(Third in a series)

Zaslow worked with this young lady, Foster’s patient, all day and she went home that night for the first time in many months… and she was talking sensibly! Foster recalled, “It was a harrowing experience because he was SO intrusive with this gal, but… 3 weeks later she went to Mexico with a bunch of kids and did well.” Foster talked 20 years later with one of the therapists who were also present, and asked this woman how she felt about that session. She said,

“I had this turmoil of feelings — I’ve never been in such turmoil — I thought what was going on was so very intrusive, and yet I knew what was going on was obviously curing this girl, I was happy to see this cure taking place before my eyes, I was jealous that we hadn’t been able to do anything that had come close to that in 6 months of treatment at Fort Logan. My mind was in turmoil about the whole thing. But mostly happy for this girl that she was being helped so fantastically during this treatment.”

Foster continued to reminisce about this experience…

“One of the young grad students at the treatment was really, very pushy. Zaslow later married this woman!! She was just in the patient’s face like nothing I had ever seen before. Later I asked the patient, what did she feel about this female therapist? What was her thought about that? I didn’t know what she would say—I thought she might say, ‘Gosh it was awful, it was horrible, it was terrible,’ and she said, ‘Well, let’s just say that without Marilyn, the treatment would never have been so complete!’ Because she was basically cured after this one, long, lay-down, very demanding session.”

When I asked Russ Colburn about his memories of that time, this was his response:

"I don’t want to get into Zaslow too much, because Zaslow really performed a service, but at the same time, we dropped what he was doing pretty fast, because we didn’t like the aversiveness. But we took so much else from him—the whole concept of attachment, really dealing with the kids’ feelings and helping them get in touch with their feelings and their pain. And also getting in touch with their strengths. And helping the kids see their strengths--I think that was important."

Zaslow only worked at Forest Heights for a matter of months.