Aversives
Support for aversives as "treatment" for autism seems to be driven very much by reasoning along the lines of, "If it's risky, painful, or expensive, it must work better." Certainly we're willing to accept more drawbacks the worse the problem is, but that only makes sense if the solution with more drawbacks is also more effective. In the case of aversives, it is not. It is less effective than other therapies, causes more damage, and creates new problems that weren't there before. Communication- and interaction-based occupational and speech therapy work much better. If you have to stop a person from doing something dangerous, you don't have to hurt them to do it. Distraction works better. The best approach is to find out why, and give them another, less dangerous way to fill that need.
But people still use aversives--along with other dangerous and unnecessary treatments--because they seem to think that if you're desperate enough to hurt your child, then that means the therapy has got to be effective. Well, it isn't. All it does, is create anxious, robotically obedient people with broken wills and broken hearts.
Even worse: The more a desperate parent buys into a dangerous or painful treatment, the harder it is to realize what they're doing and stop. People don't like to realize that they're holding on to contradictory beliefs, and they try to find a way to reconcile them. So, rather than face up to the fact that a painful or useless therapy is hurting their child, people may conclude that the pain is worth it--"no pain, no gain"--and that their child is actually doing better thanks to the therapy. In order to stop a painful therapy, parents would have to conclude that the thing that has been hurting their child is not useful after all--they would have to face up to the fact that they have been hurting their child for no good reason. That is a highly unpleasant conclusion to draw, and many parents prefer to conclude that because they love their child, if they are exposing their child to distress, then there must be a reason that makes the distress worth it. They throw good money after bad and waste time that their child could have had.
So the parents are trapped by their own minds; the child is trapped by their parents; and everyone is hurt. I don't think they're even aware of what they're doing.
But people still use aversives--along with other dangerous and unnecessary treatments--because they seem to think that if you're desperate enough to hurt your child, then that means the therapy has got to be effective. Well, it isn't. All it does, is create anxious, robotically obedient people with broken wills and broken hearts.
Even worse: The more a desperate parent buys into a dangerous or painful treatment, the harder it is to realize what they're doing and stop. People don't like to realize that they're holding on to contradictory beliefs, and they try to find a way to reconcile them. So, rather than face up to the fact that a painful or useless therapy is hurting their child, people may conclude that the pain is worth it--"no pain, no gain"--and that their child is actually doing better thanks to the therapy. In order to stop a painful therapy, parents would have to conclude that the thing that has been hurting their child is not useful after all--they would have to face up to the fact that they have been hurting their child for no good reason. That is a highly unpleasant conclusion to draw, and many parents prefer to conclude that because they love their child, if they are exposing their child to distress, then there must be a reason that makes the distress worth it. They throw good money after bad and waste time that their child could have had.
So the parents are trapped by their own minds; the child is trapped by their parents; and everyone is hurt. I don't think they're even aware of what they're doing.