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April 16, 2004

Desperate Measures

Stories of people stuck in unfixable situations who try desperate measures. Sometimes these are inventive, sometimes they're ingenious, sometimes they even work.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass visits the Richard E. Byrd Community Academy, a public elementary school in Chicago in need of repair. The principal of the school has tried everything. And now, the fifth grade class in Room 405 has taken matters into their own hands. (5 minutes)

Act One

Hasta La Vista, Arnie

Therapist Scott Miller tells the story of a patient who thought he was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Solving the problem required unusual treatment. Miller is co-director of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change and co-author of The Heart and Soul of Change and other books. This story shows up in the book The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal their Most Unusual Cases, by Jeffrey Kottler and Jon Carlson. (10 minutes)