I just got to turn this in for my counseling class for "Counseling people with difficult behaviors" It really made me take another look at how I see the world. It's funny how college is supposed to mature you. We're taught that it's in the classroom and that teachers can hand you this substance that makes you wiser, but in all reality, I've found that the most enlightening and wisdom packing moments have come when I've had to write a paper on the subject and express my feelings and opinions on it.
Throughout Lovett's book Learning to Listen, he tells us a lot about his experiences with people who exhibit difficult behaviors in an attempt to give us insight on the subject that we might not be able to get otherwise. Approaching the subject as a consultant for many of his, who I would call friends with difficult behavior, Lovett addresses several themes that play towards how the human service industry oppresses people who cannot defend themselves. When people with disabilities are objectified, it makes it easier for human services to morph to a controlling bureaucracy from a positive behavioral support service practice.
By taking away someone's humanity, it is easier to justify mistreating that person. If we look at how the Jews were treated in the holocaust, we see that they were treated like animals instead of people. This gave inclination and conditioning to the Nazi's that dealt with them, to believe that they were not human. When you own a slaughter house for livestock, it is an accepted practice, but when you own a slaughter house for people, it's considered a crime against humanity. By blaming the Jew's behavior, the Nazi's scapegoated them but as Lovett says, “The danger of thinking behaviorally about people is that we focus on the behavior of others and not our own” (Lovett 203). Without drawing a direct parallel, the human service industry for people with disabilities has created a system of control by stripping the humanity from people.
To believe that we do not dehumanize people into nothing less than objects, let's look at the difference between someone without a mental disability and someone with one. First, by labeling a person a schizophrenic, what do we do to them? How does their life change when we do this? The first thing that happens when it is found that someone has such a mental disability is that their guardian is told that their ward has a disability. Notice that the person with the disability isn't usually told “you have a mental disability that will change your life.” After this, no matter the age of the individual, that individual loses a lot of the control they have over their lives. If their guardian thinks they belong in a group home, that's where they go. If the state rules that the guardian is not capable of taking care of the individual, the same thing happens if they don't go to a hospital beforehand. The next thing that happens to people that get put on the conveyor belt of lost humanity is that they are prescribed medications to “fix” them. Of course the now labeled “client or consumer” instead of person, Mr. Mrs. or friend, can refuse their medication, but are then watched and judged more scrupulously than they were before in an attempt to highlight and capitalize on their aberrant condition. While this is happening the client loses almost all control of their income which is now covered by medical insurance rather than a working family member who cares about them like a normal son or daughter. The concept of family is also destroyed as there is no longer anyone loved or loving in their lives that cares for them. It is quite well accepted that humans are social animals and without a loving environment, how are people able to learn how to love? By labeling someone a schizophrenic, we've taken away their choices, respect, sense of self, and their sense of community.
In counseling, according to Glasser, there are six basic psychological needs that an individual needs to be psychologically healthy; survival, power, love, belonging, freedom, and fun. Glasser states that up to ninety-five percent of aberrant behavior comes from a deficiency in any of these. From a surface glance, by institutionalizing someone we automatically take away their power, love, belonging, freedom, and most likely their fun as well. How are we supposed to expect individuals to act appropriately, when we are imposing more problems on them than their disabilities? The only need that institutions care about for their clients when they're put into the institution is their survival, as without their survival, the system cannot make money off of them. When I went to my orientation for the human service job that I work at, one of the CEO's came in to talk to us and insured us that even though we cared and provided for all of our clients, above all else, we are a business. I'm sure this is true for most institutions that also cater the same services.
In all practicality, this can exist no other way in a monetary based society. In capitalism, despotism, socialism, monarchism, or communism, people are given value based on what they produce. If an individual cannot produce enough to be considered a member of society, then they are objectified and left out of the society. This happens to people with disabilities, people who return from wars, people without homes, amongst others. After they gain this status, they are referred to as retards, veterans, and hobo's which are all seen as lower than human. Lovett also pours some insight into this by saying that “simply labeling Agnes (a disturbed person with a mental disability mentioned in the book) makes her a victim of the irresponsible use of power and authority” (Lovett 202).
As social engineer Jacque Fresco notes, our technology is now advanced enough to feed, cloth, and house every single human on earth, and we have the resources to do that with too. So why don't we do it? By manufacturing scarcity, we are able to keep the price on merchandise high even though technological unemployment is beginning to eliminate entire job markets, such as the labor industry. People are having to work at jobs that they don't want to for reasons that don't affect them other than what their paid. Lovett supports this even though his statement can be applied to anyone rather than just people with disabilities “Often work is really just daycare for people with disabilities and is unpaid and meaningless” (Lovett 51) as what we are paid is given to bills that must be paid in order for us to live. I believe that Lovett doesn't see this as he's looking at the problem from a psychological level rather than a social one. In our society, we objectify everyone and it makes it easier to objectify everyone else; she's a single mom, he's a gay, she's a battered woman, he's a doctor, she's a lawyer. Because we look at people based on what they can produce for us, we dehumanize them in a selfish way. This is important to look at beyond just the community of disabled people.
Lovett believes that we should all look at people as people rather than objects, and I agree with him. If we can stop looking at people as what we label them as then we can find the root of their problems, says Lovett. When we presume that we are above the clients we exert a power over them and as Lovett is quoted as saying “without mutually respectful relationships, power becomes dangerous” (Lovett 68). Human service providers often use control as a way to keep clients in line. If the clients don't act up, then it is seen as though the staff is doing a good job. However, by looking at people with disabilities as equals, we can stop exerting control over them and start to help them.
In the book behaviorism is seen as the main source for control. Lovett believes that there are right and wrong ways to use behaviorism. He believes that if behaviorism is used to label people that it can obviously lead down a devious path but if it's used to understand what might be troubling an individual, that it might have some important use. By trying to control a behavior through some sort of reinforcement, there can be a disconnect between good intention and love. For instance, Lovett mentions a mentally disabled woman, Ann, who is intellectually challenged. She had a tendency to throw furniture around and break things. The staff would “over-correct” with their reinforcement techniques and had her repair all the furniture and put all the furniture back in place each time she went on a tantrum. Because the behavior didn't change, the staff had gradually built up to this level of reinforcement. However, sense Ann had essentially lived in a group home for the past forty years of her life, Lovett points out that Ann may have been trying to exhibit some control of her environment which constantly controlled her. By increasing the reinforcement and concentrating on the behavior instead of Ann, the institution basically blamed Ann for her choices which Lovett replies with “To blame Ann for her choices in an environment that offers virtually no choice, is really to blame the victim” (Lovett 87). By trying to nurture Ann in an unloving environment from the time of a very early age, Ann was essentially a feral child. If we do not learn how to love, then we don't know how to love. We need to target the person instead of the persons behavior. This is what Lovett stresses more than anything else. If we target the behavior, then all we care about are the results which leads to control which Lovett supports by saying “Results are more important than how they are achieved or even what they represent” (Lovett 79). Some ways to avoid this trap are to not label the clients we work with, instead look at them as friends who need some direction. Listen to them instead of observing what they say. Try to understand their positions by using empathy instead of analyzing the situation and coming up with a solution analytically. Above all else, it is important to value the persons wishes.
I think it's very important to keep goals in mind when encountering people in counseling. If we don't know where we're trying to get to, then it's much harder to get there. In a human service system, the goal should be to get the people being serviced to eventually be able to live on their own with limited need for aid. There should be a general understanding in societal expectations and basic needs. I asked several of the people being serviced at one of the group homes what they thought a normal person in society should do to maintain their membership of that society. After categorizing their answers the following list was formed: be relatively social with people and know how to interact with them without causing offense, being self sufficient, independent, responsible, and keep yourself in a safe environment. As I tried to come up with something that they'd might have missed, I realized that they knew what was required of them, better than I knew what was required of me. I think this is a positive example of how positive behavioral support has been used to help these people learn what's to be expected of them when they're eventually on their own. Supporting goals is one of the crucial points I think I will end up stressing when I become a counselor.
In conclusion, we should value people for who they are instead of labeling them in an objectifying way. By making people into inanimate objects that cannot speak for themselves, we take away their basic psychological needs, and promote aberrant behavior. Behaviorism should be used to understand where someone has come from, instead of where they are. Reinforcement is in effect programming people to do things that they may or may not want to do that may seem ambiguous to them. If we are to truly help someone, we have to want to help them much more than we want them to pay us. If we look at people only as what they can provide for us, then we cannot help them as we are only thinking about ourselves. By treating people as people, understanding people as people, and genuinely care for people as people, we are on the constant path of learning to listen to people as people.
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November 2009 
Carl
Access: Public
