Colleges take hard line on psychological problems

[flashl]

Critics see harm; officials cite court rulings, Virginia Tech

Jill Manges was in her French history class at Eastern Illinois University, when she felt the symptoms -- the waves of nausea, the tightness in the throat -- that signaled an impending flashback.

Threading her way through the row of desks that September afternoon, Manges -- who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder -- willed herself to the door, blacking out just outside her classroom.

Twelve days later, the school gave her two options: Take a medical leave or we'll kick you out.

That same month, Michelle Pomerleau, a student at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, faced a similar fate when she overdosed on prescription drugs.

...

From large public institutions to small, private colleges, a growing number of schools are taking punitive action against students who display mental illness, ranging from bipolar disorder to eating disorders, experts say.

Chicago Tribuine - Read Full Text

[silverojo]

1. Ah, yes, what a wonderful prejudice

Deny people an education if they have mental problems. As if they're all Cho Seong-Hui, or something. :mad:

[varkam]

2. Here's one thing that really irks me:

Some students who remain on campus, such as Nichole D'Antonio, have become afraid to seek treatment. When D'Antonio sought help at the EIU's counseling center for bulimia in 2004, she ended up on medical leave instead.

"I was told that I was too much of a liability," she explained. She returned to Charleston the next semester, after participating in an eating disorders program. But when she relapsed a month later and confided in a counselor, she was asked to leave campus again, she said.


The counselors are informing on their clients? As far as I know, they are supposed to be bound by confidentiality unless they are concerned that their client poses a clear and present danger to either themselves or others. Seems like that sort of behaviour would almost certainly discourage mentally ill students from seeking treatment.

Schools were being sued because they were not doing enough to offer treatment for people with mental illness, so their response is to remove people with mental illness from campus? Good grief.

[Ayesha]

3. This can't be legal!

People with disabilities, including mental ones, have the right to not be discriminated against. These students should all fight this in court!

[RavensChick]

4. They're trying (hence the word) to

protect their bottom line--the almighty dollar (grants, fellowships, shit like that). The whole situation makes no sense, it sounds like a double standard if you ask me. I say this--those who have any history of any mental condition should be treated first of all, and if they attend any college and they're being discriminated against for whatever reason they have the right to sue.

[happyslug]

5. How to make sure people do NOT seek mental health treatment.

Psychologists and Psychiatrists have been saying for decades that the number one reason people do NOT seek treatment is the prejudices of people with such problems. This has been known for Millennia, that is why the Catholic Church adopted the absolute confidence of the Confessional (i.e. to give people a place to talk about their problem with full knowledge that it could NEVER be used against them). This need to confidence has been expanded to Attorneys, Doctors and other health professors for the same reason, all of them need to be able to hear the full story of the people they are dealing with AND the only way they can get it is with the guarantee of full confidentiality (It should be noted that technically under the English Common Law, it was Lawyers first, then Priests, but that is a reflection of the adoption of Protestantism in the 1500s, the Protestants rejected Confession but Catholics kept it and the Catholic concept was NOT accepted into the law till the 1800s when the Courts recognized the long history such Confessions and the willingness of Priests to go to Jail to "recognize" it even in Protestant mid-1800 America).

From the mid-1800s the expansion of this right was the norm, but it tended to affect people PAID by the Defendant NOT a third party. Thus YOUR Doctor did NOT have to report you mental illness, if it was based on what you told him, but if some other Doctor, paid for by the Police for example, were told the same thing by you it was admissible. The problem is low income and public treatment of Mental illness are often inter-related and thus is the Doctor responsible to his patient OR the person paying the Doctor? The trend during the same time period was to go with the person PAYING (I.e. if the patient paid, the doctor had no duty to inform, if the public was paying the Doctor did have a duty to inform). Please note I am talking about things TOLD to the doctor NOT observed by the Doctor. Thus if the Doctor saw someone shot, the doctor had to report the shooting even through the Patient paid for the treatment. Same with communicable diseases, TB etc. Even if the doctor only was able to see the patient because he sought medical help.

How do you get people with mental health problem to seek help? One sure way to make sure they DON'T is to punish them if they do. If the person with concern about his mental health fears that the Doctor will, in some way, punish him, the person with mental health problems will NEVER seek help. The Collage students who shot his fellow students is an example of such a person, he had mental problems, but if he sought help he would lose his guns, which he did NOT want to lose, thus he NEVER sought mental help (and with NO Mental health records he had the legal right to buy more guns and Ammunition). How do you PREVENT someone like that from having an arsenal? You permit him to seek mental health treatment WHILE permitting him to keep his weapons. The mental health treatment would have prevented the incident much more than any ban on people seeking mental health having guns.

The same with these Collage Students, if the students have mental health issues, they should be permitted to seek mental health treatment WITHOUT ANY FORM OF PUNISHMENT, in this case the punishment is being kicked out of school.

Part of the problem here is the fact we are now 2-3 generations of Suburbanites in Collages. In the days of the inner city (and continues to this day) people with mental limitations existed in the inner city AND the rural countryside. People living in both areas dealt with them often on a daily basis, but at least a weekly basis (Shopping and Church). Suburbanites have made sure such people are NOT in suburbia. Thus most School Administrator (Suburbanites) also have NOT dealt with such people. Thus their solution is is the solution suburbs have done with such people for decades, kick them out.

[lightningandsnow]

6. Stuff like this frightens me.

I occasionally get panic attacks, and I've had panic attacks/meltdowns in school before.

I'm not, and never have been, a danger to others.

For people with psychological issues, that is only going to complicate the problem - instilling fear in them, and increasing stigma around mental illness, rather than promoting understanding.

[halobeam]

7. I wonder what the Disability Dept. at the colleges are dealing with.

There are programs like VESSID that place students in the schools with disabilities. Maybe they are the next programs to go?

What a mess, a disgrace and certainly patient confidentiality will get trampled on if it ever comes to the point of reaching the floor for a vote.