We just added a PDF of 2 articles to the SRVIP website, one by Ray Lemay entitled ‘Social Role Valorization versus drug therapies’ and a second by Wolf Wolfensberger entitled ‘Reply to Levitas, McCandleless, Elenewski and Sobel.’
Below is an abstract of the Wolfensberger article:
In an article in the February 1994 issue of Mental Retardation, Wolfensberger briefly remarked on the neurotoxic, and health-and life-destroying, effects of prescription psychoactive drugs. In the October 1994 issue, Levitas et al. strongly questioned that assertion, at least as long as the drugs are not used “indiscriminately,” and questioned the publication of such controversial statements without documentation. In this article, Wolfensberger provides extensive elaboration, analysis, and documentation of his original assertion.
My thanks to Ray Lemay for permission to post his article.
Marc Tumeinski
I had to respond to this interesting article by Ray Lemay. When I started to learn about SRV and how it affects people’s quality of life, I automatically thought about the school setting and how medicine plays out in it. I even had to discuss my concern about how it affects the learner. The ailments of schools have long been looked at from a medical perspective. After all, we live in a world where medicine cures what is ailing you. Lemay raises a good question about their usage of medicine and how it impacts a person’s life, especially with people who are already devalued. Medicine creates a picture that a person is “normal” while using it, while disguising the living experiences it is causing. No one thinks about how it is altering the mind and how it is altering the person’s mental capabilities. I am all for Wolfensberger’s SRV-inspired interventions that help fight off medicine taking roles in favor of developmentally powerful and culturally valued roles that lead to a chemically free good life (Lemay, 2004, p.15).
After reading Lemay’s article about drug therapies it made me stop and think about my previous students’ who have been medicated for various reasons. I am a teacher who is guilty of at times thinking about how medication could help some kids, I am definitely not proud of this after reading this article. However I think this way because I am a product of our society (If I am saying that correctly). Over the years I guess I have left the drug companies persuade my thinking into that medication can be the solution. I agree with Lemay when he says “the citizenry, patients and their families have been socialised into accepting that day-to-day problems are illnesses and that chemicals will do the trick” (Lemay, 2004)
When I was reading this article I couldn’t help but think of all the parents who have children with ADHD and they take
Ritalin as a “fix” for the problem. I think ADHD can be easily diagnosed and some parents are trying to find that quick fix instead of questioning their parenting skills. Another quote from Lemay’s article that stood out to me is “For literally thousands of so-called hyperactive children, the treatment of choice is a pill, and teachers, parents, social workers, and the children themselves are thus exempted from making the effort that promotes skill acquisition and the learning of self-control” (Lemay, 2004) After reading that statement all I wanted to say is “my thoughts exactly!”