In an opinion piece in the Denver Post (10/13, Milofsky), retired psychiatrist Jean E. Milofsky, MD, wrote in response to a recent “60 Minutes” appearance by psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, MD, author of “The Insanity Offense,” and psychiatrist Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association, in which the pair expressed the view that finding and then treating people with severe mental illness would reduce the chances of violent acts occurring, including those involving firearms and mass shootings. Dr. Milofsky pointed out that mental healthcare in the US is underfunded and that more than half of the US homeless population includes people with mental illnesses, and that no clinician is able to detect with absolute certainty the potential for violence in people with mental illness. She also reminded readers that the majority of people with severe mental illnesses are not violent and concluded that mental health reform is indeed needed, but so are societal approaches to reducing gun violence, an entirely separate issue.
Related Links:
— “And now it’s mental illness being blamed for violence, “Jean E. Milofsky, The Denver Post, October 12, 2013.