I am an outpatient therapist who specializes in queer clients and I have had many clients utilize the Trevor project and translifeline over the years. They often don’t call crisis supports because they do support mental health issues outside of ideation
That said no situation is perfect but in many locations they don’t even call the cops anymore because many states fund mobile crisis response units that have therapists respond instead of police.
But frankly this is the nature of crisis response. I worked in crisis response for years before shifting to outpatient. There is both a legal liability and moral obligation to do something if someone is truly a danger to themselves or others. Suicidal ideation is overwhelming a transient state, eg if we keep you safe during the worst of it you will eventually consider it a very good thing that you did not commit suicide. This is not conjecture, this is evidence based.
I will admit that there are bad hospitals and police response can be quite poor or even deadly. At the same time it is also an issue that is heightened in terms of awareness. Thousands of people per day are processed into inpatient per day on involuntary holds, cops shooting them or serious abuse happen fairly rarely. Obviously any incidence is completely unacceptable and we need to continue to highlight issues and strive for reforms, but to paint an involuntary hold as an inevitable abusive or even fatal encounter is seriously misleading and potentially dissuades people from pursuing support that may be desperately needed in crisis.
I do understand your response. We need do decouple the overwhelming majority of crisis mental health response from police (though response to situations with firearms adds complexity and currently mobile crisis will not respond to these at least around me), fund more mobile crisis response programs nationwide, fund more interim partial support programs that exist between inpatient and outpatient (community supports/iop/php/new modalities altogether), overhaul therapist training and supervision, etc. but in the meantime we have the system we have and we have to work within the constraints of that framework while we continue to push and advocate for change
I am an outpatient therapist who specializes in queer clients and I have had many clients utilize the Trevor project and translifeline over the years. They often don’t call crisis supports because they do support mental health issues outside of ideation
That said no situation is perfect but in many locations they don’t even call the cops anymore because many states fund mobile crisis response units that have therapists respond instead of police.
But frankly this is the nature of crisis response. I worked in crisis response for years before shifting to outpatient. There is both a legal liability and moral obligation to do something if someone is truly a danger to themselves or others. Suicidal ideation is overwhelming a transient state, eg if we keep you safe during the worst of it you will eventually consider it a very good thing that you did not commit suicide. This is not conjecture, this is evidence based.
I will admit that there are bad hospitals and police response can be quite poor or even deadly. At the same time it is also an issue that is heightened in terms of awareness. Thousands of people per day are processed into inpatient per day on involuntary holds, cops shooting them or serious abuse happen fairly rarely. Obviously any incidence is completely unacceptable and we need to continue to highlight issues and strive for reforms, but to paint an involuntary hold as an inevitable abusive or even fatal encounter is seriously misleading and potentially dissuades people from pursuing support that may be desperately needed in crisis.
I do understand your response. We need do decouple the overwhelming majority of crisis mental health response from police (though response to situations with firearms adds complexity and currently mobile crisis will not respond to these at least around me), fund more mobile crisis response programs nationwide, fund more interim partial support programs that exist between inpatient and outpatient (community supports/iop/php/new modalities altogether), overhaul therapist training and supervision, etc. but in the meantime we have the system we have and we have to work within the constraints of that framework while we continue to push and advocate for change