In Grief, Stereotyping Mental Illness (Jewish Week)
"For autistic Americans and for people with psychiatric disabilities, each massacre brings both feelings of mourning for the victims and real fear that the media will attempt to link us with the shooter. While it is understandable that people will seek to explain the unexplainable after an incident of mass murder, stereotyping an entire community based on the horrifying actions of one person should never be acceptable."
Read the rest here. This article was written in response to this MSN article to which I linked last week.
Said a commenter to the Jewish Week article, "Maybe she had decided that handling her situation alone and in the closet was no longer a viable option. Hopefully, he and she will find the support they both desperately require."
How do we, as a society, help people receive the assistance that they need without blaming and/or stereotyping them?
Read the rest here. This article was written in response to this MSN article to which I linked last week.
Said a commenter to the Jewish Week article, "Maybe she had decided that handling her situation alone and in the closet was no longer a viable option. Hopefully, he and she will find the support they both desperately require."
How do we, as a society, help people receive the assistance that they need without blaming and/or stereotyping them?
posted by Shira Salamone at 11:31 AM
2 Comments:
Much of the media and public attention of this whole extremely tragic matter is based on a false premise -- neither autism nor Asberger's are regarded as mental illness. They are developmental disabilities, but in and of themselves have no relationship to violent behavior of this nature. While those who have these conditions can have other psychiatric conditions (as can the vast number of people not on the autistic spectrum). Significantly, I have yet to see any published information remotely indicating the nature of mental illness from which Adam Lanza suffered, if any.
Good point.
I assume that Adam Lanza was mentally ill, but, like you, I haven't seen any published evidence.
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