Trump calls for more mental hospitals to keep 'crazy people' away from guns

[The_Reader_David]

Rethink that.

Oh, come now, he's being waggish about the fact that naturally distributed continuously variable characteristics are normally distributed (and thus mean = median), so that any on any naturally distributed characteristic half the population is below average because definitionally half the population is below median.

[Cyber Liberty]

Oh, come now, he's being waggish about the fact that naturally distributed continuously variable characteristics are normally distributed (and thus mean = median), so that any on any naturally distributed characteristic half the population is below average because definitionally half the population is below median.

The key phrase there is "normally distributed." 

[Smokin Joe]

What I have noticed in Texas, which may not be the case everywhere, is what happens to those that can't afford private psychiatric care.
They will get help, get meds, become stable, and then be dropped off in the nearest city closest to where they live.
They are told follow up with a doctor at a certain date and time.
Next, before this happens, they run out of meds, and are stuck downtown somewhere in unfamiliar surroundings, and all that treatment before is gone out the window.
Next thing you know, they're homeless, on the street.
My thing is not just treating them in a facility and letting them go, but to follow up after they have been released.
(1) Did the goal of treating and releasing them work? In these cases, no?
(2) Was it necessary to put them in a facility in the first place, or could it have been done via outpatient, even with visits to the person's home, if necessary?
I don't know, maybe.
(3) Follow up.

I agree. It isn't unusual for a patient to start feeling better and stop taking their meds. They're "cured", at least in their own mind, whether those meds are antibiotics or psychoactive drugs, the effect is often a relapse. Without follow up, that could be a common occurrence, and for some meds, quitting them without medical supervision is what brings on the suicidal/homicidal ideation.

[Smokin Joe]

Oh, come now, he's being waggish about the fact that naturally distributed continuously variable characteristics are normally distributed (and thus mean = median), so that any on any naturally distributed characteristic half the population is below average because definitionally half the population is below median.

Exactly. Half the people out there are below average height, weight, intelligence, etc. It's a statistical thing, an artifact of using averages to normalize a population. WIth the exception of those who fall exactly on the average, half are above those parameters, too.