How often do you interact with people with mental issues?

[voodoo_man]

An interesting article on this topic from last year.

National Review: Outsourcing the Mentally Ill to Police

Why bother doing anything other than calling the police for when you cannot handle your own family?

I would go as far to say that even if other outlets, prior to police, were readily available that people would not use them.

We have a "Crisis Team" locally that comes out whenever they are called to the location of an issue, sometimes within 30 minutes depending on where it is and traffic. It is a 24/7 operation. They are really good at dealing with the mentally unstable, even still, they are very rarely called by anyone other than the police.

[Nephrology]

Perhaps you can locate a treatment center where he could live free and work as a staff person. He would have a different type of stress, and fulfillment from helping patients or clients would get him past many of the demons tormenting him. He and others would discover that he might not be as "crazy" as he and they think. In this new environment he would be required to stop the imprecise self medicating of dope smoking currently being done. Such a place would be alternative, rare, weird, and unusual but worth searching for and might be found in another country.

He's already getting great help with the outpatient therapists near him - it's just too bad there is no easy way to help him get back on his feet. He's a brilliant guy, but his psychiatric disease is really severe, and there's no getting around that it will impact his life for the worse...

Why bother doing anything other than calling the police for when you cannot handle your own family?

I would go as far to say that even if other outlets, prior to police, were readily available that people would not use them.

We have a "Crisis Team" locally that comes out whenever they are called to the location of an issue, sometimes within 30 minutes depending on where it is and traffic. It is a 24/7 operation. They are really good at dealing with the mentally unstable, even still, they are very rarely called by anyone other than the police.

Generally speaking, most people let problems get until the point that they are well out of their control before they do anything about it...