Group therapy in the classroom conducted by unlicensed psychologists consumes many hours of the school day which should be devoted to teaching knowledge and basic skills. A good example of this is the following questionnaire given in the 11th grade of some public schools last month. The questionnaire was titled “Is it normal for your age group?” Students were required to read 100 items, to decide “if the behavior described is normal, abnormal, or if you are unsure,” and then to fill in the boxes with the answers.
This questionnaire is a combination of a waste of precious class time, an invasion of the students’ privacy, and objectionable psychological manipulation. No wonder so many high school graduates are emotionally confused and have failed to acquire essential academic learning! Read the questions for yourself.
(1) Dreaming of seeing oneself as dead. (2) Smoking at least one joint every day. (3) Saying hello to every person one sees in a given day. (4) Hearing voices telling one to do things that one knows are wrong. (5) Sleepwalking. (6) Sleeptalking. (7) Being attracted only to individuals of the same sex as oneself. (8) Flunking out of school. (9) Expecting every person one knows to love him or her. (10) Being always afraid of something or somebody. (11) Becoming physically violent if one doesn’t get one’s own way. (12) Feeling tense most of the time. (13) Feeling inferior to everyone most of the time. (14) Dreaming about killing one’s parents. (15) Always being worried that one has a physical disease but not really having it. (16) Frequently feeling ugly. (17) Having no friends. (18) Feeling awkward at parties. (19) Usually preferring to be alone over being with other people. (20) Feeling that individuals or groups are laughing or whispering about oneself. (21) Wanting to kill someone. (22) Having crushes on instructors. (23) Never feeling responsible for one’s destructive actions even when one is objectively responsible. (24) Wondering about the best way to handle sexual relationships. (25) Being angry with one’s parents all the time. (26) Wanting to be independent of one’s parents as soon as possible. (27) Liking one parent much more than another. (28) Not being able to understand one’s friends or parents. (29) Frequently being unable to make decisions. (30) Being afraid of the snow or rain. (31) Not wanting to grow up. (32) Not knowing what one wants to do after graduation. (33) Not wanting to work at anything. (34) Always putting things off. (35) Feeling that one is a victim of the school administration. (36) Frequently thinking about committing suicide. (37) Actually attempting suicide. (38) Frequently feeling confused. (39) Feeling like one has a void or empty space inside. (40) Feeling like one is never able to make any progress. (41) Fearing death. (42) Constantly rehearsing an upcoming event. (43) Feeling that everyone seems to belong to a group except oneself. (44) Worrying over grades. (45) Always feeling awkward and clumsy. (46) Always feeling depressed but not knowing why. (47) Getting drunk every day. (48) Running away from home. (49) Being a member of a gang that occasionally destroys property. (50) Constant headaches. (51) Being unable to learn the alphabet or to count to five. (52) Seeing several lions walk into a room and being sure they are there even though no one else sees them. (53) Thinking one is a famous historical character, such as Napoleon or Joan of Arc. (54) Biting one’s nails until they bleed. (55) Believing that one’s food may be poisoned. (56) Losing the ability to hold a pencil or pen and write even though nothing is physically wrong with one’s hand. (57) In the middle of class, screaming out obscenities at the instructor for no apparent reason. (58) Cutting school all day once a week for two months. (59) Being unable to stop eating chocolate cake. (60) Setting open fields on fire. (61) Turning on the faucet for a bath or shower and “seeing” blood come out. (62) A girl becoming pregnant out of wedlock and insisting upon having the child. (63) Falling asleep in classes every day. (64) Wishing one were somebody else. (65) Wanting to play with one’s rubber ducky in the bathtub. (66) Watching TV six hours or more every day. (67) Thinking one should never make a mistake or an error. (68) Believing one should love everybody. (69) Believing that UFOs exist, are from outer space, and are trying to contact humans. (70) Going to see the same movie twenty times. (71) Shoplifting. (72) Brushing one’s teeth six times a day. (73) Being afraid of math classes. (74) Being uninterested in the opposite sex. (75) Raising one’s hand automatically at the dinner table in order to get permission to speak. (76) Feeling that one is never taken seriously.
