Parents, patients and doctors offered contradictory testimony regarding the effectiveness of holding therapies at a Senate Committee meeting Friday Feb. 21 to decide whether to allow these types of therapies in Utah.

With a tied vote, the Senate Business and Labor Committee failed to pass House Bill 5, which prohibits all use of holding therapies by licensed therapists, and adjourned the meeting without taking any action regarding Senate Bill 137.

"It was stacked against us from the beginning," said Rep. Mike Thompson, R-Orem, sponsor of H.B. 5.

The debate lasted approximately three hours despite an attempt by Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, to lighten the mood by using a shot clock for timing testimony and a three-foot gavel to keep order.

The question before the committee was whether to pass H.B. 5 or S.B. 137, sponsored by Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem.

Both bills deal with a family of treatments called holding therapies.

Holding therapy techniques involve a therapist restraining a child and trying to teach the child how to deal with the emotion in a non-violent way.

Coercive restraint therapies are a type of holding therapy.

Dr. Richard Ferre, director of the psychology wing of Primary Children's Hospital, gave a description of coercive restraint therapies.

"A therapist would remove the child's ability to get out of the situation," he said, "by tightly wrapping the child in fabric or using manpower to hold them down."

"A therapist or someone else would increase either verbal or physical touch in an experience that would provoke emotion or pain in the child and then bring the child back to a state of calm," he continued.

The therapy is used to treat reactive attachment disorder. Children with this disorder tend to act violently and without conscience as a result of abuse or neglect during childhood.

Opponents say the therapy does more harm than good.

"This bill will stop a form of child abuse and make sure that Utah does not legalize child abuse under the guise of therapy," Thompson said.

Dr. R. Christopher Barden, president of the National Association for Consumer Protection in Mental Health Practices, said no scientific proof existed to support coercive restraint therapies.

The only support for the therapies comes from what patients report, he said, and for years patients believed that things like blood-letting worked.

"There is no credible scientific evidence for holding therapy at all; it's therefore by definition quack medicine," Barden said. "If Bill 137 passes, the headlines will be Utah endorses quack therapy."

Scott Richards, BYU professor of psychology, said probably half of psychotherapies practiced today do not have experimental scientific evidence proving they are effective.

He told the committee they did not completely understand the issue because they are not doctors.

"The mental health organizations are very capable of passing codes to forbid that therapy," Richards said. "I would recommend that you not do a job that you really shouldn't have to do."

Ferre, who was representing Primary Children's Hospital, said he supported H.B. 5.

"Holding therapies have been demonstrated in a number of circumstances to create more trauma to the child," he said. "The evidence would suggest that more trauma could lead to lasing brain damage."

Primary Children's Hospital does not use any type of holding therapy.

Joanna Everett, 19, said the holding therapy she received at Cascade Center for Family Growth in Orem had freed her from mental illness.

"My therapists are the most loving and the most patient people I have ever known," she said, as she broke into tears. "Please don't take my therapists away from me."

Defeat of H.B. 5 was a victory for Hellewell.

He said he was pleased with the outcome of the committee meeting.

"I felt I could stop Thompson easier if I had an alternative bill," Hellewell said. "I wouldn't have brought a law forward if he hadn't."



Copyright Brigham Young University 25 Feb 2003