Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

the way your mind works is to do with your upbringing, and many other factors presumably.

an anti-abortion activist who believed in murdering someone who had an abortion would be mentally ill imo.

xpost

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

Every day there are stories in the U.S. media saying that the mentally ill are being incarcerated instead of being "treated". What is the treatment? It certainly isn't therapy for the traumas of being poor, minority, or abused. There's no acknowledgment of the role of family life or abuse in these people's lives. If they are not incarcerated, they get medication. That's it.

That's not even close to it. Some get nothing. Some somehow keep it together. Some self-medicate. Some fixate on fetishistic objects, and sometimes those fetishistic objects can kill people quickly.

Mental health care in the US sucks. Gun laws in the US suck. The culture of celebrating a good ass-kicking in the US sucks. Those are all factors in the rise of men shooting lots of people at once in the US, and it is necessary to address all of them. Only one of those factors -- the gun laws -- would be sufficient to reduce the number of such shootings in our lifetimes.

I don't think potential killers are the type to seek mental health treatment, they're too narcissistic for that. Not that psychiatrists or "mental health professionals" can help them. I don't think mental health "professionals" have the ability to prevent crime and I think it is meaningless to say that killers are "mentally ill", given what that term means in the culture.

In the US we have a violent culture that probably encourages gun violence as a solution to an isolated mind that can't relate well to others.

Look at the way this guy in Virginia talked about himself.

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

Neither of these statements are true.

there certainly exists a nefarious trend of pill-pushing/over-medicating in USA but that's another thread

TWU otm

2 dead 2 wounded in my home town :(

https://twitter.com/search?q=salinas+shooting&ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Esearch

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

Neither of these statements are true.

They're true because I've been told so by mental health professionals. I investigated the matter of treatment for victims of violence. I was told that same stuff by about five professionals I talked to - including a psychiatric nurse.

I don't know why you think I would lie about such a thing.

It is extremely easy to get depression and bipolar medication. You can even get it if you're on public health. You can get it if you lie or exaggerate symptoms.

The same isn't true for victims of violence, PTSD, or grief. Have fun making those phone calls.

I sought therapy for both grief and trauma. I was not referred to a psychiatrist. Ergo, I kinda know what I'm talking about.

Outpatient, non-psychiatric, non-medicated mental health care is considered "routine care" by my insurance company, which is one of the largest in the country.

This is not the thread for this, but please stop making declarative statements about things that are clearly more complicated than you apparently think they are.

Then you have some sort of health insurance that most people can't afford.

Many inner-city people suffer from PTSD but damned if some middle-class therapist will treat them for it. They can get loads of meds for their "mental health" issue at any public clinic.

I was told by more than one therapist that one needs depression meds to go with any counseling, or you don't get counseling. That is how ordinary health plans work for us working-class folks.

even if those statements were true it wouldn't be right to allow them to narrow the definition of the term "mentally ill".

xpost

I M Losted, what you are saying is not universally true. I've gone to public clinics and medication is suggested but ultimately voluntary, never required for psychotherapy and counseling. Have not personally seen such a case. Will admit there's collusion between Big Pharma and psychiatrists, but I haven't yet encountered aggressive behavior from the general practitioners and psychologists you have to see before reaching a psychiatrist in a clinic.

an anti-abortion activist who believed in murdering someone who had an abortion would be mentally ill imo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/science/the-mind-of-those-who-kill-and-kill-themselves.html

I suspect pharmaceuticals are more likely a contributing factor to many of these incidents than potentially the solution

― rip van wanko, Thursday, August 27, 2015 10:55 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Prescription opiods still kill 2x more people than illegal drugs like heroin or cocaine. I'm sure the number of people they harm psychologically is up there with the hard stuff as well.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

I think we're more likely to fix Big Pharma before the gun laws but who knows.

OTC drugs kill 5x more than cocaine, which is available only from shady ass people in alleyways.

Maybe not OTC but prescription. As in you get them from a counter at Publix.

Okay it's getting a little off-topic, but then again it started because I was reading too many RW gun nut tweets saying we didn't have a gun problem, we had a mental health problem.

Anyway, I live in a working- and lower-class urban community, and we had some traumatizing and violent incidents, during which I, as an activist, did some research on "mental health" services in the community. TWO clinics for poor people within a twenty-square-mile area, and, from phone calls, NO psychologists unless you were solidly middle-class and had a plan to cover it. The two poor people clinics, to whom I was referred to BY THE STATE, strictly offered psychiatric services under the name "mental health". Go to an emergency room because you're distressed, you'll be shot full of meds & prob hospitalized at least a week. Those people don't care if you have grief, trauma or abuse. They exist to treat SICKNESS.

I don't agree with that. At least, I can see the logic in it - if a)you believe in just execution and b)you see abortionists as mass murderers of people (the fetuses we're talking about) then the moral calculus of murdering them to save the lives of countless "innocent" fetuses is easy.

not sure appointing yourself the executioner is the behaviour of someone of sound mind, even if i leave the "believe in just execution" part alone.

Yeah if you believe in a) then you don't really need any justification, you can literally decide who lives and dies, since you define was "just" is.

Also keep in mind once it is out of the womb the child is on it's own NO FREE RIDES =/= a moral foundation rmde

Prescription opiods still kill 2x more people than illegal drugs like heroin or cocaine. I'm sure the number of people they harm psychologically is up there with the hard stuff as well.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

I think we're more likely to fix Big Pharma before the gun laws but who knows.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau)

prescription opioids basically are heroin. and they kill people because people use them recreationally, people who weren't prescribed them. they are in many areas easier to come by then heroin. they are not really oversubscribed ime, doctors tend to be weary unless to subscribe opiates to anyone who isn't in severe pain. the psychological effects they have id imagine have little to nothing to do with random acts of murder.

have seen benzodiazepines (valium, klonopin and the like), which are oversubscribed for anxiety etc. linked with violence, but never with mass-killing (to my knowledge).

why are you guys arguing about mental illness/treatment. guns are the problem.

the only problem

in a thread about spree shootings, yes

Regardless of a direct link it is illustrative of an anxious, depressed, unstable populace.

Maybe the best solution is everyone can have guns but the bullets go really slow like in Gradius so you can easily dodge them.

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

this is an outright lie, btw

You will be referred to your nearest retailer more like it.

They're true because I've been told so by mental health professionals. I investigated the matter of treatment for victims of violence. I was told that same stuff by about five professionals I talked to - including a psychiatric nurse.

really? really really? I'm a mental health professional (a former psych nurse tbrr) and if you sought therapy, I'd refer you to a therapist, like literally every other mental health worker I've ever known

don't speak on shit you don't know shit about. most mental health professionals believe in therapy; psychiatry can be a useful adjunct, and if you ask for a referral, they'll give you one. but quit talking out your ass about this stuff.

Let’s worry tomorrow about the problem of Evil. Let’s worry more about making sure that when the Problem of Evil appears in a first-grade classroom, it is armed with a penknife.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-simple-truth-about-gun-control

why are you guys arguing about mental illness/treatment. guns are the problem.

― Οὖτις

because this is a thread on the internet.

if we want to really avoid extraneous/superfluous discussion then we should just lock this thread because these massacres happen because of guns, but the majority of americans are against gun control, and in fact that majority is larger than it was pre-columbine, and this is going to keep happening for the rest of our lives.

but the majority of americans are against gun control

depends what you mean by gun control

also acting like the issue is decided cedes victory to the NRA, so I would say don't do it

repeal the 2nd Amendment everybody! Donate to groups with this as their goal.

that's a great long-term goal. in the short-term, fund metal health, because it's glaringly, unbelievably obvious that people who shoot a bunch of people in public are mentally ill

mental health, even

Why would you refer someone to a therapist if it wasn't in their almighty health insurance.

I grant that psychiatric nurses are experts on life in the ghetto. Real economic justice advocates, those people. Especially when they can't name the symptoms of grief, as the one I talked to couldn't distinguish between exogenous and endogenous depression.

Certainly not talking out of my ass when it comes to navigating the health care system.

Enjoy your cushy health insurance.

...

Also, if they are mentally ill, exactly how ought those brilliant social activists in psychiatry supposed to treat them?

I'm sure incipient gunmen have really good health insurance.

can this convo please go to another thread

ffs

Enjoy your cushy health insurance.

I pay a third of my household's monthly income for health insurance but pay mental health out of pocket, so go fuck yourself

you know literally nothing, hold your tongue

I M Losted, it sounds like you've done some great research. did you publish it anywhere?

you know literally nothing, hold your tongue

this is some supreme cold phrasing

I thank you

Why would I hurt people in my community by publishing about our collective trauma? I was trying to get badly needed counseling services, not broadcast our community's travails to an unconcerned professional community.

I think publications like Mother Jones have done good work in health care in low-income communities, not that too many people care.

Research was for a potential lawsuit, not for publication.

I M Losted isn't a troll exactly but uh this is p par for the course ime

xp

stop responding to them ffs

h**p://gawker.com/this-is-a-good-newspaper-front-page-1726946476

lol @ this bullshit (CW: contains images from the shooter's video)