Adam Lanza lived with his mother in the expensive house she retained after her divorce. She didn't need to work and could spend her time and money on buying guns and shooting them at a target range and getting expensive landscaping done at her house.

Psychiatric care would have been affordable but her son was apparently not sent for care as an adolescent and did not go once he turned eighteen.

The problem here is NOT finanacial access but legal and family issues. You can't force an adult to seek psychiatric care and if a parent doesn't recognize this as a problem when the individual is under 18, again there is nothing society can do.

However now is as good as a time as any to address/bring light to what Dr. Hagman speaks of.

Is the average psychiatrist / psychologist equipped to deal with these issues?

...to the nth degree! Roslyn Carter got such a good start on the Mental Health system in this country, but in came Reagan and tore it all apart. I will never ever forgive Ronald W. Reagan for what he did. We need to reopen a Mental Health Agency in this country, along with enacting strict gun regulation. Another thing that might help is an anonymous Hotline to report irrational & dangerous behavior. And for God's sake, hold parents/gun owners responsible when their guns land in the hands of others who reek havoc and kill people with their guns!

I think of Klebold and Harris; Seung-Hui Cho; Jared Loughner; James Holmes; and Adam Lanza.
(Examples just off the top of my head.)

When they committed their crimes, these individuals who were in (or had been very recently) in very 'middle class' and/or academic environments where mental health services were available --- indeed, some of them had been inside or identified (to one degree or another) the mental health system.

Surely, we can indeed and ought to provide more resources to mental health care ... however, it seems to me that there is something disturbing about trying to lay-off these mass slaughters to just crazy guys who slip through the cracks. It concerns me that the gun fetishists will agree with the premise that it is not the gun per se, but is an unpreventable action that occurs when an 'evil' crazy person decides to kill.

(I've seen this on Facebook already: "Evil does not exist within a gun. It exists in the minds and hearts of those who pull the trigger for evil purposes.&quot

There is a bigger picture problem in our society that may not be dealt with if this growing problem of gun-enabled mass slaughter is just attributed to 'crazy' individuals and that all we need to do is hire more psychologists and do much more close tracking of Facebook posts (I say that only half factitiously).

We've got a 'culture of violence' problem and a 'tools' of mass slaughter problem in this country -- that's what we've got to deal with and that is going to be uncomfortable not only for the gun nuts, but for liberal defenders of the popular culture, too.

Last edited Sun Dec 16, 2012, 02:07 PM - Edit history (1)

doesn't mean you can afford it. people say this woman should have had her kid put in a home. except that costs more than her annual alimony of 300K.

insurance might pay for two months and spit you out, or up to six doctor visits a year. paying for real care would bankrupt the average middle class family.

the system is a total failure.

I'm also pro gun control, it's not hard to be both.

but would also point out, I am in the mental health field, that access to mental health care is not the same as receiving effective mental health care. We know a lot more about what works to help people than ever reaches the actual mental health patient. This would never fly in physical medicine, but for some reason mental health gets away with an amazing amount of half-assed treatment.

Having said that, there's a certain percentage of these people you are not going to reach with ANYTHING.

But there's still a dangerous gun fetish in America, also.

Or the wrong kind. They've been telling us all the suicide and homicide committed by returning veterans might be from a rise in anti-depressants... so which is it?

As with any illness, each person responds to different drugs in a different way.

A good doctor carefully tries different drugs, or a combination of them, on a patient until the right balance is reached.

diagnosis" been confirmed? It's all speculation at this point. We are really lapping up what amounts to media driven gossip. We are truly becoming enablers to the lazy journalism the media whores are famous for.

All of this hasty judgement and what amounts to armchair prognosis & diagnosis, is simply BS absent of actual facts.

It may even turn out that the 20 year old was being treated with some pharmaceutical that has the added side effect of
causing suicidal tendencies. Has anyone thought about that? One of the more common side effects of some of these anti-depressants is suicidal tendencies which young adults are especially prone to. Wonder if we'll see that point ever covered in the media.

I see a lot of opinion strewn carelessly about, and very little is fact based at this point.
Whatever happened to waiting until all the facts are in?

Not to mention that "personality disorder" sure covers a lot of ground...add to that "might have".

Seemingly, we are lacking the ability to reason and comprehend the info we are being fed, better yet, the LACK of real info at this stage.

Patience and facts can make all the difference,

but we do know that the psychiatric care in this country is inadequate.

We know that psychiatrists don't have all the answers and do not know why some "personality disorders" come about. We know that the treatments we currently have available can have terrible side affects.

In short, we know much more research, funding and access to medical care is needed.

of handing out meds. In many of these cases, meds play a role, the ones especially that lead to suicide & killings because it is a known side effect of these pharmaceuticals. Studies by big pharma are not to be trusted, too much money is involved. And then we have the medical community, psychological services need oversight too, I won't even get started on that.

Is there any entity in this country that is what it should be?

Not to mention that the latest "news" is he had Asperger's Syndrome & was on medication. Asperger's is a form of autism, highly functional with social difficulties. Why the killing spree beginning with the mother? My gut reaction is to wonder about his medication.

Perhaps unfettered access to instruments of mass murder is the core problem?

Simplistically pointing the finger at mental illness as the cause of this is grotesquely unfair, especially in light of the fact that almost all of the mass murderers we've seen in these slaughters either had enough $$ for mental health care, or were already in mental health care.

The mentally ill aren't violent, any more than you or I, and trying to portray them as such is wrong imho.

The problem is the guns.

Difficulty is, there are a lot of things that contributed to Sandy Hook.

Some people want guns restricted. Some people would settle for much more invasive background checks. They see this as a crisis to leverage into more gun regulation.

Some people want better psych care. They see this as a tragedy that can be used to buttress their arguments for better psych care.

Some look at the conditions of the schools. They see this as an opportunity to improve security at schools.

Some look at the restrictions on the 2nd Amendment. They see this as an opportunity to allow more options for self-defense.

Others look at it more holistically and want US culture (or some subcultures) to be refashioned along the lines they'd prefer. They argue that this cries out for a radical reshaping and rethinking of American values.

"Ask not how you can help stop killings, ask what corpses can do for your agenda."

This is also the basis of a lot of the defenses. People are what they are, and the last thing they want is something taken away or to be insulted. The right to own or carry guns. Reputation. Dignity. Somebody's going to lose, and it had damned well be somebody else.

But for a complex problem any of the proposed solutions would help a bit. All you can do is try to reduce the killing. But you have to decide what you're willing to give up for it. (Most people are really eager to decide what others have to give up for it.)

Gun restrictions on gun ownership would help--no guns in the US, no chance to use them. Self-defense is a losing argument in polarized discourse--you can never convince those who don't want to be convinced, because you can never be absolutely sure beyond any doubt at all that a mass murder would have occurred in the absence of self defence. Lose a right, save lives.

More extensive background checks and other regulations to verify compliance would also help. If you're thoroughly checked out because all the records are centralized and available, if compliance is subject to on-site verification, then it would reduce the killing. How many lives is your privacy worth? Lose a right, save lives.

More health care is always a popular thing to say we deserve. In this case, it also loses because the kid had access to health care. Hence the "optimal" line in the OP--which isn't what you think. All the OP's examples of "improved" and "optimal" health care all boil down to "interventions"--the ability of the powers that be to take those who are judged to be a threat into custody for compulsory treatment. This used to be easier, but the right to due process and the requirement for clear evidence was made more stringent. But there's no doubt, committing Lanza would have saved lives even if it would impose on his personal freedom. Was Lanza's freedom worth the lives of those kids? Lose a right, save lives.

Lots of ways to save lives. Every way has a price. Prices others pay are just about always less than those we're asked to pay.

If the family is not going to give it then it should be more available in places like schools etc. The state must find ways to reach these people if their parents cant. As the other poster said these are complex problems. Thom Hartmann was talking about how countries that are more equal in their standing of living are the least violent. That would be a huge step.

She home schooled him.

We need to look at more extreme methods.

waay beyond the means of the average middle class family to handle. there is not, as you claim enough $$ for adequate mental health care for anything not easily handled by meds with compliant patients. benefits are severely limited, and programs scarce. some here actually think she could have plunked down her big dollars and have him committed before he did anything dangerous. DUers are finding out for the first time, that is just not possible- legally or financially. Education is a good thing.
What's more- these problems manifest themselves more frequently after age 18, leaving the family much more powerless than most could imagine. if this fellow would not get treatment, her options were severely limited. putting him out on the street is one. hiding him from the world was another. forcing treatment was not an option until something dangerous was about to occur. sadly she didn't have time to stop him. sad she didn't think to store her gun collection elsewhere.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/editorial/around-the-nation/myths-about-mass-shootings/article_bb9540bd-68d9-5dd4-9c5a-c8d718dd0f5a.html


5 myths about mass shootings

snip

With 12 dead and 58 injured, the July 20 massacre at the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo., is one of the largest mass shootings in U.S. history. Aurora is only 20 miles from Columbine High School, where seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 and injured 24 in 1999. We may think we know what makes the perpetrators of mass shootings -- mostly boys and men -- tick. Though psychology doesn't always lend itself to hard statistics, there are some surprising patterns.

1. Shooters are insane.

The 2002 Safe School Initiative report looked at 41 attackers across 37 incidents from 1974 to 2000. It concluded that only 17 percent "had been diagnosed with mental health or behavior disorder prior to the attack." Most had never had a mental health evaluation but 78 percent "exhibited a history of suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts."

Adult and teen shooters do not suddenly snap. Their anger and planning often develop over time. And the more they plan, the more an argument can be made, legally, that they are sane.

snip

By contrast, most experts (after his death) have declared Columbine shooter Eric Harris a psychopath. With that label, he could not have pleaded insanity because, while he would be seen as coldblooded, he would also be considered rational, calculating, aware of his actions.



I'm not disputing anything you've said. My sister's the director of a major county mental health operation in CA so we've had some discussions about this and she's given me data that has persuaded me differently than you, but I'm not claiming to be an expert. However the things I've read on the statistics and studies on these kinds of mass shootings don't appear to support your positions. Happy to be educated differently however...

admits that almost eighty percent exhibited a history of some disturbance and that many of these things are planned over time. My hubby is a family practice doc and it really is tough to get any help. There are waiting lists for almost every program, the costs are high, and families are under severe stress in many cases. You can Baker act someone for a short period of time but then they get put back out and then what? The mental health infrastructure really needs to be addressed and I feel should be a part of working for a solution. Peace, Mojo

YES, guns are a problem, but simply having access to them doesn't inspire in anyway, IN ANY WAY a person from systematically blowing away 20 children, shooting some 10+ times.

It's ridiculous to think the mere presence of the gun in ANY WAY contributed to the inner workings of a person even CONTEMPLATING such an act.

I am sorry, but it is mental health + access to guns. Connecticut has some of the most strict laws in the nation, the guns were legal...all laws were obeyed, until this kid lost the mental capacity for empathy when he slaughtered innocent, unsuspecting victims.

This problem is guns, mental health and the culture of our nation...one that is detestable and full of hatred, destruction, war, aggression and violence.

Five or six years ago I needed help badly. So I was referred to a psychiatrist in my small town. I remember very well going up to the window to check in with the clerk - and being told that I needed to pay up front, in full, or there would be no appointment (though they would still charge me full price for missing it). Full price, for a 45 minute appointment came to 350 dollars. This was in a very small town, with only one mental health organization that I know of. I had no insurance, so I had to pay up front in cash - or rather my parents did, because I could never have afforded it.

This so called Doctor sat with me for 45 minutes, asked me questions about my feelings and thoughts... and when I answered, attempted to diagnose me and prescribe me an anti-psychotic medication. I met his eye, got up out of my chair and threw the prescription in the trash bin. I left his office and never went back either to him or to the organization he worked for.

Some times the help can be nearly as bad as the problem. Mental health in America, particularly in regards to psychiatry... is heavily focused on treating symptoms through the use of powerful, mind altering drugs - that are often prescribed without much thought. Diagnosis is often given based on brief meetings without sufficient knowledge of medical history, biology, or even adequate knowledge of the patient's thoughts.

The focus (IMO) needs to be on understanding the factors which cause the illness, ruling out purely physical ailments (Heart disease, bronchitis, various forms of deficiency and toxicity etc.) that can mimic various forms of mental illness.... and actually finding a way to treat it or even cure it through regular appointments and responsible practices.

Frankly, given my more than fifteen years of experience with psychiatry and psychology in America... I have to say that I do not think highly of the practice. If we are going to heal the mind, we need to do more than alter it's chemical makeup for 350 bucks an hour.

Today there is no effective treatment because there is no structure for payment. As a result the supply of quality providers is very low. Psychiatrists don't really treat people; they evaluate symptoms and write prescriptions. Nobody works with the patient on the behavior issues that are the underpinnings for what follows.

Also, there must be a cultural component to this problem. Mentally sick women don't behave in this depraved manner. Virginia Tech was the only Asian I recall. The DC snipers and Fort Hood guy were black but those were a little different category than Columbine, Aurora or Sandy Hook. Plus, about 95% of these type of senseless killing rampages worldwide occur right here in the USA.

About the only thing we can be sure of is that nothing substantive will be done following this rampage. How do we know? Just look at the track record following any of the other rampage killings. We will simply continue to pay for it 20-30 lives at a time.

would've been COMPLETELY different at that school. Further, people would've tackled the hell out of this guy and brought him down. Against guns, there's nothing that can be done.

Yes, gun control is necessary but it is not the complete solution.

the only reason they entered the school and started shooting is because they were lousy bomb makers.

Their stated goal was to kill hundreds of students.

One trait of these mass killers is patience and meticulous planning. They will find away.

Which is why mental health care is so important.

are not the problem in this country? Please clarify. I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to say by this.

short of a total ban on all guns. Which is not going to happen.

So lets focus on things we can actually fix like mental health.

Cure them? Abolish mental illness?

Also, you seem to think that shooters of innocents can all classified as mentally ill. While we might wish to do that, that's not the case. Even if we did away with all mentally ill by whatever method you have in mind (putting them in places where they could be overseen?), the gun problem would persist. I classify gun owners as mentally ill, because anyone who feels he needs a weapon can't possibly well, however, I'm sure you might disagree with that.

the solution is pretty straight forward:

1. End the war on drugs to remove the financial incentive of drug gangs.

2. Empty the prisons of non-violent drug offenders thereby saving billions that can be spent on education and health care.

3. Focus the justice system on violent crimes and hammer anyone that uses a weapon in a crime - put violent people away for a long time.


Lets focus on the real killers in America.

and kills them. THEN he is a violent killer.

and lawful gun owners then we have nothing to talk about.

My town is just as safe as every other industrialized democracy 2 gun murders in a population of 60K in the last 15 years. We go years without a shooting - alcohol related deaths are unfortunately a common occurrence.

And it is the same for most of Rhode Island - like every state, gun violence is very geographically concentrated in poor urban neighborhoods struggling with gangs, drugs, poverty and despair.

Perhaps we need to fix the root causes of violence?

what the reason is that someone shot someone else here in this country and added to the constant gun problem. The fact is that all these have the gun in common, and the gun culture has got to stop.

This is the psychology equivalent of ambulance-chasing lawyers

Is Psychology helping, or are psychologists helping themselves?

If the nation focused on proper parenting in a loving environment
that created self-discipline and self-determination

we would have no personality disorders, and fewer mentally ill people.

Our food chain, TV, and video games are not helping.

Instead we have permissive parenting, absentee parenting, religious
parenting, indulgent parenting etc etc etc

In Columbine and this instance, we have a household of guns.

What we put into our kids should not be about material things.

We need to impart integrity, common sense, critical thinking.
And self-doubt, the ability to question ourselves and know our
own feelings.

Sadly, I'd bet the shooter in this case didn't doubt himself,
that he was doing the right thing, that he was entitled to do
what he did.

First of all, for all practical purposes there is no mental health care. We're still using Freud's theories, when some have shown that there are far better ways.

This is about emotional wellness. A low level thing that affects every person, not just those with major mental illness.

I swear the human race just wants to wallow in the stench of idiocracy. We CAN improve the human condition. But we might very well have to put a lot of time into caring and working with each other, and use the money that we spend on counterproductive killing machines, and spend it on the health INFRASTRUCTURE.

The real insanity is how we are using force to keep each other away. And how we're really just lazily polishing symptoms, when if we were really serious and responsible, we'd start putting our energy to work where it counts.

Emotional Health? Okaaaay....

I thought mental issues went beyond emotions. But I guess being PC is more important these days.

I am curious. Really. Are all mental health issues now called "emotional health" issues? How are the hospitals referred to?

It's time to change our context from being an arrogant, brutal country to one that is careful, sensitive, caring, helpful, healing.

Check out Alice Miller and the books she has written. Much of what I say comes from those. Even today psychotherapists are unwilling to accept her findings because they're so revealing and uncomfortable.

I consider mental illness to be organic, and emotional wellness something that is caused by stress, abuse, neglect.

with emotional trauma, there is a big difference between those two.

right in this country. The lack of mental health care access has been brought up everytime that someting like this has occured and nothing has been done about it. It sickens me to no end. This compounds the problem of access to combat rifles to the general public.

will improve our economy by helping ALL families cope better.

We have had problems in my family that turned out various way, some absolutely tragically, but one really did get better when they re-located her to Vermont where they really do have a much different culture about health care.

If anything it is the opposite. While this guy is very right about the problem faced by undeserved communities this case does nothing to highlight that.

Every time you hear of a suicide or a murder case where "a history of mental health problems" is the backdrop, there have probably been numerous people involved that were unable to "fix" the individual involved. Its not often from a lack of good intentions, and maybe not from a lack of money.

Chemical imbalances in the brain, childhood abuse, emotional neglect and isolation, broken families, one or all of the above might play a part.

Easy access to weapons that are designed to equip well-trained soldiers in a time of war with the ability to prevail in battle against numerous enemies...that's the last thing you want to give a troubled kids

The news story in relation to all the suicides and homicides among returning or ex military has consistently been about an INCREASE in antipsychotics and anti-depressants among veterans, and pediatric anti-depressant prescriptions are on the rise. So which is it experts? Is it that you want to sell us more drugs, irregardless? It's always that you want to sell us more.

during the JEB Bush administration. It was a "cost saving measure". Florida saved a whole bunch of money by turning those persons in several mental hospitals back into their communities. I'm not sure if this line of thinking applies to the current tragedy, but I am sure that if we don't provide anything but guns to these people with "problems" we will continue to rely on the police to "treat" them.

The Aurora, CO killer was also receiving psychiatric treatment at the time he committed his massacre.

And the Fort Hood shooter was a psychiatrist.

The germane issue we need to deal with as far as these shootings is concerned is preventing disturbed people from having access to firearms.

Making treatment available to a troubled introvert can be quite difficult, as asking for help is (sadly, obviously) a fate worse than death for some.

I personally think that the gun issue is intractable and will remain so for hundreds of years to come. We simply have to acknowledge that they are here forever and if we try to take them away, we will wind up arming the very people we seek to disarm while also disarming everyone else.

I think instead we need to be teaching, from an early age, tactics designed to teach people the importance of using cover (not concealment) and working collectively to evacuate the vulnerable from the scene while others work to overpower and disarm a potential assailant. Those tactics won't work if everyone has a gun--then it becomes a military tactical question and civilians always suck at those. I don't know what unarmed crowd tactics are or what they are called, but we all need to learn them and practice them together, in schools.

This is an awful thing to say, but I think it's true: if an aspiring mass murderer knows he's going to eventually be torn apart by the very people he seeks to harm before he can enjoy the luxury of his own suicide or death-by-cop, that person will think harder, and hopefully better, of what he wants to do. That might provide the motivation to seek treatment, when other options do not.

I think that is more the problem. We need an overhaul of our mental health care approach. As it is, all they do is push drugs for the pharmas.

that we have tragedy after tragedy of this nature, yet seem to lack the will to do anything about it really.
Less easy access to automatic weapons, more help for those most likely to do these horrible things would be a a start, I think. I don't pretend to be smart enough to come up with a one size fits all solution, but something needs to be done about mental illness and access to the guns designed to quickly kill many.
In my neighborhood we have not had mass shootings like this, thankfully. But, the increase of crimes committed by mentally ill (homeless usually), like the rape of an elderly Bird Watcher in Central Park, or the father pushed on to the subway tracks to die horribly really highlight the need to care for each other. Yes, changing the way we treat guns and people is needed--it will cost money, it may cost some freedoms. But won't it be worth it to try to prevent the slaughter of innocents?

... what happens in someones mind that they decide to commit mass murder and then commit suicide?

I don't have an answer.

Of course we have to find away to better care for the mentally ill.

spend small fortunes on stuff that doesn't work.

system. That trend is continuing now. nt

uncle said he was on powerful drug which has side affects that make some people want to hurt others

perhaps the mental health 'care' IS the problem

I agree with Dr. Hagman but there should be broader afford to heal society than just trying to single out every individual.