Stoß Therapy: Between Aversive Conditioning and Ritual Exploitation

>Little Connor was born in the early morning of the first day of the autumn equinox, which meant he was born just in time to enjoy the plentiful harvest and witness the incoming darkness. Connor liked to play and sing, but like all growing boys, meal time was his favorite. He still hadn’t said his first word yet, but little Connor knew his table manners very well, and he quickly learned a special process to make meal time even more fun. First, login to the iPad. Then, plug in the sound-cancelling headphones, open up YouTube, and turn on CoCoMelon. Lastly, when food is served, be sure to eat quietly and look down when Mommy and Daddy start to drink and yell at each other.

>Mr. Baker wanted to make his wife Barbara happy, but she constantly felt ignored and unappreciated. Most importantly, Barbara told her husband that their relationship lacked romance and physical intimacy. Unable to tell his wife the truth, Mr. Baker decides to sneak out to the pharmacy one night to buy some Sildenafil (Viagra) and prepare a surprise date for Barbara. After a lovely evening spent driving around the town and eating a fine meal near the river, Mr. Baker takes the Viagra and prepares to make his wife feel beautiful again. If only Mr. Baker had been honest with both his wife and himself in the first place, then he would’ve known that the Viagra pills he took would send him into cardiac arrest. Even after the paramedics stabbed him three times in the chest with epinephrine auto-injectors, Barbara sat alone in the ICU hearing the faint white noise of her husband’s heart rate monitor flat lining.

>Samantha and Maggie were two best friends who lived in the same small, middle-class suburban neighborhood recently annexed by the city. However, even though they liked to hang out all the time, Maggie noticed that they never really spent much time at Samantha’s house. So, Maggie decided to come over to Samantha’s house after school one evening. They both spent the afternoon talking about school and watching popular television shows. While Maggie surfed the channels to find another show to watch, Samantha went into the kitchen to get some snacks. Samantha comes back quickly and tells Maggie that she has to go home. Before Maggie can ask why, Samantha’s little brother walks into the living room asking why Mommy is passed out on the kitchen floor with her wrists cut open and bleeding.

> In 1973, The Carpenters were invited to play their new hit single “Top of the World” at the White House during Richard Nixon’s presidency. Karen Carpenter’s voice filled the American public with angelic harmony and soft confidence during the hectic and chaotic years of the near end of the Vietnam War. But, neither Karen’s musical talent nor her worldly significance was enough to fill the emptiness in her lifeless body soon to be full of Ipecac Syrup years later.

>Jake was constantly sweating and scratching his face at work. Despite having worked in the restaurant industry for almost a decade, he frequently displayed odd behavior, even leaving mid-shift because he would forget something at home. All in all, Jake was a hard worker; he always finished his side work early and closed out first before anybody else. Nobody understood what was off about Jake, until the general managers started finding used needles in the kitchen bathroom trash can.

>This was Gerald’s third DUI. Having T-boned a young college student on their way to a graduation party, Gerald was now court ordered to see a therapist to discuss his bi-polar drinking habits. Gerald is nervous, he keeps fidgeting with the cross hanging around his neck, and he doesn’t make much eye contact. After a long, silent pause, he tearfully manages to speak: “I don’t feel like a good person anymore. Nobody will talk to me. I don’t know what to do with myself. What happens when you can’t stop fucking up?”

>Thursday morning, August 18, 1977: Bernie was fresh out of college starting his first shift at the local mid-town flower shop. Flower shop delivery wasn’t something Bernie was particularly good at, but he enjoyed the smell of the roses and the stress-free work environment; not to mention he could always take a few flowers and give them to his flower-child girlfriend. Bernie’s boss comes into the break room and quietly orders him to get going on his first delivery. “Where am I going to today, boss?” The boss hesitates for a moment. “Uh, you’ll be driving a few bouquets to Elvis Presley’s funeral. You better get going soon, man. Traffic looks bad.”

>Reverend James walks into St. Jude Children’s Hospital on a rainy Saturday morning holding a wet bible and a recording device. The cancer patient Rev. James is going to see is a 7-year-old boy. The skinny child was going to be learning a new word for the first time that day: Terminal. Rev. James approaches the hairless boy and explains what is going to happen in the following months. The young boy, eerily excited, asks the Reverend when he is going to meet Jesus. The Reverend eyes up the white-faced boy and says, “I’m sorry, but God’s not done punishing you yet—.”

>After the Japanese surrender during World War II, the American military saw that their constant air raids and atomic bombings had taken the lives of millions of Japanese citizens and almost completely destroyed all of Tokyo’s industrial district. So, the Supreme Command Allied Powers (SCAP) sought to re-write Japan’s constitution and completely restructure the economy. As for the toy and children’s entertainment industry, Japanese toy makers, devoid of most raw materials and starving, had no other option but to start using thrown out SCAP food tins to make toys to sell to the American kids overseas.

>Recent high school graduate Dezmond can’t remember getting his wisdom teeth taken out, but he remembers the mental numbness that he experienced immediately after surgery. Dezmond wasn’t used to this amount of pain, so the dentist recommended a prescription for an Opiate painkiller (Hydrocodone) – one pill at breakfast, another pill at dinner time. During his recovery, Dezmond was bed-bound sucking on his own bloody gauze and snorting his crushed-up hydrocodone pills while watching all the original Planet of the Apes on Blu-ray. His parents occasionally came into his room to ask if they could do anything for him, but all Dezmond wanted was more pain killers.

>Omaha, NE, Westland Mall, December 5, 2007: Mrs. McDonald begged her husband to sit down and stay put in the waiting room chair. Mr. McDonald couldn’t just sit there in the customer service section of Von Maur. All of the employees were hiding in an unlocked employee closet nearby. Slow footsteps were approaching. There wasn’t much time. Mr. McDonald took one last look at his wife’s watering eyes before getting up and leaving the waiting room chair. The next thing Mr. McDonald saw was the barrel of Robert Hawkins’ Century WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle pointed directly at his stomach.