Open Letter to CBS & Dr. Phil McGraw · 2006-01-28 10:00

January 27, 2006

Leslie Moonves
President and Chief Executive Officer
CBS Corporation
51 West 52 Street
New York, New York 10019-6188

Carla Pennington Stewart
Executive Producer
The Dr. Phil Show
5482 Wilshire Boulevard #1902
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Phil McGraw, Ph.D.
The Dr. Phil Show
5482 Wilshire Boulevard #1902
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Dear President Moonves, Ms. Pennington Stewart, and Dr. McGraw:

We are representatives of eight Autism organizations who watched the episode of “Dr. Phil” that co-featured Asperger Syndrome (AS) as its topic. The January 17 airing of this CBS daytime talk show shared subject material with another diagnosis, Tourette’s Syndrome, that we are unqualified to judge. But from both a medical and ethical view, we found the portrayal of AS to be disturbing. Your show reaches a huge audience.

We recognize that in the past, the non-threatening demeanor and natural charm of the host, Dr. Phil himself, has allowed for much relevant change and information to reach an audience that otherwise might not have been influenced. And it is within this context of the show’s proven potential for good, that we are driven to write.

At one point in his remarks to the audience, Dr. Phil mentioned that it was the exception, not the rule, for people diagnosed with AS to display violent behavior. This is quite true. And yet everything else intimated by the show contradictorily depicted otherwise. The episode opened with the tragic Los Angeles incident in which a young man with AS killed two neighbors before killing himself. Camera angles on the episode’s young man in question (Alex) were implemented to suggest psychosis. And the parents’ fears for their safety were given great respect.

What was especially troubling was that at no time in the show was it suggested that Alex’s violent potential might be heavily, even overbearingly caused by having two parents that constantly seemed to be yelling at him. Also, Alex’s mother admitted to having said to her teenage son that she hated him. Teenagers are bound to say they hate their parents every once in a while. Yet parents that say that to their children must be held accountable for the damage they have caused, and not get to blame the problems on their child’s diagnosis.

The parents’ needs were also unmet by Dr. Phil. In a situation where parents have spun so out of control that they can become so abusive to their child, usually the problem is that they are not getting the help they need. A requisite step to this is admitting they need help themselves, and oddly enough, these parents seemed to be doing that. They seemed to be reaching out. But instead of being steered towards the serious counseling and support they clearly need, all the blame was thrown their son’s way, for a diagnosis that he was born with. And the son, Alex, by contrast, seemed much more capable of improvement.

The latter is true because AS does not have to be the curse that your show portrayed it as. Not only are individuals with AS able to lead happy, productive, and often amazing lives providing they have the right supports, but also because from a medical standpoint AS is not a “mental illness” or a “disease” as the show implied.

Mental illness is different than a neurological condition, and for something to be a disease it has to be something acquired-not something you’re born with. Most of the enlightened world knows that autism is at its root, genetic, and therefore by definition it is not something that can be considered “curable” or a “disease.”

We were also concerned with the highly questionable “Brain Matters, Inc.,” the company represented by Dr. Hipskind that received airtime in the episode. From our standpoint, these are most certainly not known people in the autism/asperger world. Now just being known to us obviously does not imply good quality. But contrary to the show’s suggestions, educational and therapy-based interventions are the best hope that people diagnosed on the autism spectrum have for leading happy lives. The after-scan treatments that this company was offering to the family were vaguely-presented—perhaps with good reason. Using phrases like “Brain-based” and “we go directly to the brain,” Dr. Hipskind suggested to that poor family that there was great hope for their outcome. We know of no such therapy that is of any proven worth. Please understand that you are dealing with a very vulnerable parent audience. You might consequently deprive them of appropriate and effective interventions. Ones we can help lead you to.

After the Los Angeles incident last year, there was a great and inspiring effort amongst the world’s media to refrain from using the tragedy to demonize people living with Aspergers. To say from a journalism standpoint that the aftermath was “responsible” would be an understatement. The burdens of running a daily television show are those we can only imagine, but the January 17 episode of “Dr. Phil” did much to nullify the good work attempted by the majority of media giving airtime to AS and autism-related issues.

In the future, we hope you will contact one or all of our signing organizations to help guide you through what can be a very complicated world.

We would be more than happy to help as your show is indeed capable of enormous good.

Sincerely,

Michael John Carley
Executive Director
GRASP, the Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership, Inc.
http://www.grasp.org/
The largest organization in the world of adults diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum.

Lee Grossman
President & CEO
Autism Society of America
http://www.autism-society.org
ASA is dedicated to increasing public awareness about autism and the day-to-day issues faced by individuals with autism, their families and the professionals with whom they interact.

Dania Jekel
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Asperger Association of New England
182 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
http://www.aane.org
Fostering awareness, respect, acceptance and support of individuals with AS and their families since 1995.

Valerie Paradiz, Ph.D.
Executive Director
The School for Autistic Strength Purpose and Independence in Education (ASPIE)
http://www.aspieschool.org
A revolutionary school for kids diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum.

Cathy Pratt, Ph.D.
Chair of the Board
Autism Society of America
http://www.autism-society.org
ASA is dedicated to increasing public awareness about autism and the day-to-day issues faced by individuals with autism, their families and the professionals with whom they interact.

Lois Rosenwald
Co-Director
The Connecticut Autism Spectrum Resource Center
http://www.ct-asrc.org/
Connecticut’s largest parents and professionals organization.

Pat Schissel
President
AHA/AS/PDD (Advocates for Individuals with High Functioning Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and other Pervasive Developmental Disorders)
http://www.aha-as-pdd.org
A large Long Island based parent and professional organization providing support and information for families, individuals and professionals affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Lori Shery
President and Co-Founder
ASPEN (Asperger Syndrome Education Network)
http://www.aspennj.org
A parent and professional organization based in NJ providing information, support and advocacy for individuals and families whose lives are affected by autism spectrum disorders.

Liane Holliday Willey, Ed.D.
Founding Board Member
Asperger Society of Michigan
http://www.Aspergermichigan.com/about.php
A parents and professionals organization committed to expanding opportunities and support for children and adults with Asperger Syndrome within and beyond the borders of Michigan.

Comments


  1. Nice to see someone responding to that. It’s interesting to look at the variety of the groups that signed on. — Ari    2006-01-29 16:30    #

  2. What an excellent letter! Below is my open letter to Lee Grossman and Cathy Pratt at ASA about it:

    Subject:
    ASA on Dr. Phil
    From:
    Anne Bevington
    Date:
    Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:09:45 -0800
    To:
    Lee Grossman , Cathy Pratt

    Open Letter to the ASA about Dr. Phil

    Lee Grossman
    President & CEO
    Autism Society of America
    lgrossman@autism-society.org

    Cathy Pratt, Ph.D.
    Chair of the Board
    Autism Society of America
    prattc@indiana.edu

    Thank you for signing the Open Letter to Dr. Phil regarding his January 17, 2006 segment on Asperger’s Syndrome. As the parent of a young adult with Asperger’s, I am also disturbed when I see media portrayals of the autism spectrum as a curse, with no acknowledgement that autistic people can, to quote from your letter, “lead happy, productive, and often amazing lives providing they have the right supports.?

    Like Dr. Phil, the Autism Society of America is also influential, and its message reaches what you describe in your letter as a vulnerable parent audience. Therefore, I urge you to reexamine the message of the ASA-affiliated site, “Getting the Word Out,? http://gettingthewordout.org/home.php/, in light of what you said to Dr. Phil about media responsibility. That ASA site shows autism as a devastating curse that shatters families to pieces. We are told that “Autism Doesn’t Care.? We are shown red dots apparently representing autistic kids taking over the United States and overwhelming it completely. “This staggering increase is reaching epidemic status,? you say. ?‘Getting the Word Out on Autism,’ an affiliate of the Autism Society of America, is expressing what these children with autism can’t.?

    Unfortunately, nothing in your “Getting the Word Out on Autism? site conveys the ideas expressed in the letter to Dr. Phil. If the parents from the Dr. Phil segment were directed to your site, it would add to their feelings of despair and frustration. If Dr. Phil’s general audience were steered that way, it would reinforce the stereotypes about autism as hopeless and impenetrable. I am grateful for your participation in the Dr. Phil letter, and I urge you to incorporate the ideas expressed there in your own publications about our kids.

    Anne Bevington — Anne    2006-01-29 23:06    #

  3. Whew – I’m glad these groups stated what they did. I have hesitated to comment about the parents and have been pleading “no comment? in re: them in on-line discussions about the show.

    However, my real feeling upon seeing this show was an immediate reaction that he should maybe live away from the parents for a while. I know that’s no real solution, but I had a hard time with the yelling and such directed at him. It made me really sad.

    Although I do think the SPECT could be helpful in determining if there are other issues (not AS) which he could be experiencing, my thought was that if he gets a SPECT – then the parents should each have a SPECT scan as well.

    Thanks, Anne, for your letter to the authors thanking them for their letter. — HJ    2006-01-30 22:37    #

  4. I received a response from Dr. Pratt, which you can see below. —————————-
    Subject: RE: ASA on Dr. Phil
    Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:10:05 -0500
    From: “Pratt, Cathy L?
    To: “Anne Bevington? ,
    “Lee Grossman?

    Thank you for your feedback on this. Getting the Word out has been a controversial website…both good and bad. The idea was to grab the attention of those not touched by autism. As always, we will have to assess how that is going.
    —————————-
    Both the ASA and Dr. Phil have the laudable goal of getting some attention for autism. I hope both will consider whether the methods they chose for doing so are responsible ones, or whether their melodromatic and stereotyped depictions of autism ultimately works against what they are trying to accomplish. — Anne    2006-01-30 23:58    #

  5. Thank you, Anne and Kathleen.

    Here’s what I sent to Dr Phil’s comment website. This quote belongs to someone else, and I thought its author found the perfect words to express how I felt while reading the summary of this public production:

    A Quote from J.Jensen, MD.:

    “Stereotyping a group of people who seem to share a common, undesirable trait essentially reduces complex human beings into a caricature which exaggerates perceived differences and minimizes similarities.

    William Green (quoted in Pagels, 1995, p.xix) points out, “A society does not simply discover its others, it fabricates them, by selecting, isolating, and emphasizing an aspect of another people’s life, and making it symbolize their difference? (see also Volkan, 1994).

    Stereotyping is an essential feature of interpersonal and instututional discrimination and the basis of a society’s prejudice.

    Seeing the man through the filter of some preconceived stereotype influenced significantly the character traits ascribed to him by the research subjects. This is prejudice. – J.Jensen, MD?

    However, Dr Phil’s website has a policy to screen and select public comments for posting online, and I doubt that my message will be posted. I do not anticipate any response from them, either. — scap_64    2006-02-03 16:29    #

  6. Dear Dr.Phil, I am writing to you because of your book “Love Smart” Why do you always write about love books towards’ the women’s interest instead of the guy’s side of love. That bugs me to death that you ownly tell one side of love. Love is a two way street. I am 28 year’s old and single who likes women. I’m a guy who will admit to like your show but none of your books pretains to me though.

    — Paul Greene    2006-02-20 09:45    #