One Stop Therapy: A Life Changing
Program
The legal system's
solution for problem behavior is punishment. This isn't very smart
because it just doesn’t
work: The same people are arrested repeatedly, despite the risk
of punishment. We have a better idea: solve our client's legal
problem and any problem behavior patterns at the same time.
This helps our clients and benefits everyone. This is the smart
way to handle the social problem of crime.
The lawmakers who
created our legal system had no idea that the system of punishments
would fail to deter people from breaking the law. After all, the
lawmakers assume that no one would risk harsh punishment because the
lawmakers themselves would never risk it. So here is the fundamental
flaw in our legal system: This assumes that the people most at risk for
running into criminal prosecution think the same way as the lawmakers.
They don’t.
The reason is very
simple: Most of the people who break the law suffer from brain illnesses
that affect their behavior.
When you think about it, it makes sense. Here's the math:
Brain = Behavior
Healthy Brain = Healthy Behavior
Unhealthy Brain = Unhealthy Behavior
For most people,
this is hard to fully understand. So think of it like this: If someone
you loved were suddenly stricken blind or deaf, it would be obvious to
them and everyone else. The same is true when someone is so mentally
ill that they lose touch with reality hallucinate. But when someone
slowly starts to have vision or hearing problems, they and everyone else
may not be able to tell. The hearing or visually impaired person may
not even know that they have a problem for a long time – if ever. Think
about this carefully: You can’t tell if someone has a hearing or sight
problem just by looking at them. Over time, the impairment may become
obvious to others if the hearing impaired person continually turns the
television volume up louder than other friends or family think is
appropriate. The visually impaired person may have trouble reading or
driving. Often, the person suffering the visual or hearing problem is
the last to know.
Now imagine an
illness of the brain that doesn’t cause headaches, sneezing or nausea –
it can’t be seen or heard. How do the symptoms become apparent? Here’s
a shocker: Your loved one gets arrested.
In many cases, some
family members saw the pattern of behavior and correctly predicted it
would cause problems. However, they may have attributed the behavior to
a lack of discipline, character, morals or other personal failing. This
will need to be examined, but in many cases, the problem behavior is not
just a moral failure: In about 80% of all cases where the defendant is
guilty, an undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or improperly treated brain
illness is involved.
Brain illnesses
don’t always have obvious symptoms like instant blindness or the flu. Symptoms of a
brain illness often show up in the form of problem behavior which
results in arrest. Fortunately, most of these illnesses can be
successfully treated.
