I'm not a big fan of getting ready to fight the previous war. Our next crisis will not be Adam Lanza. It will not be an exact replica of the facts of his life, not that we know those for sure yet. (I would say, parenthetically, that the worldwide rush to diagnose Lanza makes me massively uncomfortable.)
Our next crisis is already happening, in multiples of many, all over the United States. Families and communities are struggling to care for people with mental illness. They need diagnoses. They need medication. They need a latticework (of services and programs) which, frankly, does not exist.
The demand for metal health services far exceeds the supply. But it's more subtle than those brute ratios. Mental health treatment is a lot of different things, and any given patient, as he or she moves through that system, will need to stand on different rungs on what is, I think, a tragically broken ladder.
http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2012-17-2012.mp3
