@IRFRANK,
Quote:So what is she to do? Lock him in a shed out back, then go to jail herself? Perhaps stab him? I don't understand that you expect. She is crying out for help. You don't understand how difficult it is to deal with a situation like this...
Yes, it is a difficult situation to deal with, but there are mental health facilities and programs available for emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children. It is not true that there is no help available. The problem is more difficult for a parent after the child turns 18 and becomes a legal adult, but there is help, including residential treatment, available for children--family court judges make remands to such facilities all the time.
I found this site by random, but it shows some of the types of services available in this particular geographical area.
http://www.mpnncsb.org/yfs_faq.php
Quote:We closed the mental health facilities because there was no money to be made there.
The facilities that were mainly closed were the long-term state psychiatric hospitals, many of which were doing nothing more than warehousing patients, for indefinite periods, often under very poor conditions. And lack of profit was not the reason these hospitals were shut down, or the length of stay was limited. There was an improvement in the efficacy of the drugs used to treat psychoses, so management of these disorders became better and care could be shifted from a hospital to a less restrictive community setting. But, more importantly, there was greater recognition of the rights of the mentally ill, including their right not to be civilly incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals, for indefinite periods, for merely custodial care. So there was a shift toward hospital care mainly to address acute problems, and a greater reliance on community programs like adult group homes, adult day care, and out-patient treatment.
I don't think the problem is a lack of treatment facilities or options for the mentally ill, I think it's a refusal by insurers to pay for needed or appropriate services with a consequent reliance on less effective methods because they may be the most cost-conserving for insurers. So, for instance, there has been more reliance on medication, and less willingness to pay for long-term therapy, even though long-term talk therapy may be the treatment of choice, with or without adjunct medication.
In the context of our current discussion, I think the mental health issue is relevant only to try to keep guns out of the hands of those who might be too impaired to use them responsibly. But I really don't think we can blame the problem with gun violence in this country on a lack of mental health treatment options, or only on gun use by people who are mentally ill. We have a systemic problem with violence in this country, and more guns, and more powerful guns, that are essentially weapons of mass destruction, not only fail to address that problem, they actually increase the problem. Guns only make it easier for people to act, and react, with violence, in fact they encourage and facillitate it, which is why the problem continues to escalate.
A meaningful discussion does have to include the "gun issue", including the easy availability of weapons of mass destruction, as well as a more general consideration of how we are promoting violence in our culture, and how to deal with violence, and minimize it, and how to promote better solutions, and better alternatives, for resolving problems than violent actions and reactions.
