Rotenberg founder set to face charges, Expected to quit over 2007 shock case

Boston Globe

Patricia Wen and Brian McGrory 25, 2011

The founder of the controversial Judge Rotenberg Educational Center is scheduled to face criminal charges in Dedham today arising from a night in 2007 when two special needs teenagers at the center were wrongfully administered dozens of electrical shocks, according to the father of one of the victims and another person with knowledge about the case.

In a deal reached with the state attorney general’s office, Matthew Israel, 77, is expected to be spared prison time in return for stepping down from the Canton-based center that he founded 40 years ago and accepting a five-year probationary term, said Charles Dumas, the father of one of the two victims in the 2007 case who said he spoke yesterday with prosecutors. As part of the agreement, the school’s day-to-day activities will also be overseen by a court-approved monitor.

A court official who works at the Norfolk County Superior Court said that today’s schedule of cases lists a defendant named Matthew Israel facing two charges, misleading a grand jury and accessory after the fact to a crime.

The charges against Israel are believed to be related to the destruction of some of the center’s digital surveillance tapes that would have showed what occurred the night of Aug. 26, 2007, in one of the center’s residential group homes in Stoughton. That night, staffers received a prank phone call from someone posing as a supervisor, saying two teenagers, including Dumas’s son, should be administered electrical shocks as punishment for bad behavior earlier that day.

The attorney general’s office declined comment on the case yesterday, as did Ernest Corrigan, a longtime spokesman for Israel and the center. On May 2, Corrigan had issued a press release announcing Israel’s retirement, effective June 1. In the release, which made no mention of a pending criminal case, Israel is quoted as saying, “I am now almost 78 years old, and it is time for me to move over and let others take the reins.’’

The case marks a dramatic turn in the career of the Harvard-trained psychologist, though it does not appear to end the center’s unorthodox practices that have generated national controversy: the use of skin-shock treatments to discipline behaviorally troubled children.

His tactics have been condemned as barbaric and savage by many top medical and mental health professionals. But despite some injuries and even deaths at the facility, the center has continued to get state approval to operate as a special-needs school serving some 200 students with serious emotional and behavioral problems, including autism and intellectual disabilities.

Inside 60 Minutes placebo story, antidepressants no better than placebo

CBS News
February 17, 2012

Some new scientific research is causing quite a stir in the medical community.

The fight is over antidepressants, and whether they work any better than a simple placebo.

In an report airing this Sunday, "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl spoke to the psychologist behind the study, Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School.

Preview: Treating Depression

He says that his research challenges the very effectiveness of antidepressants. Kirsch says the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.

In her interview with Kirsch, Stahl asks, "You're saying if (patients taking antidepressants) took a sugar pill, they'd have the same effect?"

Kirsch replied, "They'd have almost as large an effect, and whatever difference it would be, would be clinically insignificant."

Stahl presses, "But people are getting better taking antidepressants, I know them. We all know them."

"People get better when they take the drug, but it's not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better," Kirsch said. "It's largely the placebo effect."

Kirsch's specialty has been the study of the placebo effect -- the taking of a dummy pill without any medication in it, that creates an expectation of healing that is so powerful, symptoms are actually alleviated.

In addition to an interview with Kirsch, Stahl interviewed doctors who don't agree with Kirsch's study.

On "CBS This Morning," Friday Stahl called the report "explosive."

She said, "Basically (this report) is saying that -- except for those very severely depressed, because everybody says that these antidepressants do work if you're -- if it's a depression that you just can't get over. But if you're moderately depressed or mildly depressed, a sugar pill would be just as good."

"It's the placebo effect," Stahl continued. "And part of our story involves how the mind is so powerful over the body that the placebo effect shows up even if you have knee surgery, with osteoporosis, if you have Parkinson's disease. All these diseases that somehow involve the mind and it's not just in the mind. A sugar pill can actually change your blood pressure, they've monitored the brain, it can change the brain chemistry and the doctor giving you the pill, if it's a sugar pill, just telling you he cares and, 'Yes, I know you're sick and here's something to help you, that doctor is part of the placebo effect.'"

So are doctors prescribing sugar pills?

Stahl said she asked that question throughout her reporting, but learned it's not an ethical practice.

"There are side effects with antidepressants," she said. "It's not ethical. But you know, in my head, to give a pill that is as good as a placebo with side effects isn't ethical either. So I think why not give a sugar pill. But they don't do it, they won't do it."

For more with Stahl on her upcoming report, including what it means for people taking antidepressants and the companies that make these prescription drugs, watch the video in the player above.

Psychologist seeks return of license In SJC case, psychologist admits having sex with patient, but says there were mitigating circumstances

Commonwealth Magazine
BY: Colman M Herman
June 22, 2011


A female psychologist is asking the state's Supreme Judicial Court for her license back even though she violated one of the cardinal rules of her profession by having sex with a former patient.

The standard punishment for someone in the medical and related professions who has sex with a patient or former patient is permanent revocation of his or her license. Officials at several of the boards that oversee health professionals said they couldn’t recall an instance where a practitioner who had sex with a patient failed to lose his or her license.

But Brookline psychologist Mary O'Neill says she deserves another chance. She acknowledges beginning a sexual relationship with her patient, Eric MacLeish, just weeks after his therapy sessions ended, yet says her license shouldn’t be permanently revoked because her lapse in judgment was caused by a marriage that had collapsed.

O’Neill petitioned a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to review her license revocation by the Board of Registration in Psychology. Subsequently, she and the board jointly asked the full court to hear the case, which it agreed to do. Oral arguments are scheduled for this fall.

O’Neill is arguing that the psychology board “arbitrarily and capriciously” refused to consider the mitigating evidence she presented. Rather than revoking her license, she says the board should have suspended her license for a year and then allowed her to resume work on a probationary basis for a year. She says she would continue to receive personal psychotherapy and have her work supervised by a peer. O’Neill also says she would do 100 hours of community service.

The psychology board’s regulations adopt the code of conduct of the American Psychology Association. The code states that “psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with current therapy clients/patients” nor with “former clients for at least two years after cessation of therapy.” Beyond two years, sex between a psychologist and patient is permitted only if the therapist can prove there has been no exploitation. The regulations also say it is not a defense to say the patient consented. The regulations were crafted to prevent psychologists from exploiting the tremendous power they often have over their patients and former patients.

In its April 2010 decision, the psychology board held that O’Neill’s marriage crisis “no doubt exacted a significant emotional toll” on her and that her “marriage crisis can be understood to have ‘clouded’ her judgment.” But the board nonetheless revoked her license, saying her care was the “antithesis of treatment” and her “conduct abrogates a basic tenet of the psychology profession: trust.”

O’Neill’s former patient, Eric MacLeish, is an attorney who is no stranger to sexual abuse. He represented many clients who sued the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, alleging priests had sexually abused them. He helped pry loose thousands of pages of secret documents on abusive priests from the archdiocese. His lengthy deposition of Cardinal Bernard Law was instrumental in sending the prelate packing. And when the archdiocese settled for $85 million, MacLeish became a wealthy man.

But then his life began to unravel. According to a complaint MacLeish filed with the psychology board and an interview he gave to the Boston Globe in April 2010, all the horrific details he had sat and listened to from his clients triggered a strong emotional reaction in him. He came to realize that he himself had been sexually abused as a child at the hands of a teacher at a boarding school in England and by a scoutmaster associated with the school.

In 2004, MacLeish turned to O’Neill for help. She diagnosed him with having post-traumatic stress disorder and treated him for 10 sessions between August and September 2004. Shortly after treatment ended, they were sleeping together.

Psychology board records contain passionate emails that MacLeish and O’Neill sent to each other after the treatment sessions ended. “You know how incredibly hard it is for me to resist you in every way,” O’Neill wrote in September 2006. “I love you so deeply.” In December 2006, MacLeish emailed O’Neill: “I know this is right, at least for me. . . . I want to be absorbed in your life and with you. It will be very, very healthy. I am just totally in love with you.”

Another email from MacLeish in November 2006 indicates he and O’Neill were discussing the possibility of disciplinary action against O’Neill. “You are exactly right about the prospect of some sort of board inquiry,” he wrote. “You did nothing wrong and you never exploited me,” he wrote.

But MacLeish’s attitude would change when the relationship went sour a year-and-a half later. In October 2007, he sent O’Neill an 11-page letter demanding a written apology from her that “should be sincere and reflect your enormous lapse in judgment as well as your acknowledgment of the damage which you have done.” He also demanded that she receive professional supervision and pay him compensation for the damage she had caused. When he didn’t get what he wanted from her, he filed a lawsuit against O’Neill at the end of 2007, only to withdraw it a year-and-a-half later.

In 2009, MacLeish filed a complaint against O’Neill with the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Psychology, detailing their relationship and his strong feelings for her – feelings that didn’t last. “In retrospect, it was a disaster, filled with pain and manipulation by Dr. O’Neill,” he wrote. “Dr. O’Neill did incredible damage to me, my former wife, and my two kids.”

O’Neill readily admitted that she had become sexually involved with MacLeish within weeks after his therapy sessions with her ended. “It was clearly an extreme violation of ethical code,” according to a transcript of her testimony at the board. “I am really ashamed of my behavior. I am more disappointed in myself than anyone else could be disappointed in me.”

But O’Neill argued that there were mitigating circumstances that the psychology board should consider. She noted that eight months prior to her beginning treatment of MacLeish, her life had also fallen apart. She said her 23-year marriage to another psychologist had ended badly.

O’Neill also said she had no history of discipline and had pursued psychotherapy therapy for herself as well as peer supervision and continuing education on the issue of maintaining proper boundaries with patients.

Dr. Daniel Brown, a forensic psychologist retained by O’Neill, submitted a report to the psychology board in which he said her behavior most likely resulted from “situational factors,” primarily the collapse of her long-term marriage. He said O’Neill could be rehabilitated and there was a very low probability of recidivism.

Brown also was critical in his report of Dr. Stuart Grassian of Newton. Brown said Grassian was the psychiatrist to both O’Neill and MacLeish and a friend of MacLeish. Brown claimed Grassian referred MacLeish to O’Neill and did not discourage her from developing a relationship with MacLeish. “When Dr. O’Neill discussed in advance with Dr. Grassian the possibility of a sexual intimate relationship with MacLeish, she seemed to get ‘permission’ to go ahead with it,” Brown said in his report.

Grassian says he did refer MacLeish to O’Neill but never served as MacLeish’s psychiatrist. He denies saying anything to O’Neill indicating approval of a sexual relationship with MacLeish. “It’s all nonsense,” he said in a telephone interview.

In a psychology board filing, O’Neill’s lawyer said MacLeish was no innocent. “We have a very powerful, experienced, knowing, strong, aggressive, charming, assertive person who . . . wasn’t a little victim who rolled over.” He added: “Mr. MacLeish controlled the details of this relationship as he had with the numerous other extramarital relationships that he had admitted to enjoying during his then marriage.”

Neither MacLeish nor O’Neill’s attorney responded to requests for comment.

Attorneys familiar with case law on license revocations said it was unlikely the Supreme Judicial Court would return O’Neill’s license to her. "I have empathy for Dr. O'Neill," said Linda Jorgenson, a Massachusetts attorney who has represented hundreds of people who have claimed their therapists abused them sexually. "But her first obligation is to her patients. What she did to Mr. MacLeish was, plain and simple, wrong, and the revocation of her license was an appropriate sanction."

Thomas Gutheil, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and co-author of Preventing Boundary Violations in Clinical Practice, said there are always mitigating factors helping to explain why therapists have sex with their patients. “But they are never a justification for behavior clearly recognized as wrong,” he said.

Clinical psychologist Gary Schoener, who has written extensively about the sexual misconduct of therapists, said courts rarely overrule licensing boards in such cases. “The reason for this is that they are supposed to have more expertise in the issue of how to protect the public, and these cases involve a lot of professional opinion in a given field,” he said.

Janet Wohlberg, a victim advocate and herself a victim of sexual abuse by a psychiatrist, has a suggestion for the SJC justices. “They should ask themselves whether they would send a member of their family to Dr. O’Neill – their child, their spouse, their parents.”

Matthew Israel, Founder of the School of Shock to Face Criminal Charges

Care2.com
posted by: Kristina Chew
May 26, 2011
Video included

When I first heard about the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JREC) in Canton, Massachusetts, I couldn't believe that such a school existed. The JREC is a school for that uses electric shocks to discipline students with disabilities including autism, mental retardation or emotional-behavioral issues. The school was founded by a Harvard-trained psychologist, Matthew Israel and has long attracted controversy among disability rights activists, parents and experts in the field of mental health.

Today, the Boston Globe reports that Israel faces criminal charges over an incident in 2007, when two teenagers with disabilities who were residents at the JREC were wrongfully administered a number of shocks after a prank phone call by someone posing as a supervisor ordered them.

If the use of electric skin shock on children with disabilities is not troubling and barbaric enough, the suit against Israel also suggests how woefully poor the JREC's administrative practices are and also brings into question the training and supervision of its staff at all levels. From the Boston Globe:

A court official who works at the Norfolk County Superior Court said that today's schedule of cases lists a defendant named Matthew Israel facing two charges, misleading a grand jury and accessory after the fact to a crime.

The charges against Israel are believed to be related to the destruction of some of the center's digital surveillance tapes that would have showed what occurred the night of Aug. 26, 2007, in one of the center's residential group homes in Stoughton. That night, staffers received a prank phone call from someone posing as a supervisor, saying two teenagers, including Dumas's son, should be administered electrical shocks as punishment for bad behavior earlier that day.

As part of a deal with the Massachusetts state attorney office, Israel is to step down as director of the JREC that he founded 40 years ago and will be on probation for five years. The JREC's daily activities are to be overseen by a court-appointed monitor, as part of the agreement.

As the mother of a teenage autistic son, my beloved boy Charlie -- a child who has had some very severe behavior issues including self-injurious behavior -- I could never even imagine sending him to a place like the JREC where methods that amount to torture are used. As I wrote on a blog formerly known as Autism Vox, an ABC News story reported that families have been "willing to try aversive stimulation to save their son from self-destruction" and have described the JRC as the only school that would take their children due to the severity of their behavioral issues.

Indeed, despite widespread criticism about the methods used by the JREC, the state of Massachusetts has still given its approval for the center to keep functioning. But some states -- including New Jersey, where we live -- who had placed individuals with disabilities at the JRC have now stated that they will no longer send students there, due to the JRC's aversive practices.

The JREC has launched a national search for a replacement for Israel, the Boston Globe notes. While I respect the needs of families who feel the JREC is the right placement for their children, I don't think I'm the only one, and certainly not the only disability advocate, who thinks that the JREC should simply be closed. Here in the US in the 21st century, it is an embarrassment that a place that uses such aversive treatments including electric shock (delivered in a specially designed backpack) on individuals with disabilities is still allowed to operate.

Judge Rotenberg's Matthew Israel Fined & Reprimanded

State fines center for allowing clinicians to call themselves ’psychologists’
October 6, 2009
By Abbie Ruzicka, Globe Correspondent

The director of the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton has been fined by the state’s Division of Professional Licensure for allowing 14 unlicensed clinicians at the school to use the title ‘‘psychologist,’’ the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Psychologists announced today.

Dr. Matthew Israel was fined $29,600 and a reprimand was placed on his license, according to the board. Israel has been licensed to practice psychology in Massachusetts since 1974, according to state records.

The Rotenberg center ceased using the title of ‘‘psychologist’’ in 2006 after the Board of Registration of Psychologists first brought forth its concern over the misuse of the title, and changed their titles to ‘‘clinicians,’’ Rotenberg spokesman Ernie Corrigan said.

The center’s use of ‘‘psychologist’’ for clinicians prior to 2006 was consistent with what it believed the word meant at the time.

‘‘There’s genuine confusion,’’ Corrigan said, citing a 1996 change in state law that requires psychologists to be licensed by the state. Before 1996, doctorate and master’s degree-level clinicians trained in psychology were allowed to use the psychologist title.

‘‘These were highly educated people,’’ he said.

The Rotenberg center, which treats adults and children from across the country with autism, mental retardation, and emotional problems, is believed to be the only facility in the country that uses electric shock therapy to curb its students' behaviors.

In the past, the center has been the target of numerous government investigations and legislators have put forth efforts to limit the use of skin shock and aversion therapy.
In total, Israel and the Rotenberg center have paid over $200,000 to the state in fines, according to a court settlement in July of this year.