NCJ Number
99500
Date Published
1985
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Case histories provide the basis for a discussion of the characteristics of youths who fail to respond to available treatment modalities and how they are repeatedly dumped by mental health professionals and institutions who thus escape accountability for their ineffective and perhaps inappropriate treatment programs.
Abstract
Within the population of disturbed youth, there is a growing percentage of young people who as a group cause more problems than all other adolescents combined. Because they cross all psychiatric diagnostic categories, these youths have been called aversive treatment evaders (ATE's). Most ATE's show symptoms of disturbance in early childhood, but these problems do not stand out because the family situation is so chaotic. In addition to various behavioral problems, ATE children often are fairly unattractive. They have problems relating to peers and adults in school and gradually are excluded from the classroom because of their behavior. Consequently, they learn during the early school years that they are different from their peers and they can escape from bad situations by continuing to act out. The ATE's behavior problems begin to skyrocket in pre- and early adolescence and sexual offenses may begin to occur. They progress through treatment in the community, out-of-home placements, and institutional placements. Each approach fails because parents have no desire to be involved in alleviating the problem, therapists trained in talk therapy cannot reach most ATE's, and foster parents are not prepared to handle the constant testing of these very unpleasant children. One of the most effective ways of avoiding having to treat the ATE youth is selective admission policies that distinguish between emotionally disturbed and character-disordered youth. Many mental health professionals feel that a correctional setting is appropriate for the latter group, a diagnosis given to most ATE's. Case studies and five footnotes are provided.