Obama urges greater openness in dealing with mental illness

President Barack Obama listens as mental health survivor and public speaker Janelle Montano delivers remarks during the the National Conference on Mental Health in Washington DC yesterday.

ReutersWashington

President Barack Obama said yesterday that Americans need to become more open about mental health issues so that people struggling with problems are not ashamed to seek help.

More than 60% of Americans with mental illness do not receive treatment, many of them because they are embarrassed or afraid of being ostracised, Obama said, speaking at a White House conference on mental health.

“We wouldn’t accept it if only 40% of Americans with cancers got treatment,” Obama said. “So why should we accept it when it comes to mental health?”

Obama promised to start a “national conversation” on mental health after the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut school last year, although he did not mention the tragedy in his remarks yesterday.

The massacre at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14 raised awareness of mental health issues, although little is known about the state of mind of the shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who committed suicide.

Lanza, who has been described as socially awkward and reclusive, also killed his mother.

“Without us knowing if and what Adam Lanza had, we certainly know that something bad was going on, and that Adam Lanza wasn’t getting the attention that he needed,” said Harold Koplewicz, president of the Child Mind Institute, a psychiatric treatment and research center in New York City, in an interview.

The conference at the White House is one of the less controversial tasks for Obama on his politically tough to-do list to address gun violence in America.

His proposals for new restrictions on guns have stalled in Congress, foiled by a tough fight from the powerful National Rifle Association and other groups defending Americans’ constitutional rights to own guns.

But there are signs of bipartisan interest in Congress in taking steps to deal with the lack of access for mental health services and trained professionals in the field, said Koplewicz, whose opinions have been sought out by Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“Sometimes it takes these terrible national tragedies that capture us, that hit us in the pit of our stomach, and we say to ourselves: ‘It’s a wake-up call. Enough. We just have to do something,’” said Koplewicz.