Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Endorsing an Angel 407
Like Goldberg, Slavens and her editor at the time, Leslie Campbell, state that their support
for Claude-Pierre was partly due to Montreux’s juxtaposition to a medical system perceived
as arrogant and resistant to sharing information about medicine’s inability to help people with
little-understood illnesses. These journalists believed that Claude-Pierre had found something
“new” to help those with anorexia. All believed that they had been diligent in collecting extensive
data to demonstrate the truth of their story—Claude-Pierre was a revolutionary who could cure
even those in the most dire circumstances. When I asked McLellan about the criticism that
Claude-Pierre’s theories were not new but developed in the 1960s by Hilde Bruch 7 , she responded,
“Interesting. Never by themselves. Interesting, it just happened she was the vortex ... because
everything was changing at that point.” Again that which exists is that which reporters know
rather than what may actually exist. For her part, McLellan shifted the focus, explaining that her
piece was about building knowledge and about Claude-Pierre, not about treatment for people
with eating disorders.
It was about Peggy Claude-Pierre and what she was doing. And I’ve written many stories since about what
we don’t have here that is available in other jurisdictions. Knowledge grows. [It’s] like anything, when you
are the one to write about it first. Start off—become more knowledgeable. You can’t know everything at the
beginning. Grow—knowledge builds (Personal communication, November 10, 2001).
Again the focus is on merely transferring that which one hears or sees as “fact”; the journalist’s
responsibility is to ensure that the source of the information is reliable and to provide information
in a manner that is easy for the journalists to understand. Klaidman (1990) argues that often
investigative journalists collect “exquisite detail” to support a “strongly held hypothesis.” A
problem arises when journalists consciously or subconsciously reject information. For example,
two reporters from The Washington Post with no background in science or medicine determined
that a National Cancer Institute Phase Drug trial was killing hundreds of patients. They did not
seem to understand that most of the patients were already terminally ill, and therefore, their deaths
were not necessarily due to the drug, but that the drug had not created the hoped-for cure.
CONCLUSION
20/20, Oprah, Cosmopolitan Magazine, The Maury Povich Show, The Montel William Show,
as well as numerous newspapers, magazines, and radio programs did not revisit their positive portrayals
of Montreux, even after two investigations, patient deaths, and evidence from Montreux’s
own case files of serious abuse and neglect of patients. However, it is not only the media that is
guilty of withholding information that does not fit into the desired construct. Some psychologists
and academics continued to promote Claude-Pierre without reference to evidence contrary to
that gleaned through media and Claude-Pierre. For example, The Southern State University of
Connecticut offered a one-day workshop in 2001 taught by Claude-Pierre; the promotion for the
workshop states, “In spite of its outstanding success rate, the treatment methodology has not been
endorsed by the mainstream medical profession and her clinic license was revoked.” There is no
reference in this promotion to patients who have died, to the nature of the allegations by not only
the medical establishment but also by careworkers who came to work at Montreux because of
their interests in alternative care. Also overlooked in the university’s promotion of Claude-Pierre
was a patient who stated she was drugged and shown on television despite her wishes, or another
patient who states she was taken off a diet designed by a doctor because Claude-Pierre said it
would make her fat. How the university has ascertained the success rate is unknown given there
has never been an outcome study done to determine recovery amongst Montreux’s patients. 8