There was a man with tongue of wood

The White House plan to reduce gun violence has substantial mental health provisions:

Children and Young Adults

1. Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resilience in Education) directed at students in schools
   • Mental health “first aid” training for teachers
   • Referral services for students
2. Support individuals 16 to 25 outside of and beyond school
3. School-based violence prevention, including mental health services for trauma and anxiety
4. Train 5,000 mental health professionals to serve in the schools
5. Initiate a national conversation to address stigma associated with mental illness

Ensure Mental Health Coverage

1. Issue final regulations on private health insurance coverage of mental health treatment
2. Ensure that Medicaid programs are meeting mental health parity requirements

In addition:

• The $150 million Comprehensive School Safety program will help finance new school resource officers (police) or mental health professionals (psychologists, social workers, counselors).
• The hiring decisions will be with local school districts.

My Take (this is a blog, isn’t it?)

1. The problem of obtaining adequate mental health coverage for anyone is a major challenge because:
   1. There is neither a test nor a cure for mental illness, which means that diagnosis is expensive and difficult, and management is expensive and difficult
   2. Mental illness resembles a chronic illness with transitory remission, so there is a temptation to halt treatment during remission and hoard resources to deal with crises.
   3. Nearly all families and individuals, save the super wealthy (think $1 million in annual income), have insufficient resources to address the full spectrum of mental illness symptoms, some of which require residential treatment for long period to be optimally addressed
2. Large segments of the population continue to provide moral diagnoses rather than accepting a medical diagnosis of mental illness
1. Depressed people are seen as lazy and unmotivated; bipolar people are seen as lacking discipline
2. The symptoms are largely invisible and intermittent–mental illness is only partially and rarely someone walking down he street talking to imaginary people.
3. Consequently, a large part of the public is unwilling to finance the treatment of those seen as slackers.

Bottom line: the Administration is to be commended for first steps, but any reasonable approach will require billions not millions of dollars