Untreated Mental Illness is a Threat to the Public

The convicted driver who was ploughing people in a car, across a pedestrianised area in Melbourne is of Afghan origin. His action may well be a deliberate act of revenge and a protest, against recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or any other reason. However not every Muslim would protest this way by harming innocent people. It is the mental state of a person which determines his or her behaviour. What is the difference between a mindset of a violent man with a mental illness and a terrorist? Anyone who inflicts harm on innocent people are mentally ill. An act of terrorism is also an act of an untreated mental illness.

Mental illness is a more common than terrorism and when untreated it becomes a threat to our peace than terrorism. People who are under the influence of drugs, alcohol are in mentally distorted states. Other mentally distorted states when people behave violently are anxiety, depression, anger and overwhelming psychological stress.

Substance abuse is commonly associated with anxiety, depression, stress and past psychological trauma. They must be treated not just with drugs but also be mentally rehabilitated to transform their mental state.

People with distorted mindsets require rehabilitation to heal their emotional trauma and medication or punishment would not make them heal to transform to become better people.

Comments

To Be Or Not To Be A Vegetarian Is The Question

Meat consumption and vegetarianism are both two ends of the same stick. They are both created by people for the same reasons, thinking that both are right. Being right is only one of the reasons and you will find the other as you read. But this billion dollar question has no such simple answer or one right answer. Let's look at the big picture. All vegetarians are not vegetarians because they love animals. Most vegetarians do so because of health reasons. Many animal lovers are also meat eating people. They eat meat because they too believe it provides nutrition and also they love the taste. Humans kill animals for various reasons and most people who kill animals are not the ones who eat them. They kill to sell and killing animals is a legal and acceptable trade which is a significant source of economy of certain countries such as USA, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. If people don't eat animals then there is no trade. But animals would be in pe...

What is the purpose of your meditation?

Meditation is a very much confused activity with so many objectives and interpretations. The mediator must first choose why he or she chooses to meditate. Hindu and other religious meditations are for the purpose of controlling the mind and to bring it to a single point of attention with high intensity of concentration. That is not the path Buddha described. That is not the object of meditation Buddhists are meant to do. A Buddhist means a person who is exploring and investigating to understand the four noble truths, (what suffering is, cause of suffering, the path of ending all suffering and ending all suffering). Anyone grew up with other religions would also be a Buddhist, if that person seeks to understand four noble truths. Misguided Buddhists also do this concentration technique wrongly labelled with many names including anapanasathi and watching arising and ceasing, mindfulness, samadhi etc, because they have not yet come across original Buddha's teachings and not have heard...

How to Overcome Self-Unworthiness

The feeling of self-unworthiness is one of the biggest causes of anxiety and depression. When you have no self-worthiness, you are reluctant to connect with others and tend to live in isolation. Why some people are happy and in full of joy and confidence in themselves and they are in self-acceptance and love and others are feeling low self -worthiness feeling depressed, in self-judgment and hatred towards themselves. Tara Brach, a clinical psychologist describes, 3 simple processes to overcome self-unworthiness. 1. Learning to observe your own thoughts 2. Observing your own feelings 3. Offering loving kindness to yourself. When you have self-hate or self-judgment the primitive part of your brain gets activated. That means we are in a state of fright, flight or freeze state and under stress. We have then, activated our red alert system constantly looking out for danger or threat. That is why offering lovingkindness is so important...

Dr Sophie Jayamaha

Search This Blog