Addressing mental illness

We have another tragedy concerning the mentally ill in the killing of young Steven Henning.

Add him to the tragedies of Tucson, Colorado, Virginia Tech, Newtown and Washington D.C. Why weren’t these people in treatment?

Was a crisis person called after the police responded to Henning’s parents? And they were right to call 911 because crisis people no longer go to homes. If one was called, why wasn’t he transferred to Pathways or the state hospital instead of jail with bail posted?

Before the mid-70s it was relatively easy to get an obviously ill person into treatment. Witness the many times John Nash of “A Beautiful Mind” was hospitalized and stabilized.

But in 1975 Congress passed the “Americans with Disabilities Act” which allocated money for a cadre of lawyers in every state to make sure the developmentally disabled were not warehoused without due process. In Montana the lawyers were called MAP (Montana Advocacy and Protection). Now they’re called Disability Rights. 

In the early 80’s the mentally ill were added to the Protection and Advocacy groups; with this addition determination of illness and need for treatment passed from the medical profession to the legal profession. So no one could be treated involuntarily unless imminently dangerous — meaning in most cases aiming a gun and ready to shoot.

But why do so many obviously ill people refuse treatment? 

About 50 percent of people with schizophrenia (or schizoaffective disorder) and about 40 percent of people with bipolar disorder have a condition “anosognosia”  literally not knowing.  This is a deviation in the right frontal lobe making it impossible for them to recognize their delusions, paranoia, hallucinations, and behavior are contrary to reality. And even after treatment, if they get it, they may think, “Hey, I’m cured. I don’t need the meds any more.”

Freudian theory that mental illnesses were caused by societal pressures played a role in these laws and attitudes. But research on the brain, which is ongoing, has shown conclusively that serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and now PTSD are biological.   

Drugs like marijuana, acid, and meth can trigger and exacerbate, but the underlying biological susceptibility is there.

The 2013 Montana legislature passed HB16 which relaxes the criteria for a 72 hour hold for perceived mental illness. Time will tell how mental health personnel utilize the law.

— Mitzi Anderson was president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Montana chapter from 1997-2000