The Importance of Treating Mental Illness
The importance of treating mental illness cannot be understated – not only to relieve the symptoms of the mental illness, itself, but to thwart its role as one of the five key risk factors for abusing substances and/or developing an addiction.
This program, “Los Angeles Patches Together Mental Health Care for Juvenile Offenders,“ on KQED’s March 24, 2011, The California Report, drives home what treating mental illness and the underlying, contributing causes in both the individual AND his/her family can do for changing the lives of juvenile offenders. And why is addressing the underlying, contributing causes so important? Because beyond mental illness, two other risk factors for developing a substance abuse problem or the brain disease of addiction (whether it’s an addiction to drugs or alcohol) represented in this program are social environment and childhood trauma. (The remaining two risk factors are genetics and early use.) I’ve included a quote from the text of the program below:
“…Mental health treatment, especially with the entire family, is now seen as indispensable in aiding troubled youth. The new focus on psychological care serves as recognition of just how damaged many of these kids are.
In Jesse’s case, the boy grew up watching his father beat his mother. He brought knives to school, got in fights, used drugs. Eventually, he was arrested and sent to juvenile hall. And, as for many young offenders, that was the first time anyone took a measure of his mental health.
“They put you in a room with a psychiatrist, and you start with this computer, making you take this test and start asking you all these questions,” Jesse recalled.
That test – or one like it – is now used by most counties in California, and more than half of the minors who take it are found to have some kind of mental health problem that goes far beyond typical teenage rebellion. [emphasis added] Crimes like arson, robbery and assault, experts say, can be a result of untreated depression or trauma.”
I’m sharing this program for four reasons:
1) it may help us better appreciate that mental illness (e.g., depression, anxiety) is often triggered/caused by childhood trauma and/or social environment – check out the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to better understand the role of childhood trauma and/or social environment
2) when we treat the individual and the family system (if the individual is to return to it), we have a better chance of halting the juvenile delinquency progression
3) to recognize the importance of treating the interconnectedness of childhood trauma, social environment, mental illness and substance misuse
4) the importance of finding resources outside the “system,” if necessary, in order to address some of the underlying issues before the delinquency starts.
Resources to Help with Treating Mental Illness
NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), which offers FREE mental health and family support services and information.
SAMHSA’s Understanding Mental Illness, where one can find help for coping with a traumatic event and learn the facts about mental illness and violence.
ACEs Too High – Got Your ACEs Score?, where you’ll more about what adverse childhood experiences, such as a parent’s untreated mental illness, does to a child and their health across their lifetime.
Lisa Frederiksen
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Thank you for this important information, Lisa. We all benefit by becoming more aware of the underlying reasons for addiction and the help that is needed to treat mental illness before it becomes addiction. It is unfortunate for Jesse, and other troubled teenagers that they do not receive help until they are in juvenile hall.
Thank you for your comment, Cathy. It is so unfortunate — especially given the critical brain development that goes on from ages 12-25 — not only do these young people face substance misuse issues, they face the trauma that goes with being in a juvenile facility, as well…