Mental Health & Better Angels In Our Nature

Fascinating WSJ piece calls attn to star lawyer who became mentally ill & new California law giving his family the right to petition a CARE Court to “step in” & help treat his serious psychotic disorder. It wasn’t working. Time to go “Back to the Future”?

The details are in “A Lawyer Abandoned Family & Career to Follow the Voices in His Head” & it’s a recommended read for those interested in the nation’s mental health crisis. As WSJ notes, “Disruptions in mental-health care during the pandemic left many Americans vulnerable” in that among people ages 18 to 44, insurance claims related to psychotic episodes rose 30% to 2 million in 2023 from 2019. Around the US, hospitals are overwhelmed.”

As a young lawyer, I was drawn to what was then called “family law” & especially its subset dealing with adoptions, conservatorships & institutionalization of those likely to endanger themselves and/or others, you know, helping people who couldn’t help themselves & desperately needed an angel. As it also happens, THAT was exactly the moment when the entire nation seemed to switch to a private rather than public treatment of mental health & basically ended the institutionalization of patients against their will. It’s called the federal Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 1967, pushed by well-meaning liberals & signed by President Reagan. As our California lawyer’s experience suggests, however, those sucked into hellish homelessness, drug addiction, or violent criminal behavior are now without any real help. As the WSJ says, “In most states, people are largely powerless to get mental-health care for friends or relatives without their consent. BILLIONS spent by the states & federal government are proven to be mere band-aids aka living to die another day. The old institutionalization system was often terrible. Is what we’re seeing today better?

Davd Soul