There’s been a lot of discussion about the Tucson shooter and why he didn’t get help. Today, the Tucson Arizona Daily Star has two good pieces on his mental state and Arizona law.
One thing jumps out from the mental state article is that this guy never had an incident where he broke the law because of his mental illness. If you’re convinced that you’re sane, even thought you’ve lost the thread, the most likely way you’re going to get into the system is by hurting yourself or others. Until a week ago, this guy hadn’t done that.
Arizona makes it much easier than many other states to force a mentally disturbed person to get psychiatric help, even without evidence of dangerous behavior.
A provision in state law, little known outside the law enforcement and mental-health systems, gives any adult the right to petition the court for a psychiatric evaluation and, if needed, court-ordered care for someone “persistently and acutely disabled” by symptoms of mental illness but unwilling to seek or follow medical advice.
This provision wasn’t used by Pima College after they threw the guy out for creating that obviously insane video John mentioned.
Mental health care is woefully underfunded, but it wasn’t just lack of money that caused the shooter to drill into his insanity without getting any help. Preventing another shooting like this one is going to take a combination of laws and institutions willing to petition under those laws, and there’s always the danger that simply unpleasant behavior will be punished by overzealous or overcautious bureaucracies at colleges and universities.
Cacti
This is what will happen. It’s much cheaper just to toss out all the unstable people than it is to improve mental health screening, evaluation, and treatment.
maya
Of course, you realize this flies in the face of applied Reaganosis.
Epicurus
More disturbing to me is the fact that a mentally unbalanced individual was able to obtain a pistol and “extended magazine” with apparently little difficulty. Again, if there was no record of criminal conviction, I can understand how he got his permit, but still…perhaps I’m simply playing Monday morning quarterback. Nonetheless, the shameless fashion in which this country deals with the mentally ill is a crisis which has yet to be resolved. We lack the will and the resources to properly treat and when necessary, confine these people. Not holding my breath for anything to change soon.
Villago Delenda Est
One of the things that really disturbs me is that we (as a nation) are creating, quite literally, an army of basket cases with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is almost nothing being done to help these men and women who have already given up their lives (and gotten different ones back) for their country.
They’re already on our streets, their reflexes are honed for an environment far more dangerous than even our meanest cities, and as usual, because dealing with this inevitable consequence of our collective actions costs the parasite overclass money, it’s not being dealt with.
Of course, since odds are good that the top 1% won’t be personally affected by any of this, it’s a non-problem as far as they’re concerned. Pretty much like unemployment isn’t their problem, either.
DirtyAussie
There is no doubt that the shooter was a seriously disturbed individual. There is also no doubt that these sort of incidents will never be eradicated. Requiring (or even allowing) colleges or universities to institute a compulsory mental health evaluation of anyone they deem weird is a gross invasion of privacy that would serve no purpose. If you deal with students in any sort of large number, you will soon realize that there are a lot of weird students. Just like when you walk down the street of any major city there will be a lot of odd behaviour. How many of these people go on to commit atrocities? An absolutely minuscule amount.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict these tragedies (without the benefit of hindsight) and restricting the liberty of millions of others should never be the answer.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@DirtyAussie: What he said.
If any adult could’ve petitioned the system, then I have to ask: Where were Loughner’s parents?
WyldPirate
@Epicurus:
This is the sort of thing that we deal with in a “free society”.
The alternative to preventing someone that is mentally ill but that has not yet “entered the system” and being adjudicated or diagnosed as mentally disturbed, is to have everyone prove they are mentally competent prior to being allowed to buy a handgun or long gun.
I know that some here would likely be satisfied with this requirement, but I wouldn’t be.
Living in a relatively free and open society entails some risks. We can’t have the “nanny state” protect us from every danger. Requiring that people be “state-certified as sane” prior to purchasing a firearm doesn’t prevent them from going off and committing murder and mayhem. Someone could theoretically, construct homemade napalm with gasoline and a few ingredients and cause just as much mayhem. If that were to happen, should we then institute requirements to certify sanity prior to the purchase of gasoline?
I know you are not advocating for “certification”. I’m just pointing out the slippery-slope arguments that I feel are legitimate in this case.
It seems that it would be more helpful if education and treatment for mental illness were available. Even more helpful would be the lessening of the stigmatization of those afflicted by mental illness.
Brachiator
Sadly, an equally large problem is that we are still fumbling in the dark when it comes to effectively diagnosing and treating mental illness, let alone curing it.
And as mistermix and others have pointed out, it is extremely difficult to justify holding a person against his or her will and forcing them to undergo treatment of some sort when they have not harmed either themselves or others.
And keep in mind that too often, “mental health care” has been used to “cure” people who were merely depressed or unhappy. Here is one of the many web pages summarizing the evolution of mental health care, with this chilling reminder of how people have been abused under the color of authority:
The unhappy housewives were often women who just couldn’t get with the program.
aimai
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
They may not have known. Or it may not be the case that “petitioning the system” gets you anything more than an evaluation. What really was the correct treatment? What would have been the side effects of the treatment and who would have borne the brunt of them?
aimai
WyldPirate
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
In denial….
cleek
@WyldPirate:
ding
22state
It should be hard to confine or forcibly medicate people for “mental illness.” I haven’t seen any information about the shooter that would have indicated such a harsh step in advance of the crime.
We should take measured steps – like the non-coercive requirement for an evaluation to re-enter classes at a local college. If you don’t want the evaluation, start over at another college or don’t re-enter.
If a comment or action that someone in power determined was somehow deviant was enough to put you into jail or into a forced drug program, we wouldn’t be in Orwell’s 1984, we’d be in Kurt Vonnegut’s where every advantage needs a handicap.
morzer
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-
They may well have been in a state of profound denial about what was happening to their son. Or possibly they thought it was just adolescent acting up. Or they may not have known what to do. It’s much easier for us as relatively detached strangers to assess what they should have done now the reality of his problem has become clearer. It’s quite possible that they didn’t feel able to talk to anyone, and didn’t know where to look online.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
And so we reach my least favorite part of the post-shooting debate: Crazy people are roaming around undiagnosed and untreated, there oughta be a law!
Which is really easy to say but go ahead, try to think up a law that would prevent this sort of thing without spiking the number of times the state violates the 4th Am. And remember, once the person is evaluated/committed and found to be sufficiently dangerous (however you measure that), you have to do something with him, which could mean controlling him for the rest of his life.
Hello? What danger? We’re talking 100% CERTAINTY. And when you step back and weigh the various risks of modern society, being taken out by a guy BECAUSE he is insane is way, way, way down on the list.
So what you’re actually proposing when you talk about more laws to catch the dangerously mentally ill before they can hurt someone is the equivalent of a Bush-style post 9/11 response for people who range from odd to dangerous to themselves, to dangerous to others.
stuckinred
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: No chance they are stupid as a cacti?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@Brachiator: See also gays and lesbians when homosexuality was a diagnosis in the DSM. (Something a few “pro-family” groups are agitating to reinstate.)
WyldPirate
@morzer:
Good points. There is also the fact that there are hereditary aspect to schizophrenia and other psychiatric illness.
Not trying to make any diagnosis here, but from what I’ve read, the father seems to be rather eccentric from the descriptions. That doesn’t mean anything, really, but you never know.
My bet would be that like most people, they lacked the ability to recognize and understand what was hap.pening before their eyes to their son. Throw in the fact that there is the stigmatization associated with being “batshit crazy”, and denial becomes comforting.
write_thesis
sad
The Dangerman
I don’t know about the culpability of the College…
…but I’d welcome learning more of why he was DQ’d from the Military but could still buy a gun. Not assigning blame, but something should have been done differently.
ocean man
In NY it is called a mental health or hygiene warrant. You petition the court, you tell the judge how person x is behaving. It is really there for family members not organizations. You obtain the warrant if the judge deems it necessary. You are talking about several hours out of your day, but you can walk in anytime the courts are open. You wait several hours and then talk to the judge for about 2 minutes. You then take the warrant to the police. You try to make sure the person you want to hospitalize is home or at least where the police can pick him up. The police then take the person into custody and bring him to a psychiatric ER. Police hate calls on EDPs (emotionally disturbed person), but at least with the warrant they know what the end game is. When the police are called to the scene and the person is just acting bizarre and not breaking the law they will tell the family to get a mentaly hygiene warrant. The warrant is good for 30 days. Family will usually meet the police at the home and accompany the person to the hospital. The other option is to call a mobile crisis team if it is available, major cities should have several hospital based mobile teams. I worked on a mobile team years ago.
BGinCHI
Good comments in this thread so far on this. I’d add, as an academic at an urban university where we get a real cross section of society, that it’s very difficult to assess individuals. They don’t live on campus and our connection to them is largely bureaucratic (they enroll, paperwork is exchanged, money) and then student/professor. In community colleges it’s pretty much the same. Plus add that people are very busy and you end up with a situation where the institution would like to help, or get involved, but isn’t in a good position to do so. Usually action is taken only when there is an outburst.
As someone said above, if the parents don’t do something, what chance is there that it will be anyone other than law enforcement?
JMC_in_the_ATL
And transgendered folks still are. In order to undergo GRS, you have to be diagnosed with GID.
ed g
There are nearly three million people with schizophrenia in the United States. Only a very small percentage act out in a violent manner each year. One of the reasons the types of horrendous crimes committed by a mentally ill person such as the Arizona one get so much publicity is that they are very rare.
The mental health system does a good job with the seriously mentally ill, despite severe funding limitations and well intended protections that make treatment impossible for those who choose not to have it. Unfortunately, people suffering from untreated paranoid schizophrenia are not trusting of others including doctors and lack the capacity for making good decisions for themselves. Even if they are placed on anti-psychotic medications to good results, the side effects can be unpleasant.Additionally, many feel they don’t need the medication after becoming more functional stop the treatment as well.
Finally, Brachiator, the old history of ALL medicine is filled with horror stories of crude, painful and useless treatments, not just psychiatry. Modern medications, case management services, psychotherapy, family involvement and advocacy and community involvement offer a compassionate, useful and effective (though certainly not perfect) approach to serious mental illness.
WarMunchkin
Uh, I guess this is hard to say artfully, but I kind of associate mental health care recipients with either people who have already committed a crime or wealthy/upper-middle class people. Does anyone have any information as to the demographics of people who are recipients of mental health services?
morzer
@BGinCHI:
About 15 years ago, when I was teaching a summer course at a large urban university, we had an individual enroll, turn up at the introductory session, and then come to my office hours afterwards. He’d been a bit unusual during the class (odd, random comments and so forth), but during the office hour he really got going, as we sat facing each other in the coffee shop. It started out with Plato and pyramids and moved on to an explanation of how he had a sump in his head and needed the oil draining out of it. Very strange and sad. I had to contact the main office, and they found out that he was on day release, so to speak, from a psychiatric institution, and had, I believe, been diagnosed with some form of schizophrenia. The school dis-enrolled him immediately, and we never saw him again, but I’ve often wondered where he ended up, and just how lucky we were that nothing bad happened.
racrecir
‘Why Are There So Many Jews In Beck’s Rogues Gallery?’
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101140003
This misses the point. Where Beck is headed with this is intellectual elites using psychoanalysis to conduct experiments in social control. What caught my eye were the names: Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud and Walter Lippman.
And the opening clip of Beck from Media Matters seems to confirm that Beck’s source material here is from Adam Curtis’ BBC documentary ‘The Century Of The Self’. Here’s the first episode:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FB2C5DB5A268163A
And you know who else was interested in conducting experiments in social control?
Hitler.
And you know who else is concerned about experiments in social control that “must lead to new government powers and new restrictions on core liberties?”
Glenn Greenwald.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/12/galston
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@WarMunchkin: Huh? Define mental health services. My health insurance covers trips to a shrink so if you include people who are or have been treated for things like depression, my guess would be somewhere between a shitload and a fuck ton.
xian
@WyldPirate: Mark Shields pointed out on the Newshour yesterday that to work as a cosmetologist or pest-control applicator in Arizona you need to undergo background check and get a license. You need a license to sell live bait, become a trainer in a gym, etc.
Does it really need to be easier to get a gun?
Villago Delenda Est
@racrecir:
Beck knows that the men in the white coats are coming for him.
That’s what it boils down to.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@morzer: That is really sad since schizophrenia doesn’t automatically = dangerous. And how did the school get his diagnosis?
But that’s part of what I’m talking about. Because most people DO think “crazy” = dangerous, they over-react. Which doesn’t help anyone.
Redshift
@The Dangerman: Last I heard, the Army was not releasing the specific reason because of privacy regs, but according to “sources” it was because of past drug use. If so, that wouldn’t necessarily have been any help in this case. (Of course, many people with mental illnesses, diagnosed or not, self-medicate, but lots of other people do too.)
morzer
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
It may not automatically equal it, but I think the school was right to make the decision they did. The person in question simply wasn’t cut out for an eight week course of intensive study, and I am not sure what the pressure might have done to him. I can only say that he was genuinely alarming to be around during the extremely long hour that we spent looking at each other. I don’t know how the school found out about his course of treatment and diagnosis, but I assume it came with the results of whatever checks they ran on him after we expressed our concern.
I don’t think it was an over-reaction to remove him from a course that he simply could not have completed, and where he was causing the students considerable anxiety.
rb
@morzer:
How do you know nothing bad happened?
But yeah, thank god he was cut loose “immediately” before any money was inconvenienced.
RoonieRoo
I knew my husband was becoming a danger to himself and possibly others. But, even as his wife, I could not do anything about it.
I pleaded with his doctors to help me get him into the hospital. But his doctor did not want to endanger the tenuous trust he had built up with my husband. He felt he could help better by maintaining that trust. I do understand that logic.
My father is a lawyer and he tried to help me find any legal way I could help my husband. But there were no options as my husband was going to work every day and seemed relatively normal to all the people he met.
But I knew that he was slipping away and it was about 3 weeks after my last attempt to get someone to see the growing problem that my husband killed himself due to his schizophrenia.
Now, I live in Texas and our laws are not the same as Arizona. But it is EXTREMELY hard to get someone help, family member or not, if they have not committed a crime.
Even with all I was doing it has to be noted that there was absolutely no barrier to him walking into the gun store and legally buying the gun that he ended his life with.
But even with the loss of my husband and everything I went through I still fear changes to the law that will make it too easy to commit people. That has potential to be very, very bad.
Very few paranoid schizophrenics are dangerous to other people.
BGinCHI
@morzer: I have one right now. A guy who is in the process of being kicked out (not though my intervention, but by other profs/students), had apparently been kicked out before and let back in. It’s really sad. He’s disruptive and not at all good for the class, but I wish there was some way he could take a class and engage with the kind of material he’s clearly interested in.
morzer
@rb:
I know rather more about it than you do, and your remarks about money are imbecilic. Do you think that Giffords’ family are thinking about money today? Or the family of the 9 year old girl?
WyldPirate
@xian:
There are background checks for gun purchases.
The point with Loughner is that he had done nothing given the current laws that would have resulted in him being denied the right to purchase a firearm.
He was failed by the system and society. He probably didn’t have any insurance when his florid psychosis was emergent. Even if he did have the availability, it’s damn hard for the mentally ill to be compliant with treatment once it is even recognized that they are ill.
People are focusing on this incident and there is great wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments because a crazy kid obtained a gun and committed a horrific crime with it , but there are thousands murders every year committed by people who are perfectly sane–just mean as hell, pissed off, drunk and under the influence, etc, etc.
As Thoughtful Black Co-citizen said above, giving the government authority to clamp down on this sort of stuff is asking for trouble. It is too open for abuse. that said, I’m open for people being able denied access to firearm purchase if they have been psychotic–even for in-patient treatment for major depression. I think that there are instances that even folks that have been diagnosed and adjudicated as being mentally disturb should be able to petition to have their rights to own firearms restored. I think that that should be the case for certain types of felonies as well.
Brachiator
@ed g:
Uh, no. It is not just about painful or useless treatments. It is about imprisoning or forcing treatment on people as a means of social control, especially when they do not have any mental illness at all.
And with people who are mentally ill, there are still problems with forcing treatment on them so that they will be more “manageable.”
We are not as far removed from Titicut Follies as people would like to think.
Wiseman’s film was made in 1967. But there is this:
morzer
@BGinCHI:
The thing is, I am not sure my guy was interested, or even especially aware of the subject matter. He certainly didn’t talk about it. What we were teaching didn’t involve Plato, or the Pyramids, much less oil sumps. I felt and feel desperately sorry for him, but I don’t believe he would have enjoyed himself or got anything out of staying in the class.
aimai
@RoonieRoo:
I’m so sorry for your loss and for all that you must have been through.
aimai
Paul in KY
@Redshift: I’m surprised he copped to it when he filled out the forms. Unless he was high as a kite when he visited them & they asked him if he was high & he said ‘yes’, the only way they know is if you check the box asking if you’ve ever used illegal drugs.
Tip: If you want to get into the military, do not check that box, no matter what drugs you might have taken in the past.
Obviously, if you had legal issues involving drugs, they will find out about that & if you didn’t check that box, that will disqualify you (or at keast it did back in the Miocene when I served).
BGinCHI
@rb: Yeah, universities are the culprit in this whole scenario.
Dumbass.
rb
@morzer: Yeah, clearly this student was a ticking time bomb and everyone was terrified. This is why merely disenrolling him was considered an adequate solution and no one followed up.
Comparing this to the AZ shooting? Cheap and crass at best.
The Dangerman
@Redshift:
This I did not know; I thought it was for mental issues.
Frankly, I didn’t know the Military DQ’d solely on drug use; given the percentage of kids that have tried marijuana or Ecstasy or whatever, that wipes out a large population from service (not saying that is a bad thing, per se).
BGinCHI
@morzer: Agreed. Not sure how this would have gone for the person I mentioned, but it just doesn’t work. And the hardest part is not knowing the facts. I’d go out on a limb for this individual, but I’d be subjecting a whole class to interruptions, and potentially violent behavior (which is in the record of the previous go-around).
morzer
@rb:
You like boysenberry pie? Good for you. Now, I’m going to continue a discussion with the adults on the thread.
rb
@BGinCHI: Feeble. It’s the way we want to “disenroll” the mentally ill from being anywhere near us that is the culprit. Do you have any idea the number of individuals who meet criteria for a DSM diagnosis?
But hey, who gives a shit? They’re only human beings. Lock ’em up!
Little Dreamer
Not sure if I’m the only one having this trouble, but I can’t read this post by mistermix. The words extend way beyond the right margin of the page. Comments are doing that too. Unreadable.
morzer
@BGinCHI:
Right. The problem is that even if you are willing to do your best, it’s unreasonable to ask the students to see their class disrupted, especially in circumstances where it isn’t clear that the disruptor will get much out of it. It’s a horrible feeling to have to give up on someone you are teaching, but sometimes there really is no other choice.
BGinCHI
@rb: We’re comparing it as a very general case of how a particular kind of institution deals (sometimes poorly) with this kind of individual. It’s a question of dealing with a complicated situation where we don’t have all the facts and don’t have a system equipped to deal with these kinds of things. But universities do try, I think, to be good citizens and get help for people. We could do better, but I don’t honestly think you can expect such a place to handle these things completely. There have to be better ways.
Little Dreamer
Nevermind, now it’s fixed (but for how long? This happened the last time I read this site too, which was a few days ago).
WyldPirate
@BGinCHI:
Actually, BGinCHI, I read the other day that there was a case at Valdosta State where a kid was dismissed for “mental health issues” but was targeted by the administration because he was protesting the building of a parking deck. I think it went to federal court and the courts ruled in favor of the student.
I can’t seem to find where I read it now, but institutions can and do abuse this sort of thing.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@morzer: I hear you, but what if you had a student who was disruptive but didn’t have a history of mental illness, I assume he’d be given warnings &c. and if he didn’t settle down, eventually disenrolled. What I’m hearing is this person’s diagnosis (which was divulged to the school for whatever reason) accelerated his disenrollment.
(But yes, even when they’re being treated, schizophrenics can really … um. Unusual conversation partners.)
Jason
I know, this will likely be the reaction. It’s unfortunate, too, that in Pennsylvania and D.C. there are, literally, crazy people roaming around because they were bundled out of a system that prized fiscal responsibility, as is happening in Virginia right now.
This is true, though; there ought to be laws. And of course we do have them, which is why turning people out of state-run mental institutions is often no different that transferring them to a different correctional facility. The conflation of “public safety” and “mental health” issues have a practical effect: more arrests and crowded shelters, more families fighting tooth and nail to justify basic services to expensive insurers. When it comes time to criticize the prosecution of crime, or the role of healthcare, however, the mental health aspect often disappears from the discussion.
This is one reason why I felt the “lone crazed gunman/no politics” explanation of this act had zero explanatory and moral value. Treating this man as an individual responsible for his actions insofar as he is ostensibly not responsible for them is a sick joke for anybody who sees how families that care for schizophrenics, or anybody with a serious mental illness, are treated by a range of interested individuals and organizations. By far the easiest thing to do with anybody in need of lifelong care is simply not to do anything; you will find ample support for that, whether you are ex-spouses and angry siblings or insurance companies and state institutions. Nobody will step in and say “That 35 yr. old man living in his mom’s basement is worthy of the same access to services, legal remedies, and basic self-determination as anybody else. How do we ensure this happens?”
Individuals are either/and in direct contact with a community, a family, or an institution. Yet there seems to be a right of first refusal (“recusal” might be the more apposite pun) for the responsibility of those communities, families, or institutions as to how the actions of the individuals pan out. We can’t control everything, I know. And I know that schizophrenics, sufferers of bipolar disorder, and associated maladies are the first ones to say “I’m going off my meds” as soon as they’re alone. What I don’t fully understand is why we hold them to a higher standard of “responsibility” than everybody else, particularly when we passively limit the functional role an individual can play in society.
There is no “in the system/out of the system” distinction to be made here. If a system is designed to ignore or refuse individuals, they are still “in” it. It’s not a question of choice.
rb
@RoonieRoo: Terribly sorry, that is awful.
That said I commend you for this:
Hear hear, except for the part about ‘potential.’ It will with 100% certainty be even worse than it already is.
morzer
@Little Dreamer:
Works fine in Firefox, although sometimes Chrome has had some trouble, and a whole page and comments just vanish, leaving adverts, and the tag of the day floating in space.
BGinCHI
@rb: Um, not what I said at all, and I know a hell of a lot more about this then I’m saying here. What’s your stake in this? Where are you arguing from?
I’ll be blunt: a university course is no place to house people whose mental illness makes the course impossible and physically threatens others in the course. If you don’t understand that, then I can’t have a discussion with you.
ed g
Brachiator said:
I’m sorry. I thought you were talking about current matters in the United States, not the 1980’s Russian Gulag.
Little Dreamer
I deliver the Arizona Republic, and one of the front page stories today (on the side, just below the headline story) was about how our healthcare is going to be gutted in the next budget. Whatever the state of Arizona’s health policies are now, you can be sure Jan Brewer is about to change them drastically.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@rb: That’s not what mozer said. And really, if you’ve never spoken to a person with the symptoms before, it is one freaky assed experience.
rb
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Don’t bother, TBCC. Didn’t you know only children worry about these pesky details?
Otherwise you’re rooting for more Giffords and Greens.
Little Dreamer
Link to story:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/01/15/20110115arizona-budget-health-care-plan.html
BGinCHI
@WyldPirate: I can understand that as a possibility, since it’s true that not all university administrations are benign. But in all my years at unis, I’ve never seen such a thing. Anecdotal, I know, but faculty will defend students against admin every single time, and with all their power to do so.
I agree that the charge of “mentally ill” as a punitive measure is fucking wrong and has been historically abused big time. I know my Foucault, et al. There needs to be a good system in place, period. That’s what civil society is for.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@rb: Blueberry? I prefer peach.
morzer
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Actual dis-enrollment for disruptive students was extremely rare at that university, although it would depend on how they were being disruptive. In the case of the summer school student, he should never have been enrolled, or so we were told afterwards, because of the terms of his treatment. In all honesty, his behavior had already been odd enough that the diagnosis simply confirmed the decision that the administrators of the program had already taken. If he had been perfectly functional and able to participate, the question would never have arisen.
WyldPirate
@BGinCHI:
OK, I found the case about the student at Valdosta state:
snip
Universities are full of power-tripping dickheads that actually have power. The sleaziest, most unethical people I have ever encountered throughout my professional life have been in academia and I’ve worked and done a lot of different things.
ETA:
Just read your post above. I agree that faculty will defend students against the administration. I have myself. I’ve also seen them fold like paper dolls, although this usually happens more often to junior faculty.
I also think that it has gotten worse in recent years. I think that there is less interest in both the welfare and education of students. It’s more lip service.
rb
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
What he/she said is “how lucky we were nothing happened.” Then he/she compared the situation to the Giffords/Green shootings.
Maybe you can break it down for me so I can understand how that is not insinuating that this student was a threat.
And yes I have spoken to many of these people, and it is indeed more than “freaky.” I would also assert that speaking to a burn victim has the potential to be uncomfortable, despite us relying on our better angels.
The difference is that no one will openly admit wanting to warehouse burn victims without at least assessing if they’re really dangerous.
morzer
@BGinCHI:
In my experience, it depends on the faculty member. I’ve known some with principles who would fight tooth and nail for students, but I’ve also seen a lot of very political critters who would sell their grannies for glue to get tenure.
BGinCHI
@WyldPirate: OK, that’s fucked up. Asshole president, it sounds like. And yeah, there are dicks aplenty around academia, esp in admin. But Jesus, compared to the corporate world? Or at law firms? Those people can shave the tops off mountains, pollute your water, give people diseases, take their livelihoods, wreck the economy, and so on. In the end, an academic can only hurt you so much. Not excusing it, but it’s relative.
morzer
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
His contributions to the great pie debate are clearly improving. We all have something to offer. Some meditate on pie, others discuss issues with their peers. To each their own.
aimai
@morzer:
I commend you and BGinCh for even imagining that you can “do your best” for a mentally ill or disruptive student. I’m not sure that’s fair to you as educators and i’m really sure that’s not fair to the other students. I’ve taught, briefly, at the University level and although I’m a nice person and well educated and all that I’m not qualified to teach someone who behaves erratically, is confused about the subject matter of the course, is disruptive, can’t follow the unwritten rules of classroom participation, etc..etc…etc..
This has nothing to do with being the best teacher you can be. You could be a great teacher but you aren’t being paid (and most people I know aren’t equipped) to give such a person a private tutorial. There are systems where that could happen but its not in a community college or an Ivy, either.
**Not that its worth responding to rp or whatever his name is upthread but when a student is not permitted to terrorize other students or disrupt the classroom or stalk his professor that has nothing to do with “the money” but a whole lot to do with the rights of the other students and faculty and staff to feel safe.
aimai
BGinCHI
@morzer: Wait, they would have given me money for her?
Shit.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
From what I’ve read this is in large part because the side-effects suck ass.
BGinCHI
@aimai: Yes, and yes. And I agree, you really are a nice person.
(that was not snark)
morzer
@BGinCHI:
Lemme talk to some people I know….
rb
@BGinCHI: Anecdotal, I know, but faculty will defend students against admin every single time, and with all their power to do so.
Hrm. You might be able to say this, maybe, about some senior, tenured faculty in hard money positions, and about students in whom they have a particular interest or stake. I am faculty and without tenure most of us are no more that garden-variety ass-coverers.
morzer
@BGinCHI:
What you said and what she said.
Me talk bloggy some day.
Jason
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Yes, they do. Even I have first-hand experience with that. But it’s also because, like any individual, they are not quite as committed to the distinctions between insanity and sanity that their caregivers are. The person with schizophrenia is still capable of determining their relationship to the disorder, and rationalizing their actions according to their priorities. And they will, and often do, say “I think I am fine, and my doctor says the meds are working well, and I should probably take things into my own hands at this point.”
Brachiator
@ed g: RE: Uh, no. It is not just about painful or useless treatments. It is about imprisoning or forcing treatment on people as a means of social control, especially when they do not have any mental illness at all.
I believe I was clear about my concerns. On the other hand, I have no idea what you mean when you refer to “the 1980s Russian Gulag.”
But there is this:
All in the United States of America.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@WyldPirate: Assholes aside, the bigger issue, when people talk about more laws and accountability is that there has to be something that prods the organization to act.
I imagine that would be a big fine if Organization X doesn’t act and Person Y does something bad at a later date. So organizations would be really quick to push the panic button simply to avoid the possibility of being held culpable.
Yeah, you can imagine the hilarity that would ensue.
BGinCHI
@rb: I feel sorry for you, your students, and your colleagues.
If you have to fuck over anyone to get tenure, it says more about you than the system. Even if you are in a dept full of assholes.
FWIW, I’ve met far more good people than bad, and I’ve been around.
rb
@BGinCHI: a university course is no place to house people whose mental illness makes the course impossible and physically threatens others in the course.
That is inarguable and was never in contention, though the situation described did not assert physically threatening behavior.
However the point stands: “disenrolling immediately” and washing hands of someone (“we never saw him again”) does not properly discharge the school’s responsibility to a student it had, after all, enrolled.
I reiterate further that Us’ (or “admins'”, if you prefer) primary stance in dealing with ambiguous cases is to jettison (“immediately”) the student lest resources be expended trying to accommodate him/her.
mclaren
If people were forcibly put in psychiatric hospitals for making insane videos, the entire Republican party would have been institutionalized decades ago.
Starting with Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” re-election commercial in 1984.
BGinCHI
@mclaren: Plus Andy Warhol.
Tonal Crow
__
…or by anyone who sufficiently dislikes another person.
You do realize what you’re requesting, right? Is The Cult of Absolute Safety about to carve another notch in its Liberty-destroying gun?
Tonal Crow
@DirtyAussie:
__
This. Absolutely this. Absolute safety is a will-o-the-wisp, the assiduous pursuit of which leads over hill and valley to exactly one place: the pit of tyranny.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Little Dreamer: One interesting fact I learned on Rachel Maddow’s show is that Jan Brewer spent most of her political career fighting for increased funding for the treatment of mental illness in Arizona. Her son is mentally ill and committed a crime when he was 25. He has lived in a psychiatric facility ever since (over 20 years), and Brewer knows first-hand the anguish that Loughner’s parents must be going through. And yet, mental health is one of the budget items to be cut in Arizona. It couldn’t have been an easy decision for her.
Joel
I’m with Benjamin Franklin on this one.. There’s really not much that can be done to protect against these incidents, outside of wholesale culture change.
WyldPirate
@BGinCHI:
Sorry. Didn’t mean to come across that thinking that academe was infested with pricks. I’ve spent much of my career in it and thought that you would assume that what I said was anecdotal. Although I have been quite disappointed at the pettiness and seeming widespread number of sorry SOBs in academe given that many should have the education to realize that they are needlessly being power-tripping douche bags.
If there’s any consolation, there are a lot of good people in higher ed, too.
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
They already have been quick to act even in the absence of any fines.
After the Virginia Tech incident, universities all over the country overhauled their policies and procedures regarding these kind of threats. I wouldn’t doubt that this Tucson incident prompts more.
I’m sure much “hilarity” such as the Valdosta State incident will ensue as well. IT’s a big old “ass-covering world” out there and there are plenty of lawyers out there with time on their hands just waiting to file cases.
rb
@BGinCHI: Thanks for the sympathies, though you presume much. For the moment my personal choice has been to remain in a non-tenure environment. If I move it will be to a tenured position or not at all.
You seem to imply that junior faculty have no less to fear from confrontation with admin than do senior faculty? Interesting perspective.
WyldPirate
@rb:
I’ve been where you are at rb. From my perspective, non-tenure track faculty are lower than whale shit at a university–mere human chattel.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@morzer: In graduate school, a postdoctoral fellow who was normally a very sweet guy started having public tantrums and throwing things. He cornered me in the lab one evening and accused me of all sorts of malicious deeds that had no connection to reality and mentioned that someone was watching him through his TV at home. His arms were flailing and he started throwing things. We were the only two people in the lab. I got scared and ran out, leaving all my stuff behind and called the campus police. An officer came in and asked what I wanted to do and I said that I only wanted to retrieve my stuff and leave the lab. The postdoc kept yelling at me – “you called the cops, I can’t believe you called the cops.” I felt awful and started crying and the officer told him to calm down. The next day he seemed calmer but he sent me 50 email messages overnight, some apologetic, some repeating his claims about evil people trying to attack him. I had no idea how to deal with the situation so I reported it to our department’s administration. Everyone agreed he was a sweet & brilliant person so I got offered workspace in a different lab (I think the assumption was that this was a personal quarrel between the two of us), which I took. The department did nothing else until one afternoon, he physically attacked the department chair. Then his parents were called in. I still don’t know what finally happened to him and feel terrible about that and the fact that I was terrified of him after that evening even though he was someone whom I’d had many great conversations with before that incident.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Family member who has dealt with SMI issues of a relative here in Arizona for 18 years.
First of all, the borderlines in the law are all about “threat to self and others.” I don’t see any threat to self or others in that video. Therefore, the whole point is moot. There is no law against saying goofy shit, unless it is clearly threatening to life or property.
Has anyone cruised the edges of the right wing noise operation lately? How do you figure that the word salad babbling of Laughner is any nuttier than the insane crap that masquerades as political provocation nowadays? If you walked by and heard Laughner talking to that camera while he filmed, and caught the sort of things he is saying, what would your reaction be?
A person who is about to become a mass murderer? Hardly. More like, is that guy drunk, or is he just another Republican?
As for petitioning people into evaluations, been there and done that. The bottom line there is the threat to self and others issues involved. If there is no unambiguous evidence of such a threat, the institutions are going to send you away unless the petition comes via an institutional pathway (say, from a caseworker in organized behavioral care).
rb
@WyldPirate: IT’s a big old “ass-covering world” out there
Heresy! ;)
rb
@WyldPirate: Heh, no kidding. But I’m actually among the lucky in terms of security and relative seniority, it’s just that in my particular area maybe half of the top depts are not tenure environments and all are soft money. This removes some pressure re tenure, though at the obvious expense of security. For my personal situation this is fine and in some ways optimal, though I’m not sure junior colleagues would say the same.
aimai
I’m really not worried at all that people are having a conversation about more/better/different help for the mentally ill–what else are people supposed to do about things after a major public tragedy brings it to light? Talking never did anything to pass legislation and it never will. No serious legislation will be passed because there is as yet no money it. However: As soon as Corporations turn their eyes from for profit prisons to for profit mental health care facilities/prisons you will see the Republican party and some Democrats leap, en masse, to enforcing crazy laws on a passive tax paying populace and they will simply manufacture the outrage (if that’s even necessary).
Also, I’d like to point out that one of the problems we have with truly mentally ill/needy people is a problem of custodianship in a society which prefers to presume, and does presume, that each individual attains a working age of majority and lives independently after a certain point. That may well be a faulty proposition for some small percentage of the population. Do we have any good way of dealing with that? So far most of the discussion ranges around cost (monetary and real). Individual parents and families do their best but they need institutional help. Institutions are flawed, understaffed, underpayed, and subject to abuses. But the truth is that families themselves may be unable to provide the care that is necessary for their most vulnerable members.
Brachiator offered a list, up above, of the failures of several large isntitutions and someone referenced tittycut follies as well. That’s all true. But oftentimes those poor people were warehoused because their own families couldn’t handle them. They may have come to those places because they had been injured by family members. Mentally ill people commit suicide outside of institutions as well as inside them. My point isn’t that institutions are as good as families but that it is legally easier to hold institutions accountable than it is to hold families accountable. If Loughner had been under a doctor’s care or in an institution we’d be having a totally different conversation about liability than we are even though his parents should have/could have known about his activities and stopped him.
What I’m saying is that our frontier laws and our sense that every person is entitled to be treated as though they are adult and able to make their own decisions may not be adequate to the task of handling a large and growing population of medically dependent mentally ill people. This is something we are already seeing in Colleges where more and more students who previously would not have been able to enroll due to mental health problems come to University on meds. Their parents are not legally entitled to be informed about changes in the child’s health care status if the child is technically an adult. But the University isn’t accepting responsibility for the student’s medical and mental state either.
aimai
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Little Dreamer:
Arizona has a pretty aggressive approach to MH intervention. It is court-ordered, as a matter of fact. The state is required by the court to provide a certain level of service and intervention. And spends a lot of money trying to stay in compliance.
My own ability to get a family member into a facility depended on using those court-ordered resources to help me do so.
Jan Brewer cannot uncouple the mechanism of compliance even if she wants to. The courts will stop the state from walking away from the truly dangerous and endangered (there are more of the latter) mental health patients.
Behavioral and mental health intervention is expensive, and the real issues here are related to a voting public that has no stomach for that … not just in Arizona, but anywhere in this country. Mental health patients are basically disposable. Many of them make up the core of the homeless population, for example.
Martin
I have to take issue with this:
Most 4 year colleges and universities run their own mental health clinics. They run their own health clinics. They run their own hospitals. Most of the top trauma centers in this country are run by universities. This danger is miniscule because we already trust these colleges and universities to do things that are vastly more open to abuse.
I’ve been on the inside of dealing with a potential shooter not too dissimilar to the Tuscon shooter at a university. There’s not much room for abuse to begin with – there’s a serious set of checks and balances against different administrative units with different legal restrictions and obligations. In the case of the student I was concerned with, the smallest conference discussing him consisted of me, the head of local law enforcement, two M.D. administrators, two licensed clinical PsyD’s, and two JDs – one representing the university and one representing the student body, and a smattering of other high-level folks with various licenses. Good luck getting a rule bent in that setting. They were all incredibly professional, but if there was an obscure law somewhere that protected the student, we knew about it and respected it.
aimai
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
I wanted also to stress a point LIMOW makes which is that the mentally ill are, generally speaking, much more in danger from us than we are from them. Both because they make up a huge proportion of the homeless and because they are vulnerable within their homes as well as on the streets.
aimai
Jason
@rb:
That’s the worst part for me, being the last hire and watching them shift t-t lines to, like, Comm and shit. In the back of your mind you start to think “I’m one bad eval from getting shitcanned” or “every year has to have x% service/x% confs/x% pubs” like there’s a golden ratio
Jason
@aimai: This. Seconded, enthusiastically.
Gretchen
My son is mentally ill. Since he can’t work, he has very poor insurance, that doesn’t cover any mental health care. He is too old to be on his parent’s insurance. I tried to make an appointment for him with the county mental health agency last week, and they refused. He’s an adult, so I can’t make appointments for him or be involved or informed about his care in any way. I told them he’s not functional enough to make his own appointments, and they said he would have to. I can’t go into his psychiatry appointments and tell them he’s not functional, again, because he’s an adult. If he goes in and acts lucid, they write him a prescription and send him on his way. I can’t drive him over to the emergency room, assuming I could get him to agree to go, because I can’t afford the tens of thousands of dollars an uninsured hospitalization would cost. Some have suggested “tough love”, just throw him out and make him fend for himself. I’m pretty sure he’d commit suicide if we did that. And they’re cutting public mental health money even more. It’s hard for parents to know what to do. At least my son isn’t violent – his only threat is to himself.
Frankie T.
Thanks to RonnieRoo for her heartfelt comments. I live in California. My wife is mentally ill and under current state law she cannot be involuntarily institutionalized or medicated unless she is a “danger to herself or someone else.” This is a high bar for state intervention, and it effectively leaves it up to someone like my wife, who is paranoid and delusional, to make the rational (sane!) decision to seek treatment. The Catch-22 here is that one of the common symptoms of mental illness is absence of self-awareness about the illness. My wife thinks that she is fine and that everyone else is sick. She also thinks that she is an international religious leader with millions of followers; that she personally started the Tea Party movement; that she is being persecuted by the government and harassed by military helicopters; and that the Koch brothers have visited her home. She also self medicates with pot and alcohol, which appear to exacerbate her symptoms. Even though she’s clearly psychotic, there’s nothing I can do legally to force her to get treatment because she’s not violent. Although I sympathize with concerns about involuntarily institutionalizing people, and understand there is a history of abuse that current law is designed to rectify, I think there must be a better middle ground. Unless you’ve lived it, you have no idea what kind of hell this can be. Families like mine are forced to cope with incredibly stressful and dysfunctional living situations and can’t petition the court for intervention until a loved one’s behavior is clearly dangerous. There has to be better way.
WyldPirate
Here is a little more info on the Valdosta State University case where the student got hosed by the university prez for anyone that is interested.
Maybe He Shouldn’t Have Spoken His Mind
Pretty unbelievable that this university president did what he did. The following, sums up the stupidity:
MonkeyBoy
@aimai:
I think that is already happening. I just saw this story about a Memphis corporation adding 95 beds to its Colorado Springs operation. “Strategic Behavioral Health” definitely seems to be for-profit. One stated goal at their website is “Build and acquire acute, residential, and outpatient services”.
From limited poking around SBH seems to be privately held rather than publicly traded – so the really big players are not yet into this act.
WyldPirate
@Gretchen: @Frankie T.: @RoonieRoo:
I’m really sorry for the trials of your loved ones and that our crazy system of health care and “justice” have put you through or are putting you through. Your’s are tryly heart-wrenching stories and I hope that everyone involved can find some sort of workable outcome that brings you each peace.
Svensker
It seems very difficult for our system to deal with people with mental illness. How do you know when to intervene? How much power should the state have? What line does someone need to cross? Very hard to figure out how to handle this situation correctly.
But it seems very easy to me to make it much more difficult to get a gun. It might be politically tough, but it’s an obvious solution. The fact that there won’t even be a serious national conversation about this just shows how sick American society is, to me.
grumpy realist
The way we seem to be handling mentally ill people so far is a) toss them out on their own and let them wander around acting weirdly until b) they do something that crosses over the (legal) line, at which point they get thrown into jail.
In our present culture we don’t really have a good system for handling people who drift back and forth across the line of being able to handle reality. Which is a problem, because with the aging population and dementia, we’re probably going to have an increasing population that falls into this category.
Brachiator
@Frankie T.:
I greatly sympathize with your situation. Perhaps reasonable discussions about the need for a middle ground will help find one.
Little Dreamer
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
Actually, I think it has been much easier for her than you are imagining… she seems to be taking the same approach as many other Republicans… the one called “I got mine, fuck you!”
She has the wherefore’s of her son’s sitaution taken care of. She has a great healthcare benefit by being governor and she has security through her state pension when her position comes to an end. It’s the other people in this state that suffer because she acts as if she’s only concerned about her own.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@aimai:
Very well said, and I totally agree. And we are doing ourselves and them no service by taking Laughner to be anything close to typical of the SMI population. He is not. He does not represent them, at all. Unfortunately thanks to a lazy populace and an even lazier press, he is the “face” of SMI right now and that totally skews the conversation.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Little Dreamer:
I assume you are talking about Brewer. The main thing we have learned about her is that she is not the sharpest needle in the sewing kit. She just isn’t that bright.
Also, there is some circumstantial evidence that she might be having some sort of substance abuse problem of her own. I’d bet a candy bar that she has a drinking problem.
Paul in KY
@Little Dreamer: That’s my thinking as well.
I bet she’ll be oh so sorrowful (from her personal experiences) when she guts the funding.
HRA
I’ve not read all of the comments here. What I want to say first and foremost is someone has to care when unusual behavior is shown by someone you care about closely. It certainly difficult to assess without having knowledge to alleviate it. This is the time you seek professional help and there are times when you will have to make a decision as to whether the initial help is going to be the one to solve the problem. You cannot give up in seeking the possibility of attaining a cure even though there will be barriers set in your way. It’s a truly heavy burden. The day it is lifted makes it all worthwhile.
cckids
@Gretchen:
Have you looked into being named as his guardian? I don’t know anything about your son’s capability of dealing with the necessities of his own life, but many states have a legal process you can go through to be named as a guardian & have the right to be involved in health care & financial decisions. It is similar to the process you’d go through if your parents have dementia. We had to become our son’s guardian when he turned 18 to be involved in his health care decisions, even though he is severely mentally handicapped & can’t talk. Still, every time he is in hospital or sees a new doctor, we have to show the papers.
If this is an option, you can tailor the guardianship to your own situation; helping with health care, but not running his life. My heart goes out to you, you are in a very tough spot.
Or, instead, maybe he could/would sign a health care power of attorney for you? Would give you the same health care rights without the hoops of guardianship. My husband has one for his parents, so he can ask their docs questions (they never do).
Eric U.
this is really a difficult subject to find the proper line to draw. We have gotten to the point where it’s extremely difficult to get help for someone that doesn’t want it. My wife has jumped through the hoops to the point where one of her patients leaves her building escorted by the police and supposedly on the way to the hospital for inpatient care because they have demonstrated that the alternative is that they will commit suicide. But then the next day it turns out they talked the cops into taking them home.
In general, that’s probably good given the history of abuse of involuntary commitment. But should a person in that much distress be the responsibility of the university? Just because there is no help outside the university, does that mean that the vast majority of students with no such needs be forced to suffer in various ways? The truth is that nobody knows which student is going to have a breakdown and who isn’t. It’s not unlikely that the parents will be in denial.
The problem with a legal remedy to these issues is that nobody can read minds to the point where we can be safe from the very small minority of mentally ill people that actually commit violent acts. There would be much more human tragedy if we tried to do that than if we suffer with the status quo. The bias against involuntary commitment was the result of a long struggle by advocates of the mentally ill. It would be a shame to reverse these gains for the majority in a misguided attempt to protect ourselves from a vanishingly small population of dangerous individuals.
Svensker
@Gretchen:
I am so sorry to hear this. My heart goes out to you.
someGayName
@Svensker: I don’t understand what shifting the mode of killing would accomplish. Absent a gun, a car or knife is readily available. China and Japan seem to have mass stabbings as often as we have mass shootings: china stabbing kills 6 police, china school stabbing (this was the third such in less than a month, according to the article. One of which resulted in 8 deaths), Japanese man kills 7 wounds 10 with car and knife, and the Osaka massacre. More are readily available with 5 minutes of the Google-fu. Guns are pretty effectively regulated right now. We mock the right as bedwetters when they embrace ineffective and expensive security theater that unnecessarily infringes on the rights of millions (Office of Total information awareness, TSA body scanners or
sexual assaultssearches). We have our own brand of bedwetting on the left for anything gun related.Malik Langarica
Sometimes I read posts like these, i think, “This person is in my head, its EXACTLY what i was thinking!”
LiberalTarian
John Patrick Bedell. Maurice Clemmons. Seung-Hui Cho.
Like aimai said, as soon as there is profit in it for Republicans, all of the sudden there will be money “to care for” (and deal with) the dangerously mentally ill.
I have way more experience with mentally ill people than I would want to wish on anyone. As a parent, your hands are tied.
And don’t kid yourself, it is all about the fucking money.
Every time this happens, every couple months really, just not usually so high profile, I have to sit with my head in the hands and pray to God my son isn’t the next shooter. You can tell the police and mental health agencies your son is a danger to himself and the public, but until he really hurts someone no one can do anything about it. Maybe in Arizona they could have committed him against his well, but the hospitals and police in California are doing everything they can to keep people from being committed because there is no money for mental health wards and beds. John Patrick Bedell’s parents did call the police! They talked to the police in Texas about how their son was mentally ill. And yet, several months passed, and a gun show and a shoot out at the Pentagon (that left several people and Bedell dead) later, no one had committed that young man (and don’t forget, as a parent, you have no rights to address your adult child’s mental illness).
How does it seem likely, that in Arizona, with their low taxes and hatred of the nanny state, that they have adequate facilities to deal with all the possibly-murderous-crazies? They all do what Pima College did–they protect themselves and hope to God no one else gets hurt. Usually, they don’t. Usually.
Yeah, the rhetoric pushes crazy people over the edge, but the refusal to protect the most vulnerable in our society from mental illness really should be the heart of the discussion, and as a nation we should hang our heads in shame. The only time we even discuss it is when a mentally ill person goes on a rampage with a gun. There is so much more misery there that doesn’t even get any kind of recognition, and all because mentally ill people get limited if any treatment, and no one is willing to pony up the kind of dollars it would take to deal with establishing cogent health care for mental illness.
I am weary to my soul of this particular problem.
1prophetspeaks.com
Anyone with a family member who is mentally ill need to take them to a pentacostal or charismatic church for prayer. God heals; he is free, has no side effects and makes no mistakes. THe new testament is clear that mental illness is caused by demonic oppression; the solution is prayer in Jesus name. Jesus did it and gave his followers authority to do the same. It works. I know from experience.
All drugs are openings for demonic oppression; this includes caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, pot, lsd etc and all psych meds. This is why, in truth, psych meds CAUSE mental illness; the drug handbooks admit that antipsychotics and anti-depressants can cause psychosis. all of the school shooters since columbine were ON psych meds; they are the problem, not the solution. The psych meds are all toxic; they cause brain, liver and kidney damage and other physical problems and have horrible side effects. This is why patients go off them.
Dr Peter Breggin has written many books about toxic psychiatry. The CCHR also documents abuse by psychiatry. NAMI is funded by big pharma; they are whores for the drug cos, as are the APA and AMA. The only ones who benefit from the psych meds are the drug cos making money, and the hospitals who hold people involuntarily for long periods to get insurance money, which is very common. It is all fraud. They violate the antislavery amendment since they treat patients as involuntary medical experiment guina pigs which is involuntary servitude, or slavery.
Psychiatry is atheism masquerading as science. They say mental illness is caused by chemical imbalances, but this is a BIG lie to sell drugs. It is caused by demonic oppression, but since they are rooted in an atheistic worldview, they don’t realize this. Psychiatry labels people with spiritual experiences as suffering from hallucinations or delusions. This is their mistake. Their 2nd question is always “do you hear voices” Anyone who says yes is thought to have auditory hallucinations, symptom of psychosis. Christians, who hear God and demons and anyone else who does, are accused of being schizophrenic. All christians would be called schizophrenic, by them, and for the last 50 years, many have. Most patients in psych hospitals are not mentally ill; they are christians and most shrinks are atheists. the problem is theological, not medical.
The right answer to their question is : “EVERYONE hears voices, as thoughts in our heads. Thoughts come from the spiritual realm. The word “inspiration:” means “a spirit goes into it”. It is normal Christian theology to hear voices; Jesus said “my sheep hear my voice” John 10:27 and James ch 3 says there is “wisdom from above and wisdom from below”.
All diseases, on a spiritual level, are caused by spirits whose “assignments” is that disease. They can be rebuked in Jesus name. I have been healed of disease this way; it works.
You can read about Atheistic psychiatry & their toxic drugs, and HOW to be healed of mental and physical illness thru prayer, in my FREE book MANUAL FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL HEALING-GOD’S ANSWER TO PSYCHIATRY on my website 1prophetspeaks.com
In addition to drugs, there are other openings for demonic oppression that need to be assessed in one’s environment; they include bad music, books, art, symbols, occult paraphernalia and unrepentant sin. When these are removed and addressed, people can be healed. And they need to be addressed to KEEP the healing, or else if a person goes back to a demonic environment, they can be re-infested. I have seen this. ch 7 of my book addresses this. My articles “do you need healing mental or physical” and “forget healthcare-look to God’ also are helpful.
1prophetspeaks.com
gene108
The problem with mental health, in dealing with people who clearly need hospitalization, is the fact so few people know anything about what the laws are in getting people committed or who to contact for an evaluation. If you have a family member or friend, who is bugging out, there really isn’t a clear way to have them rushed to the hospital for evaluation.
If someone’s having a heart attack you call 911 and the ambulance comes.
There’s no parallel with mental illness.
With the lack of funding, there aren’t enough places to provide emergency service and fewer people to do at-home evaluations.
I really don’t know why so few people are aware of laws concerning having someone forcibly committed, but I had an uncle who is bi-polar and was bugging out badly. My cousin didn’t realize he could call his local hospital for them to send someone to his house and have him evaluated.
Hell, it took me a few phone calls to figure out the right agency to contact, but I know people who’ve worked in mental health and know you can have someone committed.
gene108
@LiberalTarian: Well said
gene108
@Eric U.:
I think part of the issue was with large mental hospitals, people were never released. They were committed and the psychiatric profession decided, once a person was committed they could never be well again.
The improvements in medication and changes in treatment, from just drugging someone out, to a combination of therapy, group work, and medication has probably changed some of the problems an earlier generation had with involuntary commitment.
On a side note, once you are in an in-take / emergency center, for mental illness, my anecdotal experience is there isn’t much difference between voluntary and involuntary commitment. It’s still up to the psychiatrist you see at the hospital, if you are fit to be discharged.
If there was ever a problem more money could help solve, I think addressing mental health problems would be on the top of the list. More community based group homes, for when people get discharged, but aren’t able to care for themselves would be a good place to start. Paying the staff at these homes more than minimum wage would attract more people and help with retention.
Given the lack of funding, which is a key problem in providing adequate care for people with mental health problems and the unwillingness of states and local governments to invest more in mental health treatment, I think a profit motive may help push much needed money into the system.
Frankie T.
gene108: I don’t know what state you live in, but I’m pretty sure the scenario you described for having someone committed is not possible under California law. I’ve talked to a full range of mental health professionals in California (psychologists, psychiatrists, LCSW’s, MFT’s, physicians working at emergency intake facilities, etc), and to a person they have expressed extreme frustration about current legal standard for involuntary hospitalization and evaluation of a mentally ill person (“danger to themselves or others”). Several different mental health professionals told me that my only course of action for dealing with my psychotic wife is to call the police if her behavior appears dangerous. It is then up to the police to make a spot determination whether or not to 5150 her (i.e., take her in custody for an involuntary 72 hour psychiatric observation). In my personal experience, this process is totally ineffective for evaluating someone for treatment. What it does is put a manic and/or psychotic person under observation long enough for them to cool down and at least temporarily defuse the threat of “danger to themselves or someone else.” Any further action, such as additional observation and treatment, including medication, has to be initiated by a doctor and approved by a judge. In my wife’s case, the doctors basically pushed her out the door at the end of 72 hours once she said she didn’t feel suicidal any longer.
Brad
@morzer: I’ve met plenty of crazy people and none of them has been violent. Knowing nothing more than that your student had a thought disorder yet congratulating yourself about how “lucky we were that nothing bad happened” marks you as an uninformed bigot.
After all, stupid people don’t belong on campus either, yet no one fantasizes about the terrible things that might happen if one is accidentally admitted.