HEAR NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL

Victor Bloom MD

This ancient Eastern icon of the three monkeys, one with hands over ears, the other with hands over eyes, the last with hands over mouth, is a symbolic representation of what psychiatrists call the defense mechanism of 'denial'. Denial is more than that big river in Egypt. It is all around us.

I bring up the problem of denial because denial is what leads to the school shooting tragedies. When a child gets a gun and takes some effort to conceal the fact and works out a strategy of carrying out a hostile and destructive fantasy in the real world, parents, family, school, community, are not noticing. For a child to perpetrate horrific crimes and nobody anticipate that eventuality, that child is not being sufficiently guided or supervised.

Consider the case of Kip, the 15 year old who shot twenty of his classmates in Springfield, Oregon. He had been in trouble for throwing stones at cars from a highway overpass, had talked about torturing and killing animals. He boasted to friends that he had killed his cat and blown up a cow. In a speech for class, right in school, he described how to build a bomb. He had once brought a pipe bomb to school. The day before he was arrested for possession of a stolen gun and handcuffed and brought to jail. He was released on recognizance to his parents.

Was there nobody who knew that his parents could not control him? What he really needed was lengthy inpatient residential treatment, for evaluation and treatment. As it turned out, his parents seemed to be intelligent and well-liked, but they evidently did not realize they were raising a time-bomb. The family needed psychiatric intervention and didn't get it. Why not?

There used to be a predominant media slogan, "Do you know where your children are?" It's as if we have given up; we either don't know or don't care, or don't look, or don't adequately supervise. Parents are too busy, often both working, working for the almighty buck, to accumulate amenities, not just to make ends meet. It is clear that a certain unrepentent criminality in children does not only originate in the urban ghettos. Presently it is a societal problem, one of great complexity, what with media violence and the availability of weapons and drugs to children of an ever younger age.

Just as a century ago Freud was vilified for shedding light on the sexuality of children, now it is inevitable that mental health workers must acknowledge the aggressiveness and potential destructiveness of children. We are born with an animal nature, with the potential of primitive instincts, and these instinctual tendencies must be tamed by societal restrictions. For some strange reason, parents today are less prone to restrict their children. Many children are given the impression that they must have and do anything they want. The peer pressure is so strong, that even those few children who are given parental restrictions at home, face a situation away from home where there is another climate, a carefree, devil-may-care attitude of lawlessness, of disrespect for authority.

One of the children behind bars after murdering his classmates, complained about the food in jail. He didn't want chicken; he wanted pizza. He seemed to have no awareness of the enormity of his actions, no concept of crime and punishment, of being held responsible. He just wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. I have seen this attitude promulgated by parents in everyday life, parents who interrupt an adult conversation to pay attention to a child's immediate demands, parents who offer multiple choices for meals and snacks, including the color of the bowl and whatever crayons are necessary at mealtime. The child is not allowed to wait, the child does not hear the word, "no". In this new psychology, parents and children are equals--- very egalitarian, but not good parenting.

Children need to be made aware they are small, immature, they know relatively nothing, they need to be instructed and guided and helped and encouraged along lines of accomodation to civilized society. This is a fulltime job. If the parents don't do it, somebody else must, but who? How many nannies are there? How many day care centers? How many psychiatrists, psychologist and social workers?

In the past there was an elaborate and expensive state system for the detection and treatment of a variety of mental disorders. There were public clinics of high quality for disturbed children. These have gone the way of the state hospital and the revolving door. Community mental health centers are not working; they are insufficient. Society does not seem to care.

But we must care. The pendulum must now swing the other way. The evidence of children out of control is mounting. The situation has to be researched and corrected. But first we must remove our hands from our eyes and ears and mouths. Denial gets us nowhere but temporary complacency and a false sense of peace and comfort.

Dr Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry in Wayne State University's School of Medicine. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He welcomes e-mail at vbloom@comcast.net.