luvsJack
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2007
I am a mental health professional & know many others in the profession...and it’s just NOT the simple. If it were, it would be done. Psychology & psychiatry are not exact sciences. It is not easy to tell who will or won’t do something. No mental health professional would agree to commit a kid for the rest of his life no matter how disturbed his writing is. I’ve worked in facilities where professionals couldn’t even agree on freedoms that should be allowed a resident in the facility b/c some thought they were more dangerous than others,etc. While it’s usually not surprising when someone like Lanza does something like this due to his history that is very different from accurately predicting beforehand that he would. Mentally ill ppl still have rights. Just b/c someone writes or says things like he did, does not mean he will do anything. Many ppl never act upon their thoughts/delusions. In mental health, the agreed upon thought is the biggest predictor of future behavior is current behavior. According to current info, this kid hadn’t done anything before. I would not want to live in a society where we lock up ppl b/c of something they might do. See 1984 & the thought police.
Again, it was said that the guy needed medication before the tragedy. It may not have stopped anything but it may have. So here is where we are, we could have taken away his mother’s right to own a gun or take away his freedom to not receive treatment. Which do we do?
What’s the answer?
Of course we can’t just lock up people wily nily, and I never said anything about the rest of his life.
How many things did the kid say or write that were cries for help? Or at least huge red flags? We don’t want to be the thought police, I give you that, but at what point does it become apparent that someone needs more help than a weekly session is going to do? And obviously they aren’t going to choose to get that help, so we wait until they take action to prove their are immediate danger?