Posted on 04/22/2007 8:45:27 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Federal privacy and antidiscrimination laws restrict how universities can deal with students who have mental health problems.
For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about their children’s problems without the student’s consent. They cannot release any information in a student’s medical record without consent. And they cannot put students on involuntary medical leave, just because they develop a serious mental illness.
Nor is knowing when to worry about student behavior, and what action to take, always so clear.
“They can’t really kick someone out because they’re writing papers about weird topics, even if they seem withdrawn and hostile,” said Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services at Harvard University. “Most state laws are pretty clear: you can only bring students to hospitals if there is imminent risk to themselves or someone else, so universities are in a bit of a bind that way.”
But, he said, some schools do mandate limited amounts of treatment in certain circumstances
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
““The cure is moral standards, strong community values, vigorous religious organizations and intolerance of violent antisocial behavior.”
Won’t do a thing to correct conditions such as bipolar which are caused by chemical imbalances. For some it can help but for many a drug such as lithium can work miracles.
“Mental illness is not a right of passage.”
I have no earthly idea what this sentence means.
Not all families are positive. Not all parents are mature, healthy and competent. This is not a politically determined opinion, it is a fact and such families are not rare.
The laws that released the mentally ill from institutions were incremental and politically determined. The progressives can now deal with the unintended consequences, but R D Laing and Thomas Szasz bear a lot of the blame. Laing is dead, but IIRC, Szasz is still around, yet I never see his name in the news and AFAIK, no one has thought to ask him about any of this, which is, of course, convenient.
As a parent of a soon-to-be 18 year old, medical privacy is an issue. In the case of a catastrophic medical event, the parent of an 18+ year old may not have access or influence of the medical decisions. I like to recommend for parents to have a medical power of attorney carefully drawn up for this situation.
I know of a woman who's daughter was in a coma due to an accident, and ran into problem even getting information of her condition until the legal stuff was worked out. Young adults need their privacy over routine health care, but the HIPPA laws are a problem in case of an real emergency.
I have no earthly idea what this sentence means.
Then you have not been privy to contemporary youth culture with its many lifestyle addictions.
Homosesuality is another mental abherration to which its adherents insist upon a right of expression. Another is political pathologies such as green, antiwar, animal rights, global warming, Bush hatred, and their ilk.
These are all self induced mental and emotional pathologies the intent of which is to damage the cultural fiber.
While there are links between brain chemistry and certain conditions such as schizophrenia it is not clear whether the tail is wagging the dog. Poor social constructs are likewise included in the mix.
My thesis is really very simple. Much of our difficulty in dealing with mental illness derives from our unwillingness to put the brakes on abherrant behavior early in the game. We allow cognative and behavioral dissonance to get far out of hand before we are willing to take a strong hand at insisting upon acceptable thinking and behavior.
We are a culture that permits far more dissonance than is good for us. This can only result in legal constraints being imposed where community standards are not working. Thus we come to rely on government to do what free people should do.
I can see where administrators would see that as a prank that doesnt endanger the dorm residents. It wouldnt be considered arson, would it?
But setting fire to a dorm room is different. And in Virginia, setting fire to a public building is a felony. If the school brass had reported it to the police, Cho would not have been able to buy a gun (legally). You can argue that he could have found one illegally, but that might not have been so easy for a guy who didnt talk.
LIBERALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We generally consider it a prank, but if one of those fireworks sets off the sprinkler system, and they have before by jumping around and getting too close to the sprinkler head, then all of the sprinklers from that floor down are set off. It’s a great system and works like its supposed to: by flooding each room, which destroys everyone’s books and electronics.
But I can see where the situation’s different. The first case of a fire in a dorm room is malice, the second case is stupidity. But after being an RA and stuff, I now just how hard it can be to kick people out of Housing, let alone the university. Thankfully, mine DOES kick people out, but even so it’s rather difficult.
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