Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up

Shadows are persons who are hired privately or supplied by public schools to stick closely with one child. Previously, shadows were only used for children with autism or severe learning disabilities. Now, they “follow kids with problems ranging from mild learning disabilities to violent tendencies” (90), and private schools advise wealthy parents to employ them “for almost any reason” (90). The result is more monitoring of children, which results in less independence and more stress.

School administrators insist on accommodations for students. For example, some teachers are not allowed to lower a grade because an assignment is late. Such lowered expectations decrease academic excellence. Shrier complains about the trend in schools toward restorative justice instead of punishment. Following a letter from President Obama in 2014 that threatened a loss of funding to schools that suspended and expelled a disproportionate amount of minority students, schools turned to this practice. Violent children are treated as victims, with a bully and victim brought together to talk. The victim of bullying, like the bully, must apologize. This approach, per Shrier, does not work and excuses physical harm in the name of emotional well-being. With no self-discipline required of students, they have emotional outbursts in class and are disruptive and disrespectful.

To gain an understanding of educational trends, Shrier attended a public-school teachers’ conference. There, she found that the instructor used the word “trauma” 105 times and told teachers to treat all students as though they had undergone it or an “adverse childhood experience” (ACE) (99). Drawing upon an ACE study, educators claim that children with four or more factors—such as physical abuse, neglect, or substance abuse in the home—are likely to have below-average physical and mental health outcomes later in life. The study has been criticized for a biased selection of adults. Additionally, one of its authors fears that the educational community is misusing it. It overestimates the risk to individuals by failing to account for the variable responses to stressors.

There is objectively a segment of the population in need of mental health support. However, Shrier argues that this is a small percentage, not the majority. She notes that “it is dangerous to conflate those who have suffered years of sexual abuse or been intentionally starved or burnt […] with those who have faced ‘adversity’” (103). Resilience is the norm and occurs on its own. Those from troubled backgrounds have the most to lose from accommodation and would benefit from high expectations.

For thousands of years, people have been expected to exhibit resilience and survive misfortune. The Greatest Generation, for example, endured poverty and war. Today, mental health professionals dwell upon childhood trauma and blame the negative circumstances adults find themselves in on it. In 2014, Bessel van der Kolk published The Body Keeps Score, which brought back into the popular imagination a debunked theory about repressed memories. He argued that traumatic memory could be stored anywhere in the body. In the 1990s, psychologists validated the notion of repressed memory in victims of child abuse; as a result, innocent people were sent to prison. Another author went further to claim that we retain memories of the trauma of ancestors. In contrast, Shrier argues that people normally remember traumatic experiences, and the typical response is resilience.

In 2001, van der Kolk founded the National Traumatic Stress Network, which has 150 centers and has created programs in schools. She asserts that these programs are ineffective. Van der Kolk erroneously equated children growing up in difficult conditions with those who had endured one traumatic event. The brain reacts differently to “suffering a sudden shock – seeing your unit decimated by an IED – and the grinding torment of growing up with an alcoholic father” (120).

Citing a critic of van der Kolk’s PET studies showing brain differences in children who had experienced trauma, Shrier claims the studies suffer from selection bias, information bias, and confounding variables. People were selected for the study because they had problems, and those with problems are therefore over-represented. Adults who have current problems are more likely to remember childhood trauma. Their current knowledge impacts their recollection. Finally, there might be other reasons for the correlations. To measure the impact of childhood trauma properly, a study must be forward-facing and follow children years after the fact. One such study found that parents who suffered abuse or neglect were no more likely to abuse or neglect their children than those who had not. Shrier comments that there is no proof that childhood trauma causes mental health problems in adults.

Drawing upon Elizabeth Loftus, a memory specialist, Shrier explains that false memories can seem as real as authentic ones. If therapists or teachers encourage and look for children to talk about trauma, the children will supply stories of it. They are rewarded for it and might attempt to create stories more traumatic than those of their friends. It is not a good idea to convince children that trauma can cause lasting damage. Most adults overcome it. She warns especially about therapists like Nicole LePera, who speaks of invisible trauma and uses symptom checklists to make almost anyone think that they have experienced it.