WiccanLiberal
12-29-2012, 07:37 PM
"(Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/video/reuters-tv?videoId=238165734&videoChannel=118066&lc=int_mb_1001)) - Lori, a 39-year-old mother in New Jersey, would like to save for the usual things: college, retirement, vacations. But those goals are far down her wish list. For now, she and her husband are putting aside money (http://www.reuters.com/video/reuters-tv?videoId=238669148&videoChannel=118066&lc=int_mb_1001) for a home alarm system. They're not worried about keeping burglars out. They need to keep their son in.
Mike, 7, began seeing a psychiatrist in 2009, after one pre-school kicked him out for being "difficult" and teachers at the public school he later attended were worried about his obsessive thoughts and extreme anxiety. He was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
As she keeps trying to get help for him, "I am learning firsthand how broken the system is when dealing with mental illness," said Lori. (Surnames of patients and their families have been withheld to protect their privacy.)
"We fight with doctors, our insurance company, educators, each other; the list goes on and on ... It isn't even a system. It's not like there's a call center to help you figure out what to do and how to get help."
Last week, the National Rifle Association blamed mass shootings such as that at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on the lack of a "national database of the mentally ill," who, it claimed, are especially prone to violence.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum, professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at Columbia University, disagrees, however. "Gun violence is overwhelmingly not about mental illness," he said. "The best estimate is that about 95 percent of gun violence is committed by people who do not have a diagnosis of mental illness."
But experts on mental illness agree with one implication of the NRA's argument: families trying to get help for a loved one with mental illness confront a confusing, dysfunctional system that lacks the capacity to help everyone who needs it - and that shunts many of the mentally ill into the criminal justice system instead of the healthcare system."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/29/us-usa-shooting-mentalyill-idUSBRE8BS07O20121229
This article only reiterates the problem that has been in existence for 40 years. When it became apparent that the mental health management in this country was trampling on the civil rights of patients, the pendulum swung completely the other way. Our current model protects neither patients not the rest of society. Certainly not all the mentally ill are dangerous but how do we protect those that are from themselves and protect ourselves from those that become homicidal? If this were about a cancer being undiagnosed and untreated and affecting as many people as mental illness does, there would be enormous effort and attention given to the matter. Yet something so insidious that mars the lives of so many is virtually ignored until a homicidal rage spreads it over the front page of the newspapers. I certainly don't have an answer but I do think a little effort might have a big effect if correctly directed. Maybe a good starting place is to train more primary care providers in recognition of symptoms and awareness of already available resources.
Mike, 7, began seeing a psychiatrist in 2009, after one pre-school kicked him out for being "difficult" and teachers at the public school he later attended were worried about his obsessive thoughts and extreme anxiety. He was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
As she keeps trying to get help for him, "I am learning firsthand how broken the system is when dealing with mental illness," said Lori. (Surnames of patients and their families have been withheld to protect their privacy.)
"We fight with doctors, our insurance company, educators, each other; the list goes on and on ... It isn't even a system. It's not like there's a call center to help you figure out what to do and how to get help."
Last week, the National Rifle Association blamed mass shootings such as that at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on the lack of a "national database of the mentally ill," who, it claimed, are especially prone to violence.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum, professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at Columbia University, disagrees, however. "Gun violence is overwhelmingly not about mental illness," he said. "The best estimate is that about 95 percent of gun violence is committed by people who do not have a diagnosis of mental illness."
But experts on mental illness agree with one implication of the NRA's argument: families trying to get help for a loved one with mental illness confront a confusing, dysfunctional system that lacks the capacity to help everyone who needs it - and that shunts many of the mentally ill into the criminal justice system instead of the healthcare system."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/29/us-usa-shooting-mentalyill-idUSBRE8BS07O20121229
This article only reiterates the problem that has been in existence for 40 years. When it became apparent that the mental health management in this country was trampling on the civil rights of patients, the pendulum swung completely the other way. Our current model protects neither patients not the rest of society. Certainly not all the mentally ill are dangerous but how do we protect those that are from themselves and protect ourselves from those that become homicidal? If this were about a cancer being undiagnosed and untreated and affecting as many people as mental illness does, there would be enormous effort and attention given to the matter. Yet something so insidious that mars the lives of so many is virtually ignored until a homicidal rage spreads it over the front page of the newspapers. I certainly don't have an answer but I do think a little effort might have a big effect if correctly directed. Maybe a good starting place is to train more primary care providers in recognition of symptoms and awareness of already available resources.