[eep_opp]

I don't understand that part either. I wonder if the councilor saw a potential to not only harm himself but others and that's why it was included. I can understand the school not wanting to be the next stage for another tragedy similar to Virginia Tech.

And had they not dismissed him and he continued on and something to that effect were to happen would we not see stories about friends and families of victims asking about why they would have allowed an obviously deeply disturbed person to remain on campus?

Maybe the counselor thought (erroneously?) this particular problem was too big to handle?

[derrida]

> I can understand the school not wanting to be the next stage for another tragedy similar to Virginia Tech.

How can you understand this that way? I can't.

I can't understand it because I know lots of people with depression, and I've experienced it once myself, never once did anybody I know or myself or for that matter, a reported case, ever think "I know, lets go and kill a bunch of people."

I don't understand it...

The number of dehumanizing things that have been done in the name of "health and safety" is staggering. Life begins with birth and ends with death, use compassionate reasoning in between, there's always a rule or formalism to hide behind.

[kaybe]

Well, there was that one co-pilot in March this year that intentially crashed the plane (giving us more deaths by counter-terrorims measures than by terrorism in recent European history). Of course, it is hard to say looking back what was really the cause, but the link has been made.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/germanwings-crash-i-have...

[DanBC]

Vs all the other pilots with mental health problems who don't kill all their passengers.

It's really weird seeing such obviously fallacious thinking on HN but it happens everytime mental illness and violence comes up.

When you want to predict if a person poses a risk of violence to other people knowing whether that person has a mental illness or not gives you very little predictive power. Knowing if that person is addicted to alcohol, or has had a previous episode of violence, gives you much more predictive power. And if you combine those, or either or both of them with mental illness you get a better predictor. But mental illness itself is not a predictor.

[kaybe]

Yes, of course, and it's being extensively discussed in the link. However, it is still relevant to know that some people draw this conclusion, IMHO, since it increases the quality of my model of them.

(Or, lets say, it is another parameter to watch for when discussing with new people, to help understand their point of view and ponder all the arguments, even the ones with more than sufficient counter arguments to outright dismiss them; this excercise might have to be shown to some discussion partners as well so they can see where I am coming from.)

[derrida]

Further to what DanBC said, the fallacy is this:

    The guy who plunged his plane into a mountain had depression.
    The Unabomber was a mathematician.
    Hitler was an artist.

Artists are evil!

[pluma]

Sure, yes, if his activity would have involved taking over responsibility for people he could easily take with him if he decided to end his life, then it'd have been perfectly understandable why they would want to prevent that.

But we're talking about a college student. Sure, maybe he shouldn't be allowed in the chemistry lab or given roof access, but what does banning him from college grounds prevent that he can't do outside of it?

Besides, if he was so dangerous to warrant banning him from college grounds just so he couldn't get a chance to harm or kill others (e.g. strap bombs to himself and blow people up), he was probably too dangerous to rely on him to respect the ban. This is the point where you involve the police instead of risking to provoke him further -- and then this isn't just a mental issue, it's a direct threat. But as it seems, this wasn't what happened, even remotely.

[shiggerino]

They already banned intentionally flying planes into mountains, so I don't see how banning someone from a campus prevents them from going there anyway and shooting up the place.

[eep_opp]

Well let's deconstruct my comment:

1: I don't get why they would bar him from campus.

   -Unless the councilor thought that he was also a danger to others.

2: If that was there view then I can understand why they would want to remove him.

I’m saying that I agree but that maybe they (erroneously) saw something more than depression or something different from your situation. Given that what exactly is the issue?

[derrida]

I mean, I can understand it, in the sense of, someone has a limited picture / a busy day / not the time & emotional resources for which to be able to also think compassionately about someone else in need. Or sometimes responsibility is diluted in institutions so an institution can act in a way that's devoid of compassion, where an individual acting face to face could not.

(I hope you did not read me as objecting to your comment, just "expanding the picture")

To understand how someone could exclude someone from campus with depression, I'd have to start positing the existence of events / information we don't have. Usually if a health care professional decides they are a danger to others, that is when people get sectioned. This is common place stuff. Virginia Tech is not common place stuff.

Maybe the people at Virginia Tech were depressed or something, I don't know. But, so what?

Hitler was an artist.

There's always the "historical psycho" exception to every rule.

Mathematics causes Unabombers?

These events are in the popular imagination, but it's a reaction coming from fear. In cases like depression it's particularly important for people around a person to act from compassion, open-ness etc. Just "being there" is enough.

Saying "I'm here..." is enough, you have no idea how a small thing like that can make a world of difference without you feeling like it's even a thing you had to give.

[CWuestefeld]

The picture all this paints for me is one of risk management.

From the time they first identify the risk, all further actions seem to focus on washing their hands and distancing themselves from that risk. Rather than helping him themselves, they rush him out the door to a dedicated facility; they forbid him from being on campus, thus ensuring that if things go wrong it'll be on somebody else's watch; and they drag their feet about letting him back into the system.

Just my opinion, but the appearance is that their primary concern was to stay out of liability's way; the actual danger to a student was secondary at best.

[pluma]

Ironically, in a working legal system this would actually incriminate them for negligence: they knew he was at risk and instead of making sure he has help, they locked him out so they wouldn't have to deal with him.