12-18-2012, 01:04 AM
The underlying mental health issues are huge.
I run a family medical practice, and finding care for a juvenile is almost impossible unless you are in a major metropolitan area. I've had patients who I ended up sending 200 miles to get care.
Many of the issues could be improved with better parenting skills, but that is not the whole issue, and we don't have a parental support system to teach those skills.
We made a huge mistake closing mental health facilities when we developed psychotropic meds, because there is a real percentage of people who MUST be treated long term in facility for their safety and the safety of others. Unfortunately, we don't have anywhere close to the required space any longer. So we give them drugs and wait for them to make a mistake big enough to send them to prison, which has turned into our largest population of mentally ill people. (There are a significant number of prisoners who fake mental illness to get the freedom that even one visit a week or a month to a psychiatrist offers.)
I run a family medical practice, and finding care for a juvenile is almost impossible unless you are in a major metropolitan area. I've had patients who I ended up sending 200 miles to get care.
Many of the issues could be improved with better parenting skills, but that is not the whole issue, and we don't have a parental support system to teach those skills.
We made a huge mistake closing mental health facilities when we developed psychotropic meds, because there is a real percentage of people who MUST be treated long term in facility for their safety and the safety of others. Unfortunately, we don't have anywhere close to the required space any longer. So we give them drugs and wait for them to make a mistake big enough to send them to prison, which has turned into our largest population of mentally ill people. (There are a significant number of prisoners who fake mental illness to get the freedom that even one visit a week or a month to a psychiatrist offers.)
You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live. - John Galt