Recently, our nation was wracked by a series of massacres, first in California, then Texas and finally Ohio. The resulting conversation has touched on a host of potential solutions, including expanding treatment options for people with mental illness.
To our knowledge, none of the perpetrators of these recent attacks have been diagnosed with psychotic disorders. Current reporting points to these being incidents of domestic terrorism and not the result of untreated serious mental illness.
However, because the debate has turned to mental illness, the Treatment Advocacy Center reiterates and emphasizes the need for systematic reforms to the U.S. mental healthcare system, as we know far too many continue to suffer without care.
It is impossible to discuss the need for mental health reform without acknowledging the shameful context in which the conversation is occurring. Our country continues to ignore mental illness unless and until a moment of tragedy strikes. That sort of reaction, by its very definition, leads to uninformed and often shortsighted solutions.
The Treatment Advocacy Center and the families that support us have been making the same case for reform for two decades, providing solutions that work to address both violence and the host of other devastating consequences of non-treatment that are too rarely part of the national conversation: suicide, homelessness, criminalization, victimization.
Those solutions cannot take root if the need only sees light in the midst of tragedy. President Trump, Senator Sanders, law enforcement and other leaders have all raised the need for mental health reforms. But real solutions require dedicated attention. We cannot address the loss of psychiatric treatment beds, the over-reliance on law enforcement to handle psychiatric emergencies, or chronic homelessness if the issues only surface as a response to devastating headlines.
In this context, I wanted to share a link to a guest editorial that our founder, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, published today in the Wall Street Journal. The paper has a paywall, but we have placed the text of the piece on our website, here.
We know that, in today's polarized media environment, the complexities and nuances of Dr. Torrey's argument may be lost, but we also know how important it is to utilize every opportunity to highlight the consequences of the dysfunctional mental health treatment system in America.
I hope you will join us in educating local and national media outlets about how untreated severe mental illness has affected your family, so that the public discussion continues, even when the current fervor subsides.
