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28 SEPTEMBER 2009
NO 1493
Biases and labels
Ironically, aggressive youth evoke hostile biases and labels from adults in their lives. Terms that come to mind include violent, antisocial, psychopathic, criminal thinking, predator, and more subtle pejorative terms used in formal diagnosis. Languages have thousands of words for personal characteristics or traits. Almost all of these are evaluative, either complimentary or derogatory. Whether applied to individuals or group members, they reflect respect and esteem or disrespect and dishonor.1
The use of threat labels for youth stirs strong negative emotions in adults who think like this. Any empathy is high-jacked by an amygdala reaction triggering the need to protect oneself. This "us against them" mindset dominates many correctional settings. It causes staff to believe that they must project images of threat to keep order and insure their own safety.
Writing in the "kids are terrorists" genre is California psychologist-turned crime-author Jonathan Kellerman.2 He whipped out a little paperback for the popular press called Savage Spawn, fanning public fears of violent children. Kellerman never really worked with such kids, as his specialty as a young psychologist was children who were cancer victims. Never mind, he offers his opinion that children who are antisocial at eleven will likely become adult psychopaths. Some academic researchers peddle similar notions. Kentucky psychologist Donald Lynam launched a campaign to import theories about adult psychopaths for use in diagnosing childhood behavior problems.3 He tars fledgling psychopaths with deficit-hyping descriptors:4
The psychopathic
individual is hot-headed, cold-hearted, impulsive, irresponsible,
selfish, emotionally shallow, manipulative, lacking in empathy, anxiety,
and remorse, and involved in
a variety of criminal activities.5
Over a period of many years, the authors have worked directly with thousands of poorly socialized children who show weak conscience development. These are among the most vulnerable of our young. They desperately need to be reconnected to caring adults. When this happens, they are capable of dramatically turning their lives around.6
LARRY K. BRENDTRO, MARTIN L. MITCHELL AND
HERMAN J. MCCALL
Brendtro, L.K.; Mitchell,
M.L. and McCall, H.J. (2009).
Deep Brain Learning. Albion, Michigan. Starr Commonwealth. pp. 7-8.
NOTES
1. Nisbett, R. and Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO. Westview Press.
2. Kellerman, J. (1999). Savage spawn: Reflections on violent children. New York. Ballantine.
3. Lynam, D. (1997). Pursuing the psychopath: Capturing the fledgling psychopath in a nomological net. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 2. pp. 425-438.
4. This is based on pre-World War II studies of adult criminal traits by Georgia psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley (1941). Cleckley's term mask describes such persons as being highly skillful at concealing their real nature from those they exploit. In our experience, therapists who hold these deficit views will never be able to penetrate the mask put on by kids in pain in order to fend off those they do not trust.
5. Lynam, D. (1998). Early identification of the fledgling psychopath: Locating the psychopathic child in the current nomenclature. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107, 4. pp. 566-574.
6. Seita, J.; Mitchell, M. and Tobin, C. (1996). In
whose best interest. One child's odyssey, a nation's responsibility.
Elizabethtown, PA. Continental Press and Brendtro, L.; Ness, A. and
Mitchell, M. (2005). No disposable kids. Bloomington, IN.
Solution Tree.
