Lazar Finker On The Benefits of Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Chicago often serves as the unfortunate poster child for failing schools, children raised without rules, gun violence, and fruitless attempts at poverty alleviation. For all its problems, countless academicians and concerned citizens have tried to help instill some order and sense of civility in a loving and compassionate fashion. They don’t want to see more young adults lost to gangs, guns, drugs, and petty feuds that in most other circumstances, wouldn’t end in one dead and one en route to jail.

In his hit NPR Podcast, Shankar Vedantem explores one programmed aimed specifically at helping young men make better decisions rather than acting on impulse. It’s been documented by fMRI scans, developmental psychologists, and parents alike that young men lack the mental capacity to think through decisions, actions, and consequences the way their female counterparts and full-grown male counterparts do. Unchecked, these instincts to act on impulse can turn a regular moment into a murder scene quickly.

One school in Chicago decided that it needed to do a better job teaching its students how to make good decisions -- how to pause and consider the situation, check their emotions, and respond with an appropriate reaction. Many of the homicide reports and testimonies from incarcerated young men detail how small slights -- a stolen water bottle, someone stepping on someone else’s shoe, someone talking to someone else’s girlfriend -- escalated quickly and for no good reason, and how just as soon as the crime was committed, the young men were instantly flooded with regret.

Youth Guidance is a low-budget counselling program to help young men re-route their cognitive pathways to change their behaviors, thinking, and long-term safety. Put most simply, the program sends counsellors to schools throughout the city and offers group talk therapy, reenactments, and emotional support to young men to help them assess their surroundings before giving into a violent impulse.

Two researchers conducted a randomized control trial to determine whether such a program could really help young men avoid trouble and make better decisions. Their findings are somewhat hopeful, but somewhat discouraging.

On the one hand, it was very clear that the boys who went through the program found themselves in less trouble than those who did not. From their behavior in school to their social lives outside of class, the boys who were in Youth Guidance engaged in fewer violent activities. However, unfortunately, the benefits of the program dropped off when the program ended. After the regular counselling sessions stopped, the boys slowly regressed into more violent behaviors, and after five years, the rates of violence for the counselled boys matched the rates of the non-counselled boys.

While the program helped, boys who have trouble with split-second decision making become grown men with the same issues. We have a good start, but we have to continue the progress.

About the Author: Lazar Finker is a career educator, philanthropist, and businessman with experience in both teaching and administration in schools. His academic focus is often on ways to prevent youth delinquency and ensure that everyone has access to a good education. Lazar is also one of the founders of the Finker-Frenkel Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on causes such as child welfare, medical research, and religious development. He and his wife Raissa live in Jacksonville.