family. Their life becomes better. They become happier and more relaxed. You didn't see anybody cringe when I walked up, or when a staff member walked up to them. We're never the source of solely aversives. We're the source of huge amounts of rewards, as you can see, and you'll see in the rest of your tour. I don't think there is any program that has gone to the lengths that we have to have reward systems. I don't know if I pointed it out to you, but in some classrooms, there's a little reward box with toys they can earn, or rent, or borrow, as a result of their behavior. The reward corner. The reward room, a big arcade-type of room. There's a reward afternoon. No school has made the effort we have with the powerful systems of reward that we have. I cannot think of any ill effects, particularly with the
GED. That's the beauty of it: You don't have to worry about the side effects you have with drugs. The known side effects, not the side effects that show up five years later, once it's too late to change them.
JG: Is there any age limit at the top or bottom of who gets a GED?
MI: We haven't really set one. But we don't get the very young children.
JG: What's the youngest kid you ever had?
MI: I'm not sure. Maybe seven or eight.
JG: At what point did you decide to start trying to expand into high-functioning kids?
MI: There always have been high-functioning students. The first two students we started working with when we stared a residential program, one of them was a schizophrenic that would be a high-functioning student. The other was classically autistic. So there have always been some. When the proportion became larger, I know that prior to our moving to Canton, in '96, we already had a classroom for higher-functioning kids. So in the early '90s, we began to put together a classroom.
Photo: Larry Sultan
