August 8, 2019
Mental Disorders and the Second Amendment
By Peter A. Olsson MD
Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals deal with and diagnose a wide spectrum of conditions from mild anxieties, substance abuse, learning disabilities, mental retardation, and marital-family-vocational relationship problems, to severe mental illness. Severe mental illness can be well-treated, not treated well, or not treated at all. Some psychological treatments like “anger management classes†help angry persons without established psychiatric diagnoses, but don’t cure them, or completely cure potential for violent behavior. The messiest and most dangerous of mentally ill persons are adolescent or young adult males with severe personality disorders.
The Spectrum of Mental Illnesses: A Brief Introduction
The typically anxiety neurotic person, is keenly aware of their psychic pain. Their psychological pain, like the pain of a severe medical disorder, frequently brings them to a physician, clergyperson, or therapist. Significant numbers of military veterans and civilians suffer from trauma-related PTSD which requires medication and psychotherapy. Their treatment is often more complicated if there is concurrent substance abuse. However, effectively treated anxiety neurotic persons are not a huge danger for gun violence.
A psychotic (Schizophrenic, Bipolar or Psychotically Depressed) person, like Jared Loughner who shot Arizona congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords, is in massive denial about his disorder. The denial of a psychotic person like Laughner is the result of their brain chemistry’s disarray. In addition, the psychotic person often refuses to take medication and stay with counseling. Psychotherapy and judicious medication prescription can help psychotic persons have clearer thought processes enabling them to work and relate more normally to other people. Well treated and followed-up psychotic persons are no more prone to gun or other violence than the normal population.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/mental_disorders_and_the_second_amendment.html
