554), and I am living proof that psycho- that deserve comment.
e comment. Johnson contended
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
In regard to the idea that schizo-
therapy can be most beneficial.
Certainly individuals vary, which is
why it would be preferable for NAMI and
the medical profession to moderate their
views somewhat in order to take individual
differences into account and to recognize
that a choice of possible routes to follow
in getting help is necessary, particularly
for people fortunate enough to live in a
democracy. If some people are actually
helped by medication and shock treat-
ment, I am glad..But in my case these
treatments proved damaging, and I have
a right to alternative forms of help and
support, a right to be free from the strait-
jacket of an inadequate model for my
condition. There cannot be any "consen-
sus," especially when there is no evidence,
only "reasons." Reasons are not enough.
I am happy that Johnson pointed out
the value of various rehabilitative models,
although I dislike the term. I do not con-
sider my problem to have been one of re-
habilitation. I just had to learn how to
make my life viable for myself and others,
and I must struggle to ensure that it re-
mains so. I agree that vulnerability is "a
core feature of schizophrenia" (p. 554).
We schizophrenics are people with special
needs. We must be helped so that we may
learn how to meet our needs as best we
can. One of these needs is indeed "to min-
imize the effects of stress"(p. 544).
To conclude, I would like to quote
what I believe is the most important state-
ment in Johnson's article: "Perhaps a
more comprehensive model is necessary"
(p. 554). I believe it is. A model is needed
that does not speak of elimination, but of
life and viabilityfora varietyof vulnerable,
needy, and often gifted people w h o m so-
cicty must learn at long last to respect,
understand, value, and protect. If I knew
for sure that such values were present in
our society,I would feelmuch more con-
fident about raising m y six-year-oldson.
I would be reassured to know that he is
bound to survive and prosper,while being
accepted exactly as he is.
REFERENCE
Johnson, D. L. (1989).Schizophrenia as a brain
disease: Implications for psychologists and
fatuities. American Psychologist, 44, 553-555.
Schizophrenia Is Usmdly
Psychogenic
Sidney Jortner
Brooklyn, N Y
Johnson (March 1989) and Lefley (March
1989) made some dramatic statements
A p r i l 1990 A m e r i c a n Psychologist
that schizophrenia is a brain disease, and
Lefley claimed that families of mentally
ill patients
have been informed by the media that there are
"crazymaking families," and they have been
given messages by mental health lnactitioners
t h a t . . . "the patient's illness was their fault
and they should go away,shrouded in guilt, and
leave the professional to undo the damage." (p.
557)
My own experience of over 30 years,
as well as my experience as the parent of
three children, has confirmed that families
indeed can be pathogenic to a lesser or
greater degree. When this is corrected, by
psychotherapy or otherwise, the formerly
mentally or emotionally ill patient can be-
come well enough to hold a job, socialize,
and function relatively normally.
Parenting is a very difficult role. The
fact that mental problems may be psycho-
genic should not be a cause of undue guilt
or shame in parents but should give them
hope that they can help their child by im-
proving their parenting skills. None of us
is perfect. I am a psychologist, was psy-
choanalyzed, and thought I was knowl-
edge.able about bringing up children.
However, mine taught me that I had made
some harmful mistakes anyway. When I
was able to acknowledge them, my rela-
tionship with my children improved
greatly as did their mental health.
Ifl, who am an expert in the field of
human relationships, c o d d make mistakes
in bringing up my children, why should
lay parents feel humiliated, or be made to
feel humiliated, over their lack of under-
standing, empathy, or judgment? Is it not
because the parent, or the therapist,istoo
severe and expects himself or herselfto be
perfect? This severity,when imposed on
children,can be pathogenic and can cause
abnormal shame and inadequacy.
Johnson criticized "therapies in-
tended to resolve experience-based con-
flicts (e.g. the insight-oriented, dynamic
psychotherapies)" (p. 554) as ineffective.
Instead, he stated, "If one regards vulner-
ability as a core feature of schizophrenia,
then the logical steps to take are to reduce
environmental stress and to help the per-
son develop coping abilities that will min-
imize the effects of stress" (p. 554).
I heartily agree with this, but does
not helping the patient to develop coping
abilities include helping one "resolve ex-
perience-based conflicts"? I think it does.
If Johnson meant that the psychotherapy
should be ego-supportive rather than in-
terpreting unconscious motives that would
add to the patient's stress and distress, then
I agree.
phrenia is a brain disease, it may in some
eases be so but my clinical experience
suggests otherwise. The same patients who
were so inadequate can, when given the
psychological help they need, learn to cope
with difficult situations and may surprise
one with how mentally adequate they
now al~.
Certainly a traumatic and/or confus-
ing environment can cause mental illness.
This has been documented by numerous
clinical studies and by the fact that thou-
sands of people developed severe mental
illness~ in concentration camps during
World War II. They did not originally suf-
fer from brain disease. Maybe one can de-
velop brain disease, just as one can develop
physical illnesses such as pneumonia, from
a traumatic environment. Also what is
traumatic is often highly subjective. As the
saying goes, "One man's meat is another
man's poison."
REFERENCES
Johnson, D. L. (1989). ~ as a brain
disease. Implications for psychologists and
fan~'es~ American Psychologist, 44, 553-555.
Lefley, H. P. (1989). Family burden and family
stigma in major mental illness. American
Psychologist, 44. 556-560.
A History of Teaching Machines
George H. Buck
University of Alberta
It is most refreshing to see articles that are
concerned with some of the historical as-
pects of the discipline appear in psycho-
logical journals. Although Benjamin
(September 1988) attempted to provide a
concise history of teaching machines, he
himself fell victim to the phenomenon he
described as "origin myth." I do not dis-
pute his chronology of the development of
teaching machines in the United States,
but it did not seem to have occurred to
him that numerous teaching machines, all
conforming to his operational definition,
were produced in other countries and lo-
cales many years prior to the genesis of
such machines in the United States. One
example is the quintain, a device devel-
oped as early as the first century A.D. in
Imperial Rome to teach gladiators to
thrust with their swords rather than to
slash (Vege'tius, 1885/1967, 1.11). Valerius
Maximus (1854/1976, 2.3.2) noted that
the Roman army soon adopted the device
because the results obtained were superior
to conventional methods. The quintain
consisted of a vertical shaft stuck into the
ground, supporting a balanced and rotat-
551
 able cross member with a target at one
end and a counterweight at the other. The
user was supposed to attack the target with
his sword by making a shallow thrust. A
slash, which was incorrect, would result
in the crossarm's pivoting and the coun-
terweight's striking the user. This indica-
tion would be undeniable feedback that
the action was incorrect. It is important
to note that the quintain survived well into
the 17th century, adapted to training with
the lance (Kuret, 1963, p. 192). It is likely
that the principal reason that the use of
this "teaching machine" was discontinued
was because guns and artillerypiecesmade
the skillstaught by the quintain obsolete.
A more complete descriptionof such an-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
cient teaching machines may be found in
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
my 1989 article in the McGill Journal o f
Education.
In light of the invention and pro-
tracted use of teaching machines in times
earlier than Pressey's, Benjamin's (and
B. E Skinner's) belief that "cultural in-
ertia" was the principal cause of the failure
of teaching machines needs to be reex-
amined. If one considers the quintain, or
any other early teaching machine (or
teaching aid for that matter), it is clear
that each device arose from a perceived
need for it from the pedagogues or prac-
titioners in a particular field. Indeed,
Frontinus (1925, 4.2.2) noted that al-
though the need for the quintain arose
with gladiatorial ludi, it was the observed
superior results, in a similar practice, that
convinced military authorities to adopt it.
It is abundantly clear, from Benjamin's
detailed description of Sidney Pressey's
work, that the only perceived need for
Pressey's machines was within Pressey
himself. The same point can be made
about B. F. Skinner. Neither Pressey nor
Skinner has had much success in the pro-
motion of their respective machines. There
have been many studies done that indicate
that teaching machines do as good a job,
or one even better than conventional
teaching methods, but there are as many
studies that indicate the opposite (Pagliaro,
1981, pp. 33-47). One may infer that ed-
ucators have not been shown unequivo-
cally the superiority of teaching machines
over conventional methods of pedagogy;
for this reason the use of teaching ma-
chines was and is limited.
I am not as pessimistic about the fu-
ture of computer-assisted instruction
(CAI) as was Benjamin because I believe
there are specific needs for it. The thrust
should not be to predict the possible fate
of instructional technology, but to ascer-
tain the specific and real needs for such
technology within educational settings. If
we can do this, then it is most likely that
552
the history of CAI will not be a repetition
of the history of teaching machines.
REFERENCES
Benjamin, L. T.,Jr.(1988). A history of teaching
machines. American Psychologist, 43, 703-
712.
Buck, G. H. (1989). Teaching machines and
teaching aids in the ancient world. McGill
Journal of Education, 24, 31-54.
Frontinus, S. L (1925). Strategernata. In C. E.
Bennett (Ed. and Trans.), The strategies and
the aqueducts of Rome. London: Heinemann.
Kuret, N. (1963). La quintaine des Slov~nes de
la val~e de la Zilia (Gailtat), et son cadre eu-
rop~en [The quintain of the Slovenes of the
valley of the Zilia, and their European equiv-
alents]. Ljubljana: Institut za Slovensko Na-
rodopisje, Institutum Ethnographiae Siov-
enorum.
Pagiiaro, L. A. (1981). CAI in pharmacology:
Student academic performance and instruc-
tional interactions. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmon-
ton.
Valerius Maximus. (1976). Facta et dicta mem-
orabilia [Memorable acts and sayings]. Hil-
desheim: Georg Olms Verlag.(Original com-
pilation, 1854)
Vegetius.(1967). Epitoma rei militaris [Epitome
on military matters]. Stuttgart: B. G. Teu-
bener. (Originial compilation, ! 885)
20,000 Psychologists: Lost
a n d Forgotten
Tony D. Crespi
Meriden, C T
Viewed as a whole, Tuma's (February
1989) article provides interesting com-
mentary and statistical input concerning
children's needs for mental health services
and the shortage of trained professionals
to provide services to this population. A
noteworthy omission, however, is discus-
sion of the approximately 20,000 school
psychologists who have been trained to
provide responsive mental health services
to both children and adolescents and who
are currently providing such services in
virtually every corner of the United States.
Although Tuma (1989) noted that
there are approximately 5,000 clinical
child psychologists, this figure does not
acknowledge the 20,000 school psychol-
ogists currently working in the nation's
schools. These professionals are specifi-
cally trained to provide mental health ser-
vices to children and adolescents (Curtis,
1988a).
Within this large group of over
20,000, more than 15,000 are members
of the National Association of School Psy-
chologists (NASP), and over 14,500 of
these members have secured national cer-
tification in school psychology (Batsche,
1989).
To view the data as reported by Tuma
(1989) and Knitzer (1982) on the number
of children and youth in need of mental
health treatment and on the scarcity of
professionals to serve children without due
consideration of the specialty of school
psychology is to ignore a vital and large
population of mental health practitioners
who have as their mission the mental
health needs of children and youth. Al-
though there is certainly ample evidence
to suggest that additional staff are needed
on behalf of children, the numbers of
school psychologists working both in the
schools and in nontraditional settings cer-
tainly is too significant to omit.
All of this is readily understandable.
It has been noted elsewhere (Curtis,
1988b) that school psychology is one of
the best-kept secrets throughout history.
In fact, school psychology appears to be
kept secret even within the mental health
establishment itself. Most likely, it reflects
a lack of familiarity with the specialty.
I note this in a spirit of fair play. As
a matter of fact, school psychology as a
professional subgroup within psychology
certainly has a long and distinguished his-
tory. Indeed, Reynolds, Gutkin, Elliot, and
Witt (1984) have noted that school psy-
chology is itself an offshoot of clinical psy-
chology.
On the critical issue of training spe-
cific to children and adolescents, although
many school psychologists are not trained
at the doctoral level, graduate training
standards are of a level to warrant proper
acknowledgment. In fact, it has been noted
elsewhere (Cobb, 1989) that the American
Psychological Association (APA) members
of the APA/NASP Task Force have agreed
that school psychologists are highly trained
and approach doctoral-level training.
The point, of course, is that re-
searchers must necessarily consider the
contributions of school psychology in
meeting the mental health needs of chil-
dren and adolescents. Today, all over the
country, children with special needs are
being provided services by this group.
What remains most troubling, however,
are the impressive numbers of children
who remain in need of further services.
In point of fact,thousands of school
psychologistsare in an unprecedented po-
sitionto take advantage of the information
reported by rcsearcbers such as T u m a
(1989) and Knitzer (I984). Tuma's (I989)
recommendation for services in the
schools should itselfspur these profes-
sionals onward.
A p r i l 1990 A m e r i c a n Psychologist