Each week, I receive emails from parents seeking advice. I am not a trained therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker. I’m just another parent. But I feel compelled to answer most of these emails with suggestions that are based on my travels and personal experiences.

What follows is an email that is representative. In addition to publishing my response, I  have asked several highly-respected advocates to respond to the same email. I will print one of their responses each day this coming week.  I hope this week-long exploration will spark a helpful exchange of ideas and  give parents practical advice.

Dear Pete,

We have tried to get our son professional help. I think he has bipolar disorder, although he possibly could have schizophrenia. We know he has an alcohol addiction. He has not cooperated with hardly anything, and we’ve been unable to get him to go to our local mental health center, although officials there said he is eligible for treatment.

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This is the time of year when envelopes arrive in the mail from charities asking for donations. Before I contribute to charities, I like to learn how much their  top executives are earning.

According to the website, Charity Navigator, the median salary for the chief executive of a charity is $132,739.  Executives in major cities are paid more. CEOs in the Northeast earn an average of $156,914. Keeping those figures in mind, I decided to check the pay scale at mental health groups that are well-known or often mentioned in news stories.

I was surprised at how much some mental health executives were paying themselves, especially when their charities were losing money. me.

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Can psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners predict violence?

Because of the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus, in Tucson and, more recently, in Aurora, it’s an important question.

A recent article published in the Association for Psychological Science magazine examines trends in how mental health professions assess risk and predict violence. The article’s authors, John Monahan of the University of Virginia, and Jennifer L. Skeem, of the University of California, Irvine, begin by examining the mostly commonly used methods.

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If you haven’t seen a film entitled A Sister’s Call  by Rebecca Schaper and Klye Tekiela you need to watch it. It is one of the most honest and moving documentaries that I’ve had the privilege of watching. (Check out the film’s three minute trailer above.)

I met Rebecca Schaper a week ago while speaking at the annual fundraiser for the National Alliance on Mental Illness chapter in Greenville, South Carolina. Her film was being honored by the local NAMI chapter because Rebecca’s brother, Call Richmond Jr., lived in Greenville and much of the filming of the documentary was done there. 

Call was diagnosed with paranoid schzophrenia. In 1977, he disappeared and stayed missing for twenty years.  When he finally reappeared, Rebecca took on the tasks of both rescuing her older brother and bringing him back into her family.

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Last Tuesday’s presidential debates have been scrutinized in microscopic detail. The Washington Post even published a front page story about each candidate’s body language. Yet none of the political pundits chastised President Obama for insulting one-in-five Americans. Not even the long-line of president-haters at Fox News.

What did the President say that was offensive?

“We have to…make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill…”

A moment later he added:

“If we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.”

Substitute any other group except “the mentally ill”  into the President’s two sentences.

“If we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the Hispanics – blacks — gays.”  You can even substitute the word Republicans. 

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