Posts by Neil
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to ,
One current argument for treating men who have transitioned to women as women is that their brains are more similar to those of women than to men.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Sacha,
Some links to back up that claim would be useful, thanks.
What do you make of the gender pattern of perpetrators of mass killings and hate crimes in the US?
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to ,
You’re not actually a mental health professional, thankfully.
That’s an odd response. I’m not sure what you’re taking issue with.
Men are predisposed to vengeful obsessive behaviour. How this does or doesn’t blur into what could be defined as mental illness has been debated just about everytime something like this happens.
How we stop this behaviour is also a pressing question given Trump et al.
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If there’s an argument about whether or not he’s mad or bad one question to ask is what difference that would make.
I remember the arguments over Brevik, I don’t think it went much further than the left and right staking out ideologically convenient positions.
Males do have a tendency to become obsessed, to hold grudges and to seek revenge. That’s genetics. Thankfully there’s various things that mitigate against that. Some of that male behaviour does veer into territory that could be seen as delusional.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to mark taslov,
Hi Mark, I work in the field but wouldn’t call myself an expert necessarily.
It depends on the content of the txt the female MP received. If it said I’m going to kill myself now then the best course of action would be to ring the police immediately.
But we don’t know the content of the txt. We do know however that Ross came to no harm and was assessed with some alacrity at a mental health unit which is good evidence the actions taken by the MP were appropriate to the level of concern raised by the txt.
Informing Ross’ psychologist so they could take action was a sensible thing to do.
It would be informative to know the content of the txt and if Slater was present when it was sent. Given that the following day, when he had been admitted, Ross released a private txt to try to damage the reputation of the very woman he had reached out to supposedly for help, one has to wonder what his motive for the txt really was.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to mark taslov,
So given your knowledge of acute mental health services is there any precedent/official advice with regard to my question above?
Anyone can ask the police to do a welfare check on someone - that is not part of the mental health act and cannot in itself result in some one being admitted or placed under the act.
The ability of the police to uplift someone from their home under the act is tightly constrained. It has to be done with the involvement of mental health professionals who must examine the person first.
There has to be good cause to believe that a person has a mental disorder before the mental health act is activated and the police can then be asked to assist, if necessary, in transporting the person to a place for assessment.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Dennis Frank,
I was under the impression that mental health treatment is the domain of psychiatry, not psychology. So why a psychologist is involved seems odd.
There’s quite a range of professions that can offer mental health services - psychologists, social workers, counsellors, occupational therapists, nurses for example.
The critical difference is only psychiatrists can place people under the mental health act.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to linger,
That bit turns out to be part of Slater’s fantasy.
The Herald reports it was Ross’ psychologist – not anyone in National – who rang the police. National had rung the psychologist to inform them of the txt Ross had sent.
It doesn’t look as though the mental health act was ever implemented – he was likely never “sectioned”. The psychologist could have done the 8(a) but not the 8(b). The first time he saw a medical practitioner who could was at the hospital. Without the 8(b) it would be police doing a welfare ckeck.
The idea the National could have used the act to have Ross detained was always a nonsense – the act does not provide for that but far more significantly the allegation called into question the integrity of mental health professionals.
Some knowlege of the acute mental health services would have made all that clear.
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It’s interesting that Ross is using Slater to do the dirty work. But he has had such a hard time poor thing. Slater may get to be expendable though if Craig gets involved funding a new party.
The latest according to Slater’s fantasies is that sometime on Saturday evening Ross had some sort of serious incident – one presumes he treatened to self harm. (All that stress from people saying he harassed women gets to a guy after a while. Maybe needed a few drinks). Then either Ross or a friend, aka Slater, with him at the time rings for help – not the community mental health urgent response team, not the police, not Ross’ psychiatrist – no, they ring one of the women who he has harrassed and whose txt he will release to the media to try and discredit her.
Then, apparently, she rings someone in the National Party who in turn rings Ross’ psychiatrist who does – nothing. So it’s then supposedly left to someone in National to do at least something so they phone the Police who presumably do a safety check which is what they would do in that situation.
It’s hard to believe any of that but if true then the only person who acted in Ross’ interest was a National Party person – not any of his friends -and they did not, and never could have, have him placed under the act. They just asked the police to check up on him. The Police then may have involved mental health services.
But until Ross gives the media the appropriate mental health documentation he will have in his possession it’s all pretty murky. But that’s how he wants it.
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Regarding access to cellphones in acute inpatient units, this is an often fraught issue. On the one hand peoples’ lives now can revolve around cellphones – socially, financially etc. On the other hand for someone unwell use of a cellphone could be damaging in terms of their reputation and finances.
Making poor financial decisions via internet banking, posting inappropriate pictures on social media, saying horrible things about people – these are things that have happened and that people come to deeply regret when they get well.
So staff, having a duty of care, have to make often difficult judgement calls regarding such access.
Irrespective of access to cellphones though, patients are entitled to visitors and to use the hospital phone system. They also have a right to see independent lawyers to act on their behalf and to file a S16 to have a judge review there mental health act status if indeed they are under the act.