Dr. Andersen

Dr. Andersen is the physician at Woodlands, a private psychiatric institution, who takes over the care of Theodore Jones following the Placerville High School hostage crisis. His professional decisions and diagnostic assessments form the final, clinical coda to the violent events in Room 16, revealing the profound and lasting psychological damage inflicted on one of the hostages.

Diagnosis and Treatment of Ted Jones

In an interoffice memorandum dated November 3, 1976, Dr. Andersen writes to Rich Gossage in the Administrative Wing, detailing his struggle with Jones's case. He admits he is "still loath to try the shock treatments on this boy," a reluctance he cannot fully explain even to himself, calling it a "hunch." He acknowledges that he cannot justify this hunch to the board of directors or to Jones's uncle, who is paying for the expensive private care. Dr. Andersen's diagnosis for Jones has not changed: a "flat-line catatonic state w/some signs of deterioration." He confesses that he is "not as hopeful for this boy as I once was."

Proposed Experimental Therapies

Despite his pessimism, Dr. Andersen proposes an alternative to the standard electroshock therapy. He requests permission to run the standard drug schedule again, but also to add "a few not so standard" treatments. Specifically, he is considering both synthetic mescaline and psilocybin, hallucinogens that have played a major part in Dr. Will Greenberger's successful therapy with semi-catatonic patients. Dr. Andersen's memorandum reveals a deep frustration with the limits of his knowledge, lamenting, "if we only could be sure what had gone on in that classroom after that Decker individual had the shades pulled down!"