As the lawyer for the 3 students who died put it: "you had someone who decided to perform medical services on kids without a license. He altered the underdeveloped brains of teenagers, and they all ended up dead because of it.”
The principal seems to have been trying to help students (and staff member) deal with various psychological problems through hypnosis and delivered his services to "at least 75 people at the school." The students died through suicide (in 2 cases, both by hanging) and a car accident (in which the young man reportedly had "a strange look on his face" before going off the interstate).
I can't figure out what the cause and effect was, but the school district chose to pay rather than to fight over it.
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I think the settlement was bogus, but hypnosis does work and can be pretty powerful. The reason it fell out of favor was because it lends itself to abuse (just google -- Ohio attorney accused of hypnotizing female clients to perform sex acts).
The Dilbert author - Scott Adams - trained as a hynotist and has several good posts about his experience, including: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/hypnosis.html
Well, this doesn't belong anywhere, but I thought Ann might be interested in the Nobel prize for literature winner:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/08/us-nobel-prize-literature-idUSKCN0S21AQ20151008
PS, as to this, it was wise to settle rather than go to court. Because who could possibly know what could happen? There's no way to prove anything here, except that the principal did hypnotize people.
I can't figure out what the cause and effect was
No kidding. It seems more like a fine for having a principal crazy enough to run around "hypnotizing" students.
What the hell, it's not their money.
Why the hell should a principal hypnotize students? Aren't the teachers getting enough of their students on Ritalin?
The students died through suicide (in 2 cases, both by hanging) and a car accident (in which the young man reportedly had "a strange look on his face" before going off the interstate).
Maybe they shouldn't have watched that video tape, a la "The Ring".
I can't figure out what the cause and effect was, but the school district chose to pay rather than to fight over it.
$600,000 for the deaths of 3 teens is a pretty tiny amount, so I would say that the plaintiffs were well-aware that proving causation would be pretty tough. Crazy story, though.
"What the hell, it's not their money."
It costs money to defend a lawsuit, the principal did something weird, and the students really died. The risk of losing was avoided by paying $200,000 to each family. Do you think they made a decision that showed poor regard for the taxpayers' money?
Good work trial lawyers.
Education works like like hypnosis inseminating ideas at teachable moments. But a trance from a lecture would collateral damage.The students are supposed to stay awake.
Trance states are intentionally opening minds to the spiritual realm. Now why do they need to do that?
Is hypnosis a medical service as the lawyer claims?
I certainly hope the former Principal hasn't lost his pension because of this. That would be a tragedy.
Say you child comes home and tells you that today at school the principal hypnotized him. What an odd conversation that would be. Would you multi-task and look up other schools on your phone while talking to him or would you wait to research after the conversation was over?
David Begley said...
Is hypnosis a medical service as the lawyer claims?
Not really.
"If you are a state or nationally licensed or certified mental health professional, you are already licensed to use modalities of treatment for health and wellness, and hypnosis is a traditional method of helping, endorsed by many professional counseling and medical associations.
Florida is the only state we know of that requires licensed/certified professionals to complete a minimum of 50-hours of Board approved coursework to practice hypnotherapy, and Indiana is the only state we know of that licenses hypnotists."
Only $600,000 of other people's money for the death of three kids?
Life is cheap.
THE FAILURE TO SNIFF OUT OBJECTIVE EVidence of a trance state has its effect. "It's nonsensical to argue that hypnosis involves some sort of special state when we can't find it no matter how long we look," says Robert Baker, Ph.D., author of They Call It Hypnosis and professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky, "Eventually you stop looking. It's like looking for ether." Baker has been practicing hypnosis for more than 20 years and has published original research in the field. "After doing all this work," he says, "it has become obvious to me, as it has to many people, that there is no such thing as an altered state of consciousness known as hypnosis."
+
Hypnosis is widely promoted as a treatment for various long-term conditions and for breaking certain habits. This is despite the fact there's no strong evidence to support these uses.
However, hypnosis does seem to have an effect, though scientists disagree about how it works. Some experts see it as a relaxation technique that uses the power of suggestion or relies on the placebo effect.
...
Bottom line
Overall, the evidence supporting the use of hypnotherapy as a treatment in these situations isn't strong enough to make any recommendations for clinical practice."
So how much will the government pay us for the voters who were hypnotized by Obama?
Correlation is not causation. It's more likely that the treatment failed to address the causes and left the trauma undiagnosed with an insidious and progressive effect.
The principal should have hypnotized the kids to lie about it.
Only $600,000 of other people's money for the death of three kids?
$600,000 is not the value of the three lives. It is the value of the three lives multiplied by the probability of a jury assigning blame to the principal.
We need hypnotism control and we need it now!
I'm a certified hypnotist in California (AHA for what it's worth), but am not a hypnotherapist nor any other kind of therapist. I'm glad to drop a suggestion about not smoking or take someone on a relaxing mental journey, but that's it. Putting someone in a hypnotic state is easy. Knowing what to do when you've got them there is hard. I suspect the problem is not the hypnosis per se but that it was a poorly used substitute for proper treatment.
"Do you think they made a decision that showed poor regard for the taxpayers' money?"
Taxpayer's money ? What do you mean ? It's the bureaucrats' money !
Just ask them. The city of Los Angeles gave $2.7 million to a black firefighter who had been bullying the younger guys in his station. They played a trick on him by fixing a meal that had dog food in it and telling him later what it was.
He sued and LA settled rather than go to trial over a black bully. He had suffered no harm.
"Only $600,000 of other people's money for the death of three kids?
"Life is cheap."
As Prof. Althouse pointed out, defending a lawsuit costs money. It's easy to assume that, had they fought the case and gone to trial, the cost would have swiftly jumped past $200,000.00. It seems dubious--at best--that this principle is responsible for the deaths of these kids, but given the costs of going to trial, settling may have been the least bad of their few bad options, and the only way to cost the taxpayers the least amount of money.
If you want to cast blame, cast it at the plaintiffs.
The kids took their own lives, it seems, taking descriptions as true. There is now wrongful death culpability in any state in the US due to failed intervention or even the high settlement value hint thereof 'cuz there was no license where another person takes his or her own steps to end his or her own life? Wow. The principal's interventions did not work? He was apparently dealing with already troubled people. He caused them to do these things? He made them troubled? Defending lawsuits cost so much because judges are no longer willing to dismiss unfounded cases, or they or their appellate betters have made every theory fair game. Anyway I think Charlie was just sayin' It's easier to make these choices with OPM. Also, the funds ceased to be "the taxpayers' money" when they were seized and handed over to the school system. Still OPM nonetheless as there's usually more where that came from.
The only answer is to sue anything the Principal has heard of, most especially if it deals with religion or sales or, oh yeah, hypnosis.
It ain't turtles all the way down, at some point you will find someone with money and then you must fight to understand and understand to fight you found Other.
Hypnosis is misunderstood by most folks. It is a form of deep concentrations, similar to the deep concentration of prayer, transcendental meditation, or the deep concentration of an artist painting or (for me) playing music on a piano.
The problem? a small percentage of people (about 10 percent) can easily go into a deep trance. They are very vulnerable to suggestion, either direct suggestion or to do what they think the hypnotist wants them to do.
Some people who have repressed emotions or memories can psychologically decompensate since the meditation removes their psychological defenses.. Such panic attacks are rare, but can be serious and most well trained TM (transcendental meditation) teachers know about the problem. ( Nor is this just a problem with meditation: psychotherapy can also do this in vulnerable people.)
This is one reason I shudder at naive teachers/nuns/etc. types teaching "centering prayer", or teachers teaching children to "meditate" or similar techniques in school.
As a doc, I used hypnosis for pain control and for cigarette smoking cessation, but rarely tried to put people in a deep trance. And I refuse to teach the technique to those I felt had a problem.
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