Romeo Vitelli2013-06-19T12:52:05-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=romeo-vitelliCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Romeo VitelliGood old fashioned elbow grease.Don't Be Fooled By Phishers, Fraudsters, and Scammerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32997012013-05-26T07:59:07-04:002013-05-27T02:07:12-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/
In his talk at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry convention held in Nashville, Tennessee last October, Anthony Pratkanis had no problem getting his audience's attention. Pratkanis, a professor of psychology at the University of California in Santa Cruz, is a well-known expert on economic fraud crimes, marketing behaviour, and subliminal persuasion. Along with being the author of several books on fraud, including Weapons of Fraud: A Source Book For Fraud Fighters, he has made numerous television appearances warning the public about the various con games played on vulnerable adults, particularly the elderly.
The consequences of these schemes can be devastating. In a recent court decision, a British judge sentenced three members of a phishing gang to heavy prison time after a British woman lost her entire life savings (US$1.6-million) through a phishing scam. The woman's bank account was siphoned off using an elaborate system of "mules" to withdraw the money without the bank noticing. The gang members then spent the money in an elaborate shopping spree that left little for police to recover. Though the judge ordered the money to be repaid, there seems little likelihood of this ever happening. While the case is unusual for the amount of money stolen from one individual, frauds just like it are being carried out every day.
The con artists can interact with their intended target in any number of ways, whether through spam email, telemarketing, investment seminars, or television commercials. Some of the scams that Pratkanis mentioned in his talk include: charity frauds, investment scams (such as gas and oil development schemes), lottery frauds, etc.
One thing victims share is that they are often too afraid to come forward for fear of being seen as "too gullible." However, Pratkanis and his colleagues' research found that there were no other real pattern to the targets. "Victims come in all shapes and sizes," he said. "Some are active in their community and leaders whereas others fit more stereotypical notions. The only thing they have in common is they have money."
Among the things that can make older people more vulnerable is loss of a spouse. Often after a death, potential "saviours" come forward offering solutions that can lead to grieving seniors taking unsafe risks. Part of the danger again comes from what Pratkanis calls the "Disneyland influence," with scam artists using tactics familiar to social psychologists to gain a potential victim's trust.
Some of the most common strategies used by scam artists are:
Phantom fixation - the criminal provides a prize or reward where the chance to win is so attractive that victims often ignore their own good judgment
Social proof - if everyone agrees, it must be a good deal
Door in the face - asking a potential victim for a large commitment which, when rejected, is followed by a request for a smaller commitment more likely to be accepted
Authority - the person or company pitching to you is someone to be trusted
Scarcity - if you don't take this deal now, you'll lose out and never get another chance
Since many of these same strategies are also used by legitimate businesses to sell their products, seeing them in advertisements may not set off warning flags. Sweepstakes prizes are one example of a phantom fixation suggesting that purchasing magazines, etc. can make you eligible for winning a fabulous prize that never materializes. Making one purchase often leads to requests for more money to "increase the chances of winning" the big prize. The prospect of winning millions can be overwhelming for people with modest nest eggs.
Many older adults also feel they have few years remaining and can see the big prize as their "last chance" at becoming wealthy. Other examples of scarcity include presenting relatively low-cost items such as gold coins as "collector's items" which can only rise in value due to their relative scarcity (they don't).
Then there is authority. Scam artists usually present themselves as being, or representing, high-status figures or celebrities who command instant respect. One convicted con-man in an educational video described how he successfully called potential victims posing as bank presidents, branch managers, or FBI agents. Authority also plays a role in mail and internet scams with "official" stamps of government or corporate agencies to command respect. Use of celebrities is another example of authority to help promote scams.
Glossy advertisements can also provide anecdotes from other participants who supposedly took part in the scam and won big as a result. This can help relieve whatever fears the intended victim has ("If everyone agrees, it must be good").
Other familiar scam tactics include:
Reciprocity - providing a free gift to the potential victims which then makes them feel obligated to buy something
Similarity - the scam artist will pretend to share your values and experiences. People are more likely to be taken by someone with whom they can identify
Consistency - trapping the intended victims with their own words. If the proposed victims report a specific need, such as a good investment, the scam artist will promptly play on that by insisting that the scam in question meets the victims' needs.
Contrast - the scam artist compares the cost of the proposed scam against a similar item of much greater value to make it seem as if the victim is getting a great deal.
No scam artist will rely on only one tactic and the intended victim will usually be subjected to a barrage of different tactics to wear down resistance. During any direct contact, whether in person or on the phone, a good scam artist will essentially interview intended victims to learn their weak spots. The first sale is usually just a "foot in the door" which makes the victim more likely to make further purchases. And not just from one scam artist, either. Since scam artists often share customer lists, accepting one scam can lead to being subjected to numerous other scam artists since you have been identified as a "live one."
So how can fraud be prevented? Pratkanis and his colleagues have developed a "call centre" approach that has proven to be effective. Using "mooch lists" that police agencies have seized from known scam artists, names and telephone numbers of potential victims of fraud are collected. Volunteers from the National Telemarketing Victim Call Center (NTVCC) call these victims and warn them that they are potential targets for fraud. In operation since 2006, NTVCC maintains a "Reverse Boiler Room" for contacting potential victims. Fraud Fighters warn these potential victims of high-pressure telephone tactics and also provide referrals to local agencies.
As part of their anti-fraud initiative, FINRA, AARP and the National Crime Prevention Council have joined forces to improve investor education and combat the rising number of investment scams. Drawing on social psychological research into scam techniques, the Outsmarting Investment Fraud campaign combines moderated presentations, educational videos, and group exercises to increase consumer awareness. The campaign is designed to teach consumers to ask the right questions and to check the credentials of brokers selling the investments. Educational videos include interviews with victims, scam artists, and securities regulators as well as showing the right and wrong way to respond to high-pressure sales pitches.
While information seminars and online resources can be effective in teaching potential victims to be more cautious, curbing a multi-billion dollar industry will take time and effort. As new cases of people being cheated out of their life savings come to light, staying vigilant and asking more questions about those "too good to be true" deals is more critical than ever.
]]>What Marilyn Monroe Taught Us About Suicide Notestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27891072013-03-02T00:45:13-05:002013-05-01T05:12:01-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/Marilyn Monroe on August 5, 1962 is still controversial despite being ruled a "probable suicide" by Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi. While the cause of death was due to acute barbiturate poisoning and Monroe had made previous suicide attempts using prescription drugs in the past, questions about her involvement with then-President John F. Kennedy continue to be raised.
Several police officers who arrived at the scene of her death, including Los Angeles police officer Jack Clemmons, openly speculated on the possibility that the star had actually been murdered. Clemmons even accused members of the LAPD with staging a cover-up and that the death scene had been deliberately staged.
Though Clemmons and other conspiracy theorists continue to insist that she had been murdered, one of the first psychological autopsies to be carried out ruled that the death had been suicide. Psychiatrist Robert E. Litman, a Los Angeles-based suicide authority had been the chief psychiatrist on the autopsy team examining the Monroe case would later describe the evidence used to determine that she had committed suicide.
This included the telephone calls that Monroe had made after taking the pills in which she insisted that she was "in deep trouble". According to Litman, her death could be considered "a self-inflicted death, where there is a great risk but also a good chance for rescue." He concluded that she had staged the suicide with the hope of rescue which came too late.
But could Marilyn Monroe's own writings provide clues about her suicidal intentions? Many of the letters, poems, and personal notes that Monroe wrote in the years leading up to her death were recently collected in a single book, Marilyn Monroe's Fragments, published last year.
Bequeathed to her acting coach, Lee Strasberg, after her death, Monroe's writings have only recently become available for serious study by suicide researchers.
First developed for text analysis to determine how emotional impact can be reflected by how people write, LIWC evaluates text on a word-by-word basis to calculate how often words in specific categories are used (i.e., positive or negative emotions, psychological concerns, and possible pathology). Research using LIWC to examine notes and letters left behind by people who committed suicide have suggested that suicidal intention might be identified by specific language cues in what suicidal people write in the time leading up to their deaths.
Those most suicide notes tend to be too brief to provide meaningful analysis, research using text analysis have turned up meaningful differences between notes left by men and women. Many literary figures who eventually committed suicide have also been studied using LIWC and other methods including Sara Teasdale and Sylvia Plath.
Different word trends seen in their writings up to the time of death includes changes in positive and negative emotional statements, increased use of pronouns, words associated with cognition and insight, as well as being more present-oriented. These changes became more apparent in the time immediately preceding the suicide, a trend consistent with research into suicide notes for men and women. Researchers also found a sharp increase in positive emotional words immediately preceding the suicide, perhaps as an indication of the more settled emotional state once the final suicide decision is made.
Studying Fragments was made easier by the dates of the letters and notes left behind by Marilyn Monroe. Using the dated material as a timeline in the years leading up to Monroe's death, Fernandez-Cabana and her colleagues were able to group the Fragments materials into four time periods ending in 1962. Statistical analysis showed a significant rise in health concerns, death issues and personal pronoun use over time. Also, the period just before her death showed a significant decrease in negative emotions, anxiety, and religious ideas.
Though there were no clear indications of suicidal intention in any of Marilyn's Monroe's writings, the notes written shortly before her death suggest a strong sense of isolation. The LIWC evidence does not reflect what has been typically found that depressed individuals but may indicate that her suicide death was an impulsive decision rather than a planned act.
In discussing Monroe's death, Mercedes Fernandez-Cabana and her fellow authors avoided commenting on the elaborate theories that were raised about her possibly being murdered for political reasons. Also, the lack of any notes written in the critical few weeks leading up to Marilyn Monroe's death means that important data may be missing from the final analysis.
Still, LIWC represents a valuable new forensic tool for studying suicide notes to provide vital clues about the suicidal state of mind though much more research needs to be done. This can be essential in future cases of suspected suicide.
]]>Why Are so Many Veterans in Prison?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23760382012-12-28T11:16:45-05:002013-02-27T05:12:02-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/opened a veterans-only dorm to house prisoners who are former soldiers. In dedicating the new wing, state correctional officials announced that they hoped that the veterans-only facility will help veterans complete their sentences and avoid prison in future. Along with Virginia, other U.S. states including Florida and Georgia have also opened up veterans-only prison facilities to address the rising problem of returning military veterans who get in trouble with the law.
In a 2010 study released by the Institute of Medicine, criminal justice involvement was identified as being one of the most significant problems faced by veterans returning from tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some recent estimates place the number of returned veterans in U.S. prisons as being as high as 200,000, with more than half of those veterans incarcerated for violent offenses. Since veteran status is not always reported at the time of conviction, this number may actually be an underestimate.
While many returning veterans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI), which research has linked to an increased risk of offending, research directly investigating the role of PTSD and TBI in convicted veterans is relatively scarce. According to the General Strain Theory developed by criminologist Robert Agnew, people who have been exposed to trauma and experience negative emotions such as anger and irritability are more likely to commit crimes or display other forms of antisocial behaviour. Since anger and irritability are common features in PTSD and TBI, strain theory suggests that these diagnoses can explain the relatively high percentage of convicted veterans.
Recently, a team of researchers at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine and Veteran Affairs conducted an in-depth analysis of more than 1,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Their research study, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, examined 1,388 veterans randomly selected from a roster of over a million veterans with a mean age of 36.2, coming from all fifty U.S. states. Through online and print surveys, participants were asked about criminal justice involvement and given a series of tests measuring combat exposure, post-traumatic symptoms and specific symptoms of traumatic brain injury. Items measuring key factors such as irritability were broken into high and low categories.
Overall, nine percent of the study participants reported some criminal justice involvement since returning to normal life. Most of these arrests were for nonviolent offenses with less than two weeks spent in custody, however. Results also showed that veterans suffering from PTSD who reported high irritability with frequent anger episodes were more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system. Other factors appeared to be better predictors of criminal involvement, though, including troubled family backgrounds, being young and male, substance abuse or having a prior criminal history. While these are factors found in civilian populations as well, the posttraumatic symptoms resulting from combat exposure can certainly add to the general strain leading to criminal involvement. Still, TBI and high combat exposure alone do not appear to be significant risk factors in themselves whether they lead to high irritability or not.
While self-reported information has its limits, this study does help show possible reasons for the high number of returning veterans currently in U.S. prisons. It also highlights the important role that anger can play in how well a veteran can become reintegrated in society after traumatic tours of duty -- which has implications for thinking about placing veterans in situations where they risk being arrested, as well as considering whether they participate in treatment to help deal with their trauma. (Angry veterans are more likely to drop out of treatment programs.) Anger also makes veterans more likely to run into problems while in prison, whether it be from prison guards or fellow inmates.
Though the rise in veterans-only prison facilities can help avoid problems in the short-run, the long-term consequences of increasing numbers of veterans entering the prison system is only beginning to be felt across the United States.
]]>Should Canada Be Getting Tough on Crime?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20878682012-11-09T10:31:50-05:002013-01-09T05:12:01-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/
• Bill C-2 (the "Tackling Violent Crime act") enacted in 2008 actually included five separate bills, some of which failed to pass in previous parliaments. Along with creating mandatory minimum sentencing for serious firearm offenses, the bill also made it easier to declare someone a dangerous offender, created new impaired driving offenses and raised the age of consent from 14 to 16.
• Bill C-25 (the "Truth in Sentencing act") was also enacted in 2010. This bill eliminated the "two for one" provision for time spent awaiting trial meaning longer sentences since judges were instructed to be less lenient for convicted offenders who had spent months or years awaiting trial.
• Bill C-4 ("Sebastien's Law") which passed first and second reading in 2010. Named for a 19-year old Quebec youth who had been stabbed to death in 2004 [LINK], this bill authorizes the use of prison sentencing for youth offenders who had previously received extrajudicial sanctions. The bill also allows the Crown to seek adult sentences for offenders as young as 14 as well as removing the press ban on publishing the names of young offenders.
While just a partial list of the different "get tough" bills passed or being considered in recent years, the Federal government has also ordered a radical restructuring of the Federal prison system. This includes expanding prison capacity and reducing rehabilitation programming for prison inmates.
Prisoner access to mental health services, chaplains, and vocational retraining programs has been drastically reduced. While cost-saving measures advocated by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews have faced controversy (including the recent decision to eliminate non-Christian chaplains for federal inmates), the federal "get tough" philosophy is unlikely to change.
But how much scientific justification is there for "getting tough" on crime? According to a recent article published in Canadian Psychology, there seems to be little real basis for it. The authors, Simon Fraser psychologists Alana Cook and Ronald Roesch, have openly criticized the current hardline approach favoured by the Federal government.
Their case against "get tough" policies has three main points:
1. Crime in Canada is actually decreasing. Even according to statistics collected by Public Safety Canada, crime has been going down for decades and 2009 had the lowest crime rate in the past 25 years. While critics argue that many crimes go unreported, the homicide rate (which is usually the best measure of actual criminal violence in society) has been stable for the past ten years.
The Crime Severity Index has gone down four percent since 2008 and more than 20 per cent since 1999. There have been some exceptions to this overall trend however with violent crime not going down as much as crime in general. While youth crime has also not matched the general downward trend, youth crime statistics have still been fairly steady since 2000. Overall, the federal government's repeated calls for stronger measures to "beat back" the epidemic of crime shows a radical disconnect with actual crime data.
2. "Get tough" policies simply do not work. Correctional psychologists and criminologists have looked at similar anti-crime campaigns in countries around the world, especially in the United States. As Professors Cook and Roesch show in their review article, research studies found that increased prison sentences do not reduce recidivism. If anything, longer prison sentences increase an offender's likelihood to reoffend. Low-risk offenders are especially vulnerable to long-term imprisonment and likely become more dangerous once they are eventually released.
"Tough on crime" policies also seem to have no actual value in discouraging offenders from committing crimes. Studies looking at the effect of mandatory jail sentences on DUI offenses in the United States showed no deterrent effect at all. Since "getting tough" usually means reduced rehabilitation programs, whether in prison or in the community, that also means that offenders are less likely to get the kind of help they might need to stay out of jail.
3. While the federal government has been reluctant to provide in-depth estimates of how much the various new bills will actually cost, some estimates suggest the cost will run into billions of dollars over the next few years. A 2010 report by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer stated that the "Truth in Sentencing" Act alone would add 3,754 new inmates to federal prisons and increase average time in prison per inmate by 159 days. Overall, that means $1.8 billion over a five-year period. Since that only focuses on prison costs and ignores the added costs for police, courts, legal costs, etc., the actual cost will probably be far higher. Most provinces already have a shortage of judges and crown attorneys able to process the expanded caseload so many criminal cases have already been dropped and this problem will only get worse.
Ironically, the American criminal justice system, long the pioneer when it comes to "get tough" policies has also become an object lesson on how expensive those policies can be. Along with the spiralling rise in prison inmates (giving the United States the highest incarceration rate in the world), the amount spent on police has more than doubled over the past 20 years and prison spending has risen even more. Taxes spent on incarceration alone in the United States account for more than $61 billion and is likely to rise even higher in the coming years.
And then there is the human cost involved. The rise in prisoners means increased double-bunking and segregation along with greater risk of mental health problems and physical injuries. Corrections Investigator Howard Sapers has been releasing reports to call attention to worsening prison conditions. Along with reduced access to rehabilitation (less than 25 percent of Canada's prison population are actually registered in rehabilitation programs), there is also the problem of aging inmates and the likely rise in geriatric diseases such as Alzheimer's disease in prisons that lack proper care facilities.
So, what does this mean for the future? As Professors Cook and Roesch point out, there is no real evidence of a crime "epidemic" and the current direction the federal government is taking will not reduce crime or protect the public.
If anything, the financial and human cost of the various "get tough" policies will do more harm than good as prisoners lose the rehabilitation programs that might really keep them out of jail. Though criminologists, social service workers, and prison health professionals have been warning about this trend for years, this "disconnect" between government policy, motivated more by politics than actual need, seems likely to continue. That these new policies may run a generation or more before the full costs become known will only to the problem.
And will "getting tough" will actually make Canadians safer? You be the judge.]]>Could This Computer Game Save Your Kids From Fire?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19636862012-10-18T17:10:53-04:002012-12-18T05:12:02-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/
While statistics from the United States Fire Administration show that fire is the third leading cause of unintentional injury in children under the age of 14, at least 40 per cent of all fire-related injuries involve children under the age of five. In 2007 alone, 52 per cent of all fire deaths were children under the age of four who are often too young to understand proper safety procedures when a residential fire happens.
Though fire prevention strategies for older children and adults have been relatively effective in reducing death or injury, programs to teach younger children about fire safety (such as "stop, drop, and roll" when clothes catch fire) have had mixed success. Educational programs designed to teach children about fire safety are already available. Unfortunately, they are often too expensive to use on a national scale and tend to focus on school age children instead of younger children who are more vulnerable.
Could an interactive computer game teach younger children about how to stay safe in a fire? An interactive computer game titled "The Great Escape" was developed by Winnipeg firefighter Shane Ferguson as part of the Staying Alive program. Ferguson had created the Staying Alive program and The Great Escape as a tribute to five-year old Laura Johnson. He had been one of first responders of the scene to discover her body after she died of smoke inhalation in a 1998 house fire.
Spurred by Laura's death to take action, Ferguson developed The Great Escape game with the financial support of the Winnipeg Fire Fighters Burn Fund and Cooperators Insurance Inc. Released on CD in both French and English, Staying Alive and The Great Escape have been widely praised and Shane Ferguson has received numerous awards for his fire safety efforts.
Designed so that young children could play with minimal adult supervision, The Great Escape allows them to play at their own pace with no reading required. Narrated by Mrs. Aboutfire, the game teaches children about fire safety as they are tasked with helping a playful animal (a lobster) out of different fire-hazard situations (such as a bedroom when the alarm goes off).
By guiding colourful cartoon figures through different fire scenarios, children learn right and wrong fire responses. The scenarios covered in the game include: finding a lighter, home escape routes, dealing with clothes on fire, and exiting a bedroom safely. The game also provides feedback and lets children correct their own errors in later games. The idea of making the game fun to play was to motivate children to learn about fire safety and enjoy themselves as well.
As to how well it works, a new study published in Health Psychology examined whether The Great Escape is useful in keeping younger children safe. Conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Guelph and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the study looked at 76 children ranging in age from three to six years who were tested on their fire safety knowledge using figures a specially constructed dollhouse in the research laboratory.
Children in the experimental group were then sent home with a copy of the game on a CD and parents were instructed to record how often they played the game before their return to the laboratory three weeks later. Results showed that an average 45 minutes of playing time significantly increased fire safety knowledge for young children and delivered key messages about staying safe in risk situations. Since no reading skills were needed to play the game, it also gives children a chance to learn at their own pace.
While there was no ethical way to test how these children would respond in an actual emergency, the researchers point out that The Great Escape is a cost-effective way to keep young children safe that can be made available in any setting where children can play games on a computer.
In an interview with Fire Fighting in Canada, Shane Ferguson has praised the work of fire safety groups across Canada in promoting the Staying Alive program. "I have been fortunate that there have been a lot of good people who have seen the benefit of this program and have been prepared to help out," he said. As The Great Escape becomes more widely available, perhaps there will be fewer tragedies such as Laura Johnson and all the other young children who need to stay safe.]]>The Leonardo da Vinci of Mental Manipulationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19391622012-10-04T10:28:48-04:002012-12-04T05:12:01-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/A trial still unfolding in Bordeaux, France is already attracting lurid headlines as a man is facing prosecution over his nine-year domination of an aristocratic French family. Thierry Tilly of Oxford, England has been described by prosecutors as the "Leonardo da Vinci of mental manipulation."
The 48-year old Tilly has been charged with kidnapping, premeditated violence, "psychological subjection," fraud and "abuse of the vulnerable." Prosecutors maintain that Tilly and his accomplice Jacques Gonzalez managed to ingratiate themselves with three generations of the Vedrines family and eventually gained complete mental dominance over them. They would eventually defraud them of millions of euros and much of their family property.
According to courtroom testimony, Tilly first met Ghislaine de Vedrines in 1999 when he went to work at her Paris secretarial college. Although she initially considered him to be "uncharismatic," Ghislaine eventually introduced Tilly to other members of her large extended family.
The family members that Tilly met included matriarch Guillemette de Vedrines (who died in 2010), her three children Philippe, Ghislaine, and Charles-Henri, the wives of the two brothers, and five adult grandchildren. The Vedrines family is one of the oldest Protestant families in France with a seat in the 13th-century village of Monflanquin in southern France.
Tilly apparently impressed the family members with his stories of being descended from the royal Hapsburg family, of being friends with prominent politicians, and being a professional athlete. Despite all of these stories being false, Tilly's talent as a confidence man managed to win over his audience.
At some point, Tilly was able to convince the Vedrines that they were descendants of an ancient society called L'Equilibre du Monde (Balance of the World) and that their lives were in mortal danger from a cabal of freemasons and pedophiles. He also told them that he was a member of an ancient order of secret protectors and that the head of this order, "Mr. Gonzalez" was a cousin of the king of Spain.
Believing Tilly's story, the Vedrines family retreated to their chateau in Monflanquin in 2001 and almost completely cut themselves off from the outside world. Over the next nine years, they would funnel millions of euros worth of property, savings and jewelry to Tilly. He then supposedly passed these funds on to a Canadian "charity" to help support the protectors keeping the family safe.
Despite media reports circulating about the once-prominent Vedrines family shutting themselves off from society and even leaving former jobs to take on low-paying work as gardeners or kitchen workers, Tilly's domination over the members of the family seemed complete.
When Ghislaine de Vedrines's husband Jean Marchand denounced Tilly as a charlatan, his wife and two children denounced him as an "agent of evil." While Marchand attempted to lay a complaint against Tilly, police said they were powerless to act since no other member of the Vedrines family had reported abuse. Ghislaine de Vedrines then divorced her husband and he had no contact with his wife or children for nearly nine years.
In media statements against Tilly, Jean Marchand accused him of using "extremely complicated" brainwashing techniques on the Vedrines. "From 2000 onwards, my wife and two children all had identical language and behaviour -- often vindictive -- as if they were indoctrinated, under control, under permanent threat or drugged," he claimed. "They accused their entourage and former friends of belonging to pressure groups, sects or being mentally ill or guilty of the worst misdeeds." An anti-cult activist and jurist, Daniel Picotin, is acting as Marchand's legal counsel and stated that Tilly "ruined an entire family -- three generations."
Likely out of fear of the growing media attention in France, Tilly managed to convince the Vedrines to move to his home city of Oxford, England. Much of the family fortune was gone by then and the Vedrines were often seen in court over non-payment of rent. A former landlord described Tilly as "very clever and manipulative" but he was declared insolvent in 2006.
According to one family member, Tilly maintained control by turning family members against each and punishing anyone who failed to obey him. In her own testimony, Christine de Vedrines stated that she was confined in one room for months while being starved and beaten. Family members took part in the abuse, allegedly over Christine's refusal to provide the "key" to the family fortune that she supposedly had. The ordeal only ended when Christine finally confided with an employer in Oxford who advised her to lay a complaint with police in March 2009. A police team including a criminologist and a psychoanalyst persuaded the Vedrines family to return to France.
Thierry Tilly was arrested in Switzerland that same year and extradited to Bordeaux to stand trial. His accomplice, Jacques Gonzalez is accused of masterminding the scheme. Gonzalez, a 65-year old double amputee, is denying all charges despite police finding him in possession of an expensive BMW with 86,000 Euros in the trunk and "an opulent wardrobe." Despite the charges and evidence against Tilly, members of the Vedrines family continued to defend him as a "good friend" and that many of the stories about them in the media were exaggerated.
Ghislaine de Vedrines has since remarried Jean Marchand and now openly admits to being "taken in" by Tilly. The trial is continuing and both Tilly and Gonzales face lengthy prison sentences if convicted.]]>Are Suicide Rates Declining Worldwide?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19113112012-09-25T09:57:53-04:002012-11-25T05:12:01-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/
Still, as part of a 1999 WHO campaign to promote suicide prevention, a WHO task force created the first global suicide mortality tables covering death statistics from 120 countries during the years 1950 to 1995. The tables showed a steady rise in suicides over time (especially for males) and projected a continued increase in suicide deaths if no action was taken. Based on the widely publicized 1999 campaign, the WHO launched SUPRE (the WHO Suicide Prevention Program) to promote suicide awareness internationally.
But how effective has the WHO SUPRE campaign been? In a recent editorial in Crisis: the Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, two prominent suicide researchers examined recent WHO suicide statistics and compared them to suicide statistics from 20 years previously. The two researchers, Jose Manuel Bertolote of Brazil's Botucatu Medical School and Diego De Leo of Australia's Griffith University examined suicide statistics by age and sex for the most recent available period (2004 to 2009) and compared them to the 1992-1995 suicide statistics.
In overall number of suicide deaths, there appears to be a significant decrease in the most recent period compared to suicide rates from 20 years previously. Although men are still more likely to commit suicide than women (especially as they grow older), suicides have declined for almost all age groups.
Despite the overall trend, some troubling signs have emerged including a nearly 40 per cent increase in suicides among women under the age of 14. It is still not clear whether these trends are due to increased suicides or more accurate reporting when suicides happen.
While suicide figures from large countries such as China, Nigeria, India and Indonesia are still missing, Professors Bertolote and DeLeo argue that the available evidence from 62 countries show that overall suicide trends appear to be declining. Despite disturbing new trends, including suicides among younger women, the WHO suicide prevention campaign may be having some effect in countering suicide worldwide.
The editorial includes important cautions, however, since the large gaps in available suicide data makes it difficult to make accurate predictions of what the next 20 years wil bring.
Are suicide rates declining worldwide? Perhaps, but the need for worldwide suicide prevention campaigns is as strong as ever.]]>Does Your Airplane Have Psychological Safety?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18740872012-09-19T11:08:29-04:002012-11-19T05:12:02-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/a Boeing 737 operated by British Midland Airways crashed into the embankment of the M1 motorway near Kegworth in Leicestshire. The aircraft had been making a routine flight from London's Heathrow Airfast to Belfast in Northern Ireland when the air crew heard a loud pounding noise and experienced severe vibrations.
Smoke poured into the cabin and several passengers reported seeing fire and sparks coming from a port (left) engine. The pilot was advised to divert to East Midlands Airport for an emergency landing and the captain disengaged the autopilot. After being mistakenly told that it was the starboard (right) engine that was malfunctioning, the pilot shut it down even though it was the other engine that was causing the problem. Since the engine shutdown also ended the smoke coming into the cockpit, the pilots mistakenly believed that the problem had been solved. While the flight attendants and passengers could still see the flames coming from the malfunctioning port engine, they failed to notify the pilots.
As the plane approached the East Midlands airport, the port engine failed completely. Although the pilots tried restarting the other engine, the plane was travelling too slowly by that point and crashed into the motorway. Of the 118 passengers on board, thirty-nine were killed and eight died later. Of the 79 survivors, 74 suffered serious injuries. No one on the motorway was injured. In the final report on the disaster, the Air Accident Investigations Branch concluded that "had some initiative been taken by one or more of the cabin crew who had seen the distress of the left engine, this accident could have been prevented."
But how common are air disasters that happen because flight crew members are reluctant to speak up when something is wrong? A recent review published in Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors argues that flight attendants and other members of the flight crew who have lower ranking are often afraid to contradict the pilots, even in critical situations. This reluctance can often spell the difference between life and death.
One graphic example where staying silent can be fatal was the 1977 air disaster on the Spanish Island of Tenerife when two Boeing 747 passenger planes collided. With more than 583 fatalities, this is still the deadliest accident in aviation history. One of the factors linked to the accident was miscommunication between the captain of one of the planes taking off with proper clearance, apparently because less experienced members of the flight crew were reluctant to contradict him.
As Nadine Bienefeld and Gudela Grote of the Department of Management, Technology and Economics at ETH Zurich point out, crew members' failure to speak up can have devastating consequences. According to the United States National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB), 84 per cent of the 37 accidents linked to crew error between 1978 and 1990 happened because first officers were reluctant to contradict senior pilots when they made errors or unwise decisions. Despite formal recommendations following many air disasters (including the 1977 Tenerife air disaster), junior flight crew members are still reluctant to speak out about potential problems.
According to the Air Accident Investigation Branch report into airplane accidents, surviving crew members often report having a bad "gut feeling" that something was wrong immediately prior to the crash but choose not to speak up. While many airlines have tried encouraging junior crew members to be more proactive in sharing their concerns with pilots (including teaching assertiveness skills in crew resource management (CRM) training), recent accidents show that the problem is still there.
In their formal study of why crew members frequently choose to keep quiet about potential problems, Professors Grote and Bierfeld examined 1751 cockpit and cabin crew members of a large European airline. Along with observing more than 500 crew members in a flight simulator, they also carried out an online survey of crew members using company e-mail. Based on their results and previous research into organizational psychology, reasons for staying quiet about safety concerns included:
status differences
fear of damaging relationship with the rest of the crew
lack of experience
feeling that nothing would be done (futility)
fear of being labelled as a "troublemaker" or complainer
time pressure
Overall, at least 48 per cent of the crew members in the study reported staying silent about safety issues on one or more previous occasions. Flight attendants in particular reported that fear of punishment was their main reason for staying silent. Other cabin crew members such as pursers were more worried about problems with efficiency or passenger comfort. Fear of punishment was a major factor there as well.
In cockpit crews, first officers stated that they were often reluctant to speak up out of fear of being labelled as a troublemaker or damaging their working relationship with the pilot. Even airplane captains reported being reluctant to speak out on safety issues at times for fear of damaging their working relationship with the rest of the crew. Gender, age or length of time that they were employed did not seem to influence the results for any crew members.
Overall, the researchers found that staying silent was still fairly common among crew members, even when they knew about serious safety concerns. This was despite graphic air accidents and three decades of air training designed to encourage crew members to speak up. The results were especially suprising since the airline in question had a good history of air safety and a history of safety training that was well above the common standard in the airline industry worldwide.
One of the practical suggestions that Bienefeld and Grote made was that airlines need to improve the working climate in airlines to allow even low-ranking flight attendants to approach air crew directly about safety concerns (which they called psychological safety). That includes training crew members to raise their concerns as safely and effectlvely as possible without fear of punishment or damaging their professional relationship with other crew members. That may mean a radical reshaping of air safety training for all airlines worldwide.
Whether this happens in time to prevent future air disasters such as the ones at Kegworth and Tenerife remains to be seen.]]>Suicide in the NFL: a Deadly Trend that Can't Be Ignoredtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18215452012-08-22T17:36:38-04:002012-10-22T05:12:07-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/The suicide of former linebacker Junior Seau on May 2, 2012 came as a shock to his countless fans around the world. A well-loved icon in the San Diego sports community, the 43-year-old Seau had retired from professional football in 2010 following a long career as a linebacker in the National Football League with the San Diego Chargers, the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins.
Following his retirement, he operated a successful restaurant in Mission Valley, California and was actively involved in community work through his Junior Seau Foundation.
When his girlfriend found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Oceanside, California, speculation arose over the similarity between his death and the suicides of NFL stars Dave Duerson in 2011 and Ray Easterling earlier this year.
Both Easterling and Duerson had committed suicide due to medical complications resulting from brain concussions and Easterling's widow is currently suing the National Football League over accusations of deliberately concealing risks linked to repeated head injuries. Despite his lengthy football career, Junior Seau had no significant history of brain injuries oncussions. No suicide note had been left at the scene of Junior Seau's death and there was no indication of foul play or forced entry.
An autopsy report released by the San Diego County Medical Examiner found no indication of brain trauma although toxicological analysis showed four different prescription drugs in his system. Seau had been on Ambien at the time of his death due to a long-time problem with insomnia, he was also being treated for orthopedic issues. The coroner's report added that Seau had not indicated any intention of killing himself although a 2010 incident in which he drove his vehicle off a cliff has been suggested as a previous attempt.
Seau's family has formally requested that his brain be sent to the National Institute of Health for further study. Whether or not brain injury is a factor, Seau's death is just part of a disturbing trend in recent years with former NFL players committing suicide in similar ways. Despite the NFL establishing new programs in 2007 to improve quality of life in retired players, including counseling and medical care through the NFL Player Care Foundation, the rise in suicide deaths shows that far more needs to be done.]]>How To Spot Dementia and Alzheimer'stag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15851962012-06-13T07:52:50-04:002012-08-13T05:12:05-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/go public with his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease wasn't easy. In the press release that he and his wife Kim issued in June 2011, the 76-year-old singer admitted to experiencing short-term memory problems for years before being diagnosed.
As Campbell's daughter, Ashley, pointed out in a CNN interview, the family's main concern was fans getting the wrong impression of problems that her father might develop on stage during shows: "We were concerned about was during shows he would forget a line or get a little confused. People would think, 'Is he drunk?' Is he doing drugs again?" Currently engaged in a series of goodbye tours and media events to increase public awareness for Alzheimer's disease, Glen Campbell is experiencing an upsurge of popularity as his international host of fans rally around him.
Will there be a tremendous rise in new dementia cases like Glen Campbell's over the next two to three decades? Despite promising research into the role of certain risk factors in dementia and new forms of treatment, the answer may well be yes without a sharp increase in the funding currently given to research. A new report released this year by the World Health Organization (WHO) titled, Dementia: A Public Health Priority shows that 35.6 million people are currently living with dementia. This number is expected to double by 2030 and likely triple by 2050.
These grim statistics are well in line with the numbers reported by many national organizations dealing with dementia. In 2009, when the Alzheimer's Society of Canada released its own report, "Rising Tide: The Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society", they warned that the estimated 500,000 Canadians currently suffering from dementia would more than double over the next 25 years. Of the half million dementia patients in Canada at present, about 71,000 (15 per cent) are under the age of 65 with 59,000 being under the age of 60.
The Society predicts an additional 250,000 dementia diagnoses within the next five years with the number swelling to well over a million by 2040. As a clinical neuropsychologist who has worked with dementia cases, I have seen firsthand the devastating consequences that all types of dementia can have on patients and the family members who care for them.
The Alzheimer's Society of Canada provides a list of ten warning signs that might indicate a problem with Alzheimer's disease or other dementia (remember that proper diagnosis should be left up to qualified professionals). These warning signs in yourself or someone close to you need to be referred immediately to your primary care physician:
1. Memory loss that affects day-to-day functioning. While memory loss is a normal part of aging people with early dementia become much more forgetful and often become upset when corrected or reminded. In many cases, memory loss is often exaggerated due to depression or other causes.
2. Difficulty performing familiar tasks. Tasks that were once routine such as cooking or self-care can become much more difficult and many dementia patients often need to be supervised to avoid accidents. This is especially true in cooking since fires can start due to food being left on a stove accidentally.
3. Problems with language. Forgetting certain words or problems with language comprehension may make dementia patients harder to understand. In many cases however, language skills can stay intact until relatively late in the illness which lets dementia patients mask their problem and delay proper diagnosis.
4. Disorientation of time and place. Do you or a loved one get lost frequently in once-familiar neighbourhoods or other places? While forgetting where you are or the proper date is something that happens to everyone once in a while, a recurring pattern might indicate a problem.
5. Impaired judgment. New problems with self-care, poor hygiene, bad financial decisions, or other examples of judgment problems might be a sign of dementia. Driving is a particular concern at this stage since people who are even in an early stage of dementia might become dangers to themselves or others.
6. Problems with abstract thinking. Abstract thinking is defined as the ability to use concepts and understand generalizations such as numbers. Are you or a loved one having a problem balancing a cheque-book or not understanding what a birthday is?
7. Losing things. Though we all misplace objects at times, a consistent pattern of losing things or misplacing familiar objects (eg., placing keys in a refrigerator) is a signal that something is wrong.
8. Changes in mood and behaviour. This can be tricky since depression is often associated with early dementia. Whether the depression is causing the symptoms or masking an underlying problem is something best left to a competent professional.
9. Changes in personality. Personality can change as people grow older but are your or someone close to you becoming more withdrawn or suspicious? Apathy, fearfulness or uncharacteristic behaviour can also be signs that something is wrong.
10. Loss of initiative. Don't feel like doing the things that you usually do? Are you too tired or simply don't have the energy that you used to have? While it's normal to slow down as we get older, becoming more passive or needing to be prompted to do things might be a sign of developing dementia.
Once again, do NOT try diagnosing yourself or someone close to you if some or all of these warning signs appear. There are a whole range of medical or psychological conditions that can mimic many of these symptoms (including depression), and a proper diagnosis should only be made by a qualified medical professional after a comprehensive examination.
Prospects for the Future
For the families of Glen Campbell and the millions of other diagnosed dementia patients, the burden is only just beginning. Even now, resources to help families dealing with dementia are strained to the breaking point and are likely to be overwhelmed as more dementia patients are diagnosed. Most of the complex burden of caring for the rising number of dementia patients we will be seeing in the decades to come will likely fall on unpaid family members with few, if any, community resources to help them. With the rising number of cases of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias in the decades to come, the need for better solutions and more specialized health care workers may well force Canada's health care system to the breaking point.
As Richard Nakoneczny, Volunteer President of the Alzheimer's Society of Canada, noted in the report, "The predicted surge in dementia cases will certainly overwhelm Canada's health care system unless specific and targeted action is taken. Canada must act now."
]]>Can Letters Prevent Military Suicides?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14341562012-04-24T07:43:53-04:002012-06-24T05:12:01-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/recent study showing an 80 per cent increase in suicides among U.S. soldiers during the period from 2004 to 2008 alone.
While some of these suicides can be linked to post-traumatic stress resulting from combat, nearly a third of military suicides occur in soldiers with no combat experience at all. According to the study's lead researcher, Michelle Canham-Chervak, "this study suggests that an army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances. By establishing that soldiers who are diagnosed with a mental health disorder or substance abuse are at greater risk of suicide, we then have a place to target our prevention strategies."
To help curb the rising military suicide rate, a new pilot project has been established by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2) and the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE). Titled the Caring Letters Project (CLP), the new project involves sending brief letters to discharged inpatients considered to be at high risk for suicide following hospitalization.
The Caring Letters concept was first developed by psychiatrist Jerome Motto, who, along with fellow clinician Alan Bostrom, found that sending periodic letters to randomly selected high-risk outpatients who refused treatment led to lower suicides compared to a control group.
The letters themselves were designed to be brief and non-demanding, simply expressions of concern showing potentially suicidal patients that they were not alone. Following the success of Motto and Bostrom's 2001 research project as well as follow-up studies, a 2008 World Health Organization study on a random sample of more than 1,800 people who attempted suicide found significantly fewer suicide deaths in those who received personalized contact.
The point of the project was to test the feasibility of extending the Caring Letters model to other military treatment settings and to find whether letters or email messages worked better. After a structured treatment program with standardized testing to measure suicide potential, the person who attemped suicide was then discharged from the program.
As part of the outpatient follow-up, the patient received a personalized letter every two weeks for the first month after discharge. Over the next two years, patients in the program received up to eleven additional letters. Most of the letters were sent in the first year and dropped to one letter every three months in the second year. The format of the letter followed the basic form included in the following sample letter:
Dear [Participant],
We appreciated the opportunity to get to know you during your stay at Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC). We hope things are going well for you.
We remember how you said you like hiking around the South Puget Sound. With the return of the summer weather, we hope you're getting a chance to get out there, and maybe explore some new trails. Anyway, we just wanted to send a quick e‐mail to let you know we were thinking about you and wishing you well.
If you wish to drop us a note, we would be glad to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Sara & Laura
While the letter was handwritten, both the letters and the email messages contained the same content and were supplemented with information taken from clinical interviews with the patient. They were all signed by the researcher and the head psychiatric nurse and included contact information and links to mental health resources such as suicide hotlines and substance abuse centres.
To ensure that anyone in crisis could get help as quickly as possible, a special safety plan was set up so that researchers could refer study participants to inpatient psychiatric staff as needed. The letters also included a note saying that an immediate response might not be possible but that they should contact one of the crisis numbers provided if they needed help quickly.
So how successful is the pilot project? The project results were recently published in the journal, Crisis, using a sample of 110 former inpatients who had agreed to participate in the research project (20 women and 90 men with an average age of 29). Although the hospital primarily dealt with active duty military personnel, nine of the participants were dependants of military personnel while another nine were either National Guard, activated Reserve, or retired.
Over half of the patients had reported suicidal thinking or had actually planned suicide before being admitted to hospital while 27 of the participants had attempted suicide. They stayed an average six days in hospital before being discharged and the main diagnosis was depressive disorder. There was no control group used in the study and all discharged patients who agreed to be in the study received the caring letters. To date, 436 letters have been sent out with 72 per cent of participants opting to receive email messages rather than handwritten letters.
While the Caring Letters Project is still ongoing, early results are promising. Though only 27 responses to the hundreds of letters sent out were received, they were all extremely positive statements about the program.
A common theme in the responses was expressing gratitude that someone was thinking of them. To date, no adverse problems have been reported and the safety plan has not been put into use. Still in its very early stages, the Caring Letters Project appears to be an effective way of helping potentially suicidal military personnel using existing health care staff. Unfortunately, measuring whether letters can prevent military suicides will likely require a more widescale research project across multiple treatment settings with a much larger sample of participants.
Will the use of letters help prevent the worrying rise in military suicides? Caring Letters can reach service members no matter where they are in the world, even in deployment settings where mental health professionals are not typically found. Since potentially suicidal service personnel often refuse treatment, letters can also be a non-obtrusive way to remind them that help is available.
While the Caring Letters approach is only one part of a much broader strategy to prevent military deaths, even a simple reminder that service personnel can get the help that they need may very well be the difference between life and death.
Here is more information on the Caring Letters Project (PDF)]]>The Return of the Refrigerator Parent?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12863602012-03-01T21:57:08-05:002012-05-01T05:12:02-04:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/Philadephia earlier this year was more controversial than usual. Along with the presentation of papers relating to the causes and treatment of autism, a new film by French documentary filmmaker Sophie Robert showed the powerful hold that psychoanalytic theories about the cause of autism has in France. Titled Le Mur (The Wall), Robert's film is the result of four years of research and interviews with more than 30 French professionals, many of them heads of pediatric departments in major hospitals. In showing the continuing stigma that parents of autistic children still face in France, Robert has stirred up considerable controversy of her own. Three of the professionals that she interviewed have filed lawsuits against her and demanded that the film be banned. Despite controversy, The Wall has generated an international following through YouTube and served as a graphic reminder of the continuing popularity of an early theory about the causes of autism long thought debunked: the "Refrigerator Parent" hypothesis.
When child psychiatrist Leo Kanner first identified the syndrome that would become known as autism in a 1943 paper, he went beyond describing the unusual schizophrenia-like features of the children in his study by focusing on their parents as well. In summarizing his findings, Kanner emphasized that the parents tended to be highly intelligent but also suggested that:
"In the whole group, there are very few really warm-hearted fathers and mothers. For the most part parents, grandparents... are limited in general interest in people. Even some of the happiest marriages are rather cold and formal affairs. The question arises to whether or to what extent this fact has contributed to the condition of the children."
While Kanner didn't place the blame for autism exclusively on parents, he expanded on his theme of "parental coldness" in later papers where he suggested that autistic children were raised in isolation from the very beginning, with no access to warmth from their mothers and fathers. In a 1960 interview, he described parents of autistic children as "just happening to defrost enough to produce a child" (and is believed to be the source of the "refrigerator parent" label). He was hardly the only authority to blame autism on poor parenting though. Child development specialist, Bruno Bettelheim and other psychoanalysts also stressed the role of "cold and distant" parents (usually the mother) in causing autism in children. And so the "refrigerator mother" hypothesis was born.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, mothers and fathers dealing with their autistic children were often forced to deal with a double burden. Not only did they have to cope with their autistic children and the lack of real treatment options available at the time, but they were also saddled with the blame for making them autistic to begin with. Since autism had no obvious physical cause, psychoanalytic explanations remained popular. While the refrigerator mother hypothesis came under attack beginning in the early 1960s, (and Kanner himself eventually backtracked on his original position), Bruno Bettleheim continued to defend it.
Bettleheim even went so far as to compare autistic children to prisoners in concentration camps saying, "The difference between the plight of prisoners in a concentration camp and the conditions which lead to autism and schizophrenia in children is, of course, that the child has never had a previous chance to develop much of a personality" (that Bettleheim had been a Holocaust survivor himself gave his words an extra poignancy).
Along with Bettleheim, other psychiatrists took up the cause of protecting children from their "refrigerator parents." Autism was often compared to the environmental retardation seen in neglected children and psychoanalysts such as Margaret Mahler weighed in with their own theories on how autistic children were unable to separate themselves from their mothers.
As early as 1964 though, parents of autistic children began fighting back. Bernard Rimland, a psychologist and a father of an autistic child, wrote a book debunking the refrigerator parent hypothesis and the various misconceptions surroundings the causes of autism (Leo Kanner wrote the foreword for the book). Along with his own research into autistic children, Rimland became a spokesperson for parents of autistic children and helped found the Autism Society of America.
While the refrigerator parent theory of autism was largely abandoned during the 1970s, there are still a few die-hard supporters across Europe and South Korea. Not surprisingly, parents of autistic children still react angrily to any suggestion that flawed parenting causes autism. In a recent statement, Irish Minister of Health James Reilly publicly attacked psychologist Tony Humphreys over a column in the Irish Examiner suggesting that children developed autism to "defend themselves against the absence of expressed love and affection and emotional receptivity." Dr. Reilly, the father of an autistic child, blasted Dr. Humphreys saying that his remarks were "utterly outrageous. The hurt that he caused people is absolutely astonishing." In France, as Sophie Roberts' film graphically demonstrates, psychoanalytic theories relating to the cause and treatment of autism continue to cause untold harm to autistic children and their parents.
And the professionals are fighting back. A recent decision by a French court has banned Roberts' film and ordered her to remove it from YouTube and other online sources with heavy penalties if she and her film company fail to comply. She is also required to pay the plaintiffs at least 40,000 euro for damages and legal fees. While the decision will likely be appealed, the saga of the refrigerator parent is not over yet.]]>Is There A Facebook Suicide Effect?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11533492011-12-29T10:19:10-05:002012-02-28T05:12:02-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/hanged himself. The police had been notified by several of McGee's friends after they noticed that the television producer had updated his Facebook status to read: "Kevin McGee thinks that death is much better than life." Police found his body three hours after he posted the message.
After 48-year old Lita Broadhurst threw herself from a fourth-floor balcony in the building where she had been living on Spain's southern coast, police found a suicide note on her Facebook homepage. Titled "Last Words" and addressed to her teenaged children, the note asked for her children's forgiveness and placed the blame on a former boyfriend against whom she was about to testify in court.
Aspiring model Paul Zolezzi was found hanging from the monkey bars in a Brooklyn playground. Hours earlier, the 30-year old Zolezzi updated his Facebook status saying that he was "born in San Francisco, became a shooting star over everywhere, and ended his life in Brooklyn... And couldn't have asked for more."
Since its launch in February 2004, Facebook has become the primary social networking service in the world with more than 800 million active users worldwide. Having become part of the lives of millions of people, it hardly seems surprising that it's also playing a role in death. To deal with the rising number of online suicide announcements as well as a recent rash of youth suicides linked to bullying, Facebook has launched a new suicide prevention tool to allow users to highlight content from a friend or acquaintance they believe to indicate suicidal thoughts or behaviours. Once flagged, the user who posted the content receives a direct link to a suicide counsellor for an online private chat session as well as a link to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. Facebook also allows profiles of deceased users to be turned into "memorial pages" or removed completely at the request of family members.
Along with growing concern over Facebook suicides, there has been increased interest in the academic literature as well. In a recent article published in Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, a team of researchers at the University of Bern's Institute of Forensic Medicine examined a recent Facebook-announced death and whether online announcements can lead to copycat suicides.
The tendency of media reports of suicide to inspire copycat deaths has been known at least since 1774 when Wolfgang Goethe published The Sorrows of Young Werther. Featuring a passionate young poet who commits suicide in a romantic fashion over a lost love, the novel inspired a cultural movement called "Werther fever" with numerous young men imitating the hero any way that they could.
Unfortunately, this also led to an estimated 2,000 suicides as fans tried to imitate their hero's romantic death. Even into modern times, the rash of copycat deaths following well-known suicides is still known as the Werther Effect. Along with the rash of suicides following the deaths of celebrities such as Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, and Yukiko Okada, copycat deaths have also been linked to high-profile suicides using unusual methods (such as self-immolation in parts of the Middle East) and even to specific locations associated with suicide (San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Japan's Aokigahara forest are two prominent examples). In addition to media-driven copycat suicides, there has also been a rise in suicide-oriented Internet forums and websites offering advice on how to commit suicide as well as cases of "suicide groupies" urging forum users to commit suicide online.
But can a suicide announcement on Facebook inspire similar copycat deaths? The recent Institute of Forensic Medicine paper on Facebook suicide examined a case study involving the Facebook-announced suicide of a 28-year old male who posted his suicide intentions online in a status update. Although a concerned friend notified authorities, they were unable to prevent the poster from jumping to his death. Called in to investigate, the Institute ruled out foul play in the case but continued studying the potential impact of the suicide on other Facebook users.
While the authors acknowledge that there have been no reports of copycat deaths related to Facebook-announced suicides to date, they suggest that this may be due to Facebook's relatively recent launch and the small number of friends attached to the average Facebook account. Also, since Facebook friends often have a closer association with the user, this might act as a moderating influence on suicidal behaviour. As a result, these suicides tend not to have the same reach as media accounts of suicides in traditional print and television. While privacy settings of Facebook posts can be opened to allow stranger access, which could potentially allow for millions of readers, this does not appear to make a difference in terms of media exposure. Would the suicide of a more famous Facebook user with thousands of friends be more likely to produce a Werther Effect? While this hasn't happened so far, the likelihood of a high-profile Facebook-announced suicide seems inevitable as social media becomes more popular.
Perhaps more importantly, the immediacy of suicide notes on Facebook means that there is a greater chance for family, friends, and the Facebook network to intervene directly. In most cases of Facebook-announced suicide such as the ones described above, fellow Facebook users often try to help by contacting police or intervening. While their efforts aren't always successful, there seems no indication of copycat behaviour as a result. Facebook's new anti-suicide initiative may also a step in the right direction by putting potentially suicidal users in touch with mental health professionals. Still, critics warn that the new initiative may make potentially suicidal users less likely to admit suicidal feelings online and also stress that real-life contact is far more important than virtual intervention in preventing suicide.
As social media becomes more popular and online suicide announcements become more common, whether on Facebook or other social media networks, I believe the impact of those announcements will certainly become more widespread. How that impact will be felt, both by family and friends of the deceased as well as the wider social media community, remains to be seen.
]]>How Useful Are Public Sex Offender Registries?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11041912011-11-29T14:52:52-05:002012-01-29T05:12:01-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/
Do public sex offender registries actually protect society from offenders? Though access to sex offender registries continue to be limited to police and correctional agencies here in Canada, the passage of Megan's Law in 1996 forced U.S. states to make specific details from sex offender registries public and the process was accelerated by the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which forced the passage of Sex Offender Registry and Notification (SORN) systems in all U.S. states and territories. The most recent statistics by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports more than 700,000 convicted sex offenders in registries across the United States. Attempts at creating a nationwide database have been stymied by how the independent state registries are operated and the wide differences in how sex offenders are treated from one state to another.
In recent years, politicians and community activists have used high-profile media cases to highlight problems in existing SORN systems and to urge more stringent safeguards in dealing with known sex offenders in the community. These calls for tightened security have hampered community-based sex offender treatment programs and often deprive offenders of the necessary community resources that might actually reduce re-offending. In many legal jurisdictions, increased restrictions on where registered sex offenders can live (i.e., establishing "safe zones" around schools and playgrounds) which have often left offenders homeless to avoid being declared in breach of supervision conditions. While Megan's Law and related legislation granted states some latitude in dealing with sex offenders, the stringent reporting guidelines laid down by the federal Adam Walsh Act has raised serious concerns by state governments, especially over the Act's failure to distinguish between sex offenders in terms of risk level.
Despite outrage over high-profile cases involving strangers abducting children, they remain relatively rare compared to the overwhelming majority of sex offenses. To identify the types of offenders who are typically found on sex offender registries, a research study by a team of researchers led by Alissa Ackerman of the University of Washington was recently published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. Using information on 445,127 registered sex offenders taken from sex offender registries across the U.S., the researchers examined arrest characteristics, demographics, victim information, and perceived risk. The offenders examined in the study were from public registers only and did not include the lowest risk offenders in some states whose information is only available to law enforcement agencies. Not surprisingly, the sex offenders in the study were overwhelmingly male (97.7 per cent) and ranged in age from 12 to 99 (although the average age was 44.8, some states allow minors to be charged as sex offenders). Only 11 per cent of registered sex offenders are currently in prison or in mental hospitals and the rest are on community supervision. In addition to offenders who are still registered despite being deported or listed in more than one community, approximately 6,923 sex offenders from 43 states are officially listed as homeless. An additional 5,349 offenders are listed as "absconded" or whose whereabouts were otherwise unknown.
While not all states provided information on victims, approximately 90 per cent had victims who were minors and one-third had victims younger than 10. In terms of victim gender, 87 per cent of all sex offenders had female victims only, with the remainder involving either male victims or both male and female. Gathering data on the specific nature of the offense was even more difficult due to differences in state laws relating to age of consent and type of criminal offense (e.g. convictions for "sodomy"). The available statistics didn't allow for distinguishing between first-time and repeat-offenders or whether violence was used in the offense. Breaking down the offenders in the study in terms of actual risk to the public was even more difficult due to differences risk definition and how that information was given in public databases. While Minnesota and Nebraska only included high-risk offenders in their databases, the other states showed a wide variation in risk level.
The researchers emphasized that their results were preliminary (further studies are planned) but the current findings indicate that registered sex offenders are an extremely diverse group and vary widely in terms of nature of offending, type of victim, and level of actual risk for re-offending. The results also raised questions about why public sex offender registries (which were intended as a means of protecting society), often includes false information on offenders who are not actually living in the state where they are registered (in some cases the same offender was listed in more than one registry). While victims' groups and politicians often invoke the specter of absconded or otherwise non-compliant sex offenders to call for tougher legislation, the study failed to support this fear.
Overall, only 17,688 registered sex offenders examined in the study were actually homeless, non-compliant, or otherwise missing from where they supposed to be registered. That number, while high, is still far short of the 100,000 figure commonly cited by media and public officials. In 2009, the U.S. Congress placed the number of missing sex offenders nationwide at 135,000 to justify a substantial increase in the U.S. Marshall Service budget despite failing to provide an actual source for the figure. At a recent meeting of the Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers, Dr. Jill Levenson of Lynn University presented the results of a study examining sex offender registries and found consistent problems with state reporting practices that often prevented registered sex offenders from registering as required and being declared "absconded" as a result. In summarizing her findings, Dr. Levenson suggested that commonly used estimates of missing sex offenders were highly inflated and that, even in cases where sex offenders genuinely absconded, it was typically to avoid the social stigma of being a registered sex offender rather than a desire to re-offend. There were also wide variations in reporting rates across different states (eg, California and Wisconsin had the highest rates for missing or absconded sex offenders while Florida had one of the lowest).
So, how useful are public sex offender registries in protecting the public? Despite the passage of Megan's Law and the Adam Walsh Act, there are still wide variations in how the legislation is applied across various U.S. states. In addition to highly publicized cases of vigilante violence directed against sex offenders, often using information collected from public registries, studies of released offenders show consistent negative consequences over being publicly identified as convicted sex offenders. As to whether public registries and community notification are actually successful in curbing recidivism, there is little available research to suggest that it makes any real difference in public safety. On the other hand, by preventing returning sex offenders from becoming reintegrated into society, public registries often do more harm than good.
Given the problems that public sex registries have caused in the United States, it's hardly surprising that Ontario police and treatment professionals dealing with sex offenders have resisted any attempt to establish something similar here in Ontario. Whether it will become an issue in future elections remains to be seen.
]]>Recovering From Katrinatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10799702011-11-11T23:29:41-05:002012-01-11T05:12:01-05:00Romeo Vitellihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/romeo-vitelli/
Based on what the various tour guides had to tell me, much of the damage seems to be nothing more than a memory after six years. Although the official death toll stands at 1,836, the actual number is likely far higher given the hundreds of deaths that occurred in the months that followed due to stress-related illnesses and other medical disorders that can be linked to Katrina. Despite the cost in lives and billions of dollars in damage, as well as the displacement of thousands of families, neighbourhoods have largely recovered and the city government is actively campaigning to remove those few houses that remain boarded up. Reconstruction projects are a familiar sight and tourists are eagerly directed towards various signs that inhabitants of the city have come back stronger than ever.
While the strong economic recovery reflects well on the resilience of New Orleans' residents, various social agencies have pointed out that women and visible minorities have not recovered as well and U.S. Census figures reflect this trend. According to Nielsen survey findings, New Orleans lost 595,205 people as a direct result of Katrina which dropped it from the 35th largest housing market in 2000 to the 49th largest market in 2006. The main bulk of New Orleans' refugees went to Atlanta, Houston and Dallas. Although the current population of New Orleans is 1,194,196 (as of 2010), it is still sharply lower than pre-Katrina estimates and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Nielsen findings for New Orleans also indicate that the population tends to be older, less racially diverse (fewer visible minorities), and with a higher median income.
In one study conducted by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the percentage of women (adult and child) in the post-Katrina metropolitan New Orleans population has dropped from 54 per cent to 52.1 per cent. Among African-American females, the drop is even more dramatic, from 42 per cent to 37.3 per cent. In actual numbers, this means that the total New Orleans population has gone down by 108,116 women overall since 2005 while African-American women have dropped by 65,423.
Poverty seems to be the dominant factor in preventing women from returning to New Orleans. While 23 per cent of women lived below the federal poverty line pre-Katrina (36.6 per cent among African-American women), the poverty rate among post-Katrina women and girls is actually lower across all racial and ethnic groups. Despite numerous government and private citizen initiatives to build new houses for New Orleans residents, virtually all of them have minimum income requirements to ensure that benefitting residents can afford to carry the necessary mortgage. Since low-income residents often fail to qualify and couldn't afford flood insurance in the first place, they don't have the economic resources to return to New Orleans. Single mothers caring for dependent children have been especially hard-hit by Katrina and many still haven't been able to return. Whether they ever will likely depends on the current economic recession and the availability of jobs and scarce resources as the city continues to rebuild.
The lingering resentment over the slow rebuilding is also likely to continue. For years following Hurricane Katrina (not to mention Hurricane Rita, which struck just a few months later), thousands of refugees were forced to live in FEMA trailers across Mississippi and Louisiana, often within sight of their devastated neighbourhoods. Many refugees developed mental health problems, including posttraumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts and behaviour, and other serious mental illnesses which often overwhelmed available mental health providers. Psychological research examining 665 households disrupted by the disaster indicated that nearly half of all children and adolescents had developed new emotional or behavioural problems in the months following Katrina. Hardly a surprising result in families forced to relocate an average of 3.5 times, some far more often.
With the massive physical destruction of schools and displacement of thousands of teachers, severe disruptions in education continued for months following Katrina. African-American families tended to be especially hard-hit which led to a significant mistrust of federal relief agencies (as well as lingering rumours that delayed FEMA responding was due to racism). Although FEMA's Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program provided some relief, the inadequacies of the program became apparent soon enough and more specialized treatment service programs were eventually developed. While innovative programming to help children and adults cope with the disaster helped alleviate some of the distress and grief that they experienced, the long-term consequences are still being felt and the traumatic memory of Katrina's devastation will certainly remain with residents for a long time to come.
What lessons were learned from Hurricane Katrina and Rita? Although the inadequacy of the government response to the scope of the devastation is well-documented, whether changes in government disaster planning policies will help survivors in future disasters is open to debate. Along with the need for more rapid mobilization of government relief programs coupled with better integration of government and non-government aid agency services, the issue of mental health services for disaster victims remains crucial. Mental health professionals working with trauma victims following 9/11 and Katrina have developed better methods to help disaster victims including psychological first aid to reduce initial distress and to help survivors learn to cope and adapt to their altered environment. Aid organizations such as the Red Cross have formed stronger links with mental health organizations to mobilize counsellors in large numbers to help survivors as the need arises.
Whether or not we'll be ready the next time the "Big One" hits remains to be seen.
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