Science Calling sickos "sickos" stigmatizes sickos - CNN objects to calling the sicko a sicko

Trump's language on school shooter's mental health could be harmful, experts say
Story highlights
  • President Trump called the Parkland high school shooter a "sicko"
  • Studies show that most people with mental illness are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators
(CNN)In a tweet Thursday, President Donald Trump described someone who would shoot up a school as a "savage sicko." At CNN's town hall on the Parkland, Florida, school shootings on Wednesday, NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch described the gunman as "an insane monster" who is "nuts" and crazy." And at a White House briefing Thursday, the President again used the term "sicko."

The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, struggled with depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, according to a 2016 Florida Department of Children and Families report. But having a mental health diagnosis does not mean he would become violent, many experts say. And although Trump has said he wants to focus on mental health to stop school shootings, calling Cruz a "sicko" doesn't help, those experts claim.

"When it comes to mental health, language really matters. This is not about being politically correct. It's about wanting to do everything we can to encourage people to get health treatment that works," said Ron Honberg, senior policy adviser with the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Getting treatment is a challenge for the majority of people. Though 25% of the world's population has at one time experienced a mental or behavioral disorder, the

World Health Organization
says, only 44% of adults with diagnosable mental health problems and less than 20% of children and adolescents get the needed treatment, according to

MentalHealth.gov.
Studies have shown that people do not get help, in part, due to the stigma.


"Hearing language like this is a punch to the gut, particularly if we have a goal as a nation to increase access to mental health care," Honberg said. "This is about the worst thing you can do."

MentalHealth.gov, a federal website, cautions against using stigmatizing labels like "crazy."

"How helpful is calling a black person the n-word? Not only is it disrespectful, it fans racism," said Pat Corrigan, a distinguished professor of psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology who manages the National Consortium on Stigma and Empowerment.

"Using such language when it comes to people with mental illness is the height of disrespect and the height of ignorance, as it reduces some hugely complex person down to a diagnosis."

Corrigan also points out that it's wrong for a politician to use someone like Cruz -- or Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza or any other school shooters -- to imply that someone with a mental illness diagnosis is more likely to be dangerous or violent.

"You have these people living on the streets, and I can say in many cases throughout the country, they are very dangerous and shouldn't be there," Trump said Thursday.

But studies show otherwise. The greater majority of people with a mental illness will never be violent, research has found; in fact, people with mental illness are much more likely to be victims of violence.

"Countless studies have shown that if you were going to predict who is most likely to be violent, mental illness falls way down the list. Age, gender, ethnicity is a much greater factor, and we wouldn't lock people up based on these qualities," Corrigan said.

One of the solutions, Trump suggests, is to institutionalize more people with mental illness.


"Part of the problem is, we used to have mental institutions, and I said this yesterday, we had a mental institution where you take a sicko, like this guy, he was a sick guy, so many signs, and you bring him to a mental health institution," he said. "We've got to get them out of our communities."

Evidence shows the contrary, however. Locking up people with mental illness for a long time is counterproductive, studies have found. "The best care is not locking someone away in a hospital. It's done in the community, where you can have treatment that will help you get back to school or to work," Corrigan said.

The American Psychological Association cautions that it is important to keep gun policy and mental health policy in distinct categories.

"Science shows the most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior, not a diagnosable -- or diagnosed -- mental illness. The mental health needs of the country are separate from the issue of mass shootings," association CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr. said.

"People with mental illness account for a very small portion of incidents involving gun violence, and research has shown that individuals with mental illness are no more likely to become violent than individuals without mental illness," he said. "Involuntarily committing people with mental illness will not address our public health crisis of gun violence."

Violent murders by people with a mental diagnosis did not go up when large institutions in the United States and the UK were closed, said Diana Rose, a professor of user-led research who studies mental health at King's College London. "You cannot solve the problem by locking people up. It is just nonsense, and it destroys lives and is a deep form of social control, rather than provide people the support they need."

Rose said that calling the shooter a "sicko" is "insulting" and "mean-minded." She added that "it is almost impossible to predict, even if someone has a diagnosis, if they are going to be a risk" for violence.

"Evidence shows you would have to lock up thousands and thousands of people to prevent a very rare crime," Rose said. "It's a completely ridiculous solution."
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Yeah, no, when a person goes to a school and kills 17 people, I think we're more than allowed to call him a sicko, amongst other things. I don't give a fuck if he was autistic, the moment someone decides to cross that line and decide to physically harm and kill other people, they are in the "no more asspats" zone.
 
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They don't want to allow people to talk about school shooters being mentally ill, because that would harm the narrative that school shooters are all evil white republicans and gamergaters, and we have to say they're completely mentally sound but still choose to kill purely out of evil so that we can blame republicans 110% for everything bad that happens.
 
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Ah, the left has a conundrum on its hands. On one hand they hate the shooter, because he used an evil gun and killed people with it. But on the other hand, Trump, who is in their eyes incapable of being anything short of a demon and they can't ever agree with him lest they also become a demon, also hates the shooter. I shouldn't be surprised they sided with the shooter, but I'm still disappointed.
 
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Sickoposter.jpg
 
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This article makes me sick, "people with mental illness are more likely to be victims" is bs. Nobody is saying that mentally ill fucks are always the perp, but the majority of school shootings are carried by people less than sane. Examples:
Columbine shooters: Antisocial personality and psychopathy
VA Tech
Sandy Hook
Northern Illnois
For non-school shootings:
Giffords shooting: Paranoid Schizophrenia
Aurora Shooting
What do all these shootings have in common? Mentally ill people. That's why we call those shooters "insane."
Also I feel the need to point out:
Rose said that calling the shooter a "sicko" is "insulting" and "mean-minded."
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Professional my ass.
 
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PortsideDave said:
This article makes me sick, "people with mental illness are more likely to be victims" is bs. Nobody is saying that mentally ill fucks are always the perp, but the majority of school shootings are carried by people less than sane. Examples:
Columbine shooters: Antisocial personality and psychopathy
VA Tech
Sandy Hook
Northern Illnois
For non-school shootings:
Giffords shooting: Paranoid Schizophrenia
Aurora Shooting
What do all these shootings have in common? Mentally ill people. That's why we call those shooters "insane."
Also I feel the need to point out:

Professional my ass.
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holy fuck the writer's an enterbot
 
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Horrifyingly, when I was in high school, our student council twice a year would hold a "Stop the Stigma" week which was not only all about this bullshit but subtly dropped hints that it was okay for the mentally ill to not get treatment by saying "mental illness is okay, it's part of who you are". All attempts to talk sense into anyone were met with being called a bigot.
 
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Thomas Paine said:
Honestly if you want to stop school shootings, America needs to bring back it's mental health institutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation

Health insurance and big pharma don't want to treat people, they just want to sell them drugs.
Hopefully I'm not getting too :offtopic:.
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On one hand, I’m kind of skeptical about mental health institutions because of how common patients being abused was. On the other hand it can be efffective and there’s a problem with homeless mentally ill people wandering the streets. I’m not completely against the idea.
Once again, CNN tells us that it can and will get lower and lower in quality.
 
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For once I agree with Donald Trump, but the thing is, the guy who did it is such a piece of shit that he doesn't deserve anything but the obligatory prejorative label of "sicko". He's scum and doesn't deserve to be anything but a passing memory. He died as he lived - an inconsequential fuck-up that should be forgotten by the public. What we should remember are the victims, not the trash that killed them.
 
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The fuck does ADHD have to do with shooting up a school?! I've had ADHD all my life, and I've never used it as an excuse for anything. It always pisses me off when people use that as a crutch.

Also, how else would you describe somebody that committed such an atrocious act? Call a spade a fucking spade. CNN needs to stop spending so much time on Tumblr.
 
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_Wice said:
On one hand, I’m kind of skeptical about mental health institutions because of how common patients being abused was. On the other hand it can be efffective and there’s a problem with homeless mentally ill people wandering the streets. I’m not completely against the idea.
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I suppose it's a problem of "out of sight-out of mind" some people don't want to see coming back.
 
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