Dateline: May 29, 2014
In the wake of yet another mass shooting by an obviously deranged college student at UC, Santa Barbara, America struggles with how to deal with the identification, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness – not to mention its very definition.
There was both good news and bad news buried in a comment by Pennsylvania Congressman & Clinical Psychologist Tim Murphy in response to this tragedy:
“The vast majority of violence and abuse in America is not the result of mental illness.”
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NOTE: Statistics on mass killings since 2006 are compiled at the following USA Today website:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/16/mass-killings-data-map/2820423/
SUMMATION: On average, a mass killing occurs in the US every two weeks.
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The good news from Congressman Murphy’s observation was that everybody with mental illness does not need to be sent into lock-down. The bad news was that most of the rest of us probably do!
… which raises a compelling conjecture …
There’s an important but very fuzzy distinction between “clinical” and “sub-clinical” pathology – not to mention more deferential aberrations that may seem a little off-the-wall but “within normal limits”. Over time, nature has, in fact, endowed us all with the reserve capacity to function at a fairly “normal” level while, in fact, being significantly compromised. Cancer cells can be present in the body for many years before they become sufficiently manifest to cause functional calamity. Cardiovascular disease is actually detectable for decades before manifesting a “clinical pathology”.
My personal suspicion is that sub-clinical mental insalubrity is equally or even more prevalent but better camouflaged.
And what about those precious few “normal” souls – maybe even including some of US – who, being regularly bombarded by vested interests, come to believe … and act upon … completely trumped up assertions about trolls and trappings that need to command our attention?
[Point to Ponder]
[On what basis did you vote in the most recent election?
Do you realize that folks like Homer Simpson and Archie Bunker
actually DO exist … actually DO vote … and help determine the outcome of elections?]
At what point does bias/prejudice/bigotry weigh in as a sub-clinical pathology?
And at what point does simple or not-so-simple naiveté – refractory, defiant or otherwise?
“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
John F. Kennedy
We’re better than that!
We can DO better than that.
“A man who does not suspect his own sanity …
who does not question his own assumptions and assertions …,
and who does not regularly make the effort to identify
and corral/correct errant thought
isn’t doing due diligence.”
Quartermaster
We will do better !
