James Eganl Holmes, aka the Joker

That a brilliant student would make a dramatic shift, amass weapons and perpetrate a massacre at a movie theater-- sounds much too much like the plot of an adventure film.  But we know it is the truth, the scientist seemingly turned mad.

Or is he a criminal?  The media certainly seems ready to execute him.  Yet we know that Student Services at the university he attended flagged him as a potential danger.  A psychiatrist treated him and he sent her a present, a package with drawings of a shooter and his victims. Perhaps the doctor asked him to draw out the things going on in his head.

He might have been hospitalized, had he not dropped out of school, fallen between the cracks.  It shouldn't have happened, and yet, probably others, not only his psychiatrist knew that he had violent thoughts.  Why didn't anyone stop him?

That's a very good question.  Clearly the answer is mandatory psycho-education about violence and mental illness.

Read this blogger's take on it for more.  James Egan Holmes


Linda Freedman, MSW, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Another shooting at school

First day!  Not what we expect to hear, that a teenager brings a gun to school and a bottle of vodka and opens fire in the school cafeteria.

But it is happening, and it did happen in Perry Hall, Maryland.

Robert Wayne Gladden Jr. was being held without bail on charges of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault, Baltimore County police said. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Sept. 7. The state's attorney's office did not know if he had a lawyer.Gladden's last status update on his Facebook page, posted the morning of the shooting, read: "First day of school, last day of my life. ... f--- the world."

What can we do about it?  The young man had warned his friends on Facebook, and yet, nobody called his parents.  Not one "friend" stopped him from his rampage.  His father tells us that he was bullied.

Anti-bullying workshops are popping up everywhere, but clearly are not universal.  Nor are psycho-educational efforts like those that Relationship-Wise, Inc. puts out, School Wise division.  We're hoping to see more of these, and less violence.

Linda Freedman

Jerry Sandusky and His Family

It has to be an oversight that Penn State missed a pedophile among the hundreds, no thousands of people working for the school.  On the other hand, he had a supervisor.  Everyone has one in a sprawling state school, someone is responsible for the actions of someone else in that tier below.

Penn fired beloved coach Joe Paterno, and others, too, for failing to stop Jerry Sandusky.  Mr. Paterno passed away, a nation grieved (certainly a state and a university), and the rest of us are left wondering how the winning head coach could not have known, and if he did, why didn't he send his friend to the locker room for good. (Perhaps a bad choice of words).

We would have preferred that someone sent Jerry Sandusky for help, but help becomes a criminal investigation when it comes to pedophilia. This is the terrible double-bind that loved ones face.  Blow the whistle and the head of the family, sometimes the sole support, is sending a perpetrator to trial.

So no, of course Mrs. Sandusky kept it quiet, refused to expose Jerry as a rapist of children, assuming she knew about her husband's unpleasant, disturbing sexual habits, and how could she not?  She didn't talk because she knew that he will likely either kill himself in prison or be killed.  And yet, it caught up with him, her denial, his denial, the denial of a university.

He should have been evaluated so many years ago, even if he did spend time in prison, and it is possible he would have avoided that, working for a prestigious school under prestigious coaches.  He could have been  treated, watched by authorities, denied access to working with children. He had a charity called The Second Mile.  He could have started a Second Life.

Now we'll just wait for the next episode, some new scandal or new information about Sandusky.  Hopefully a movie, maybe one about the Sandusky family.  That's the kind of exposure that exposes this problem, encourages people to report early, as soon as there's suspicion.

Do schools need a better understanding of this problem?  As the kids like to say, "Do ya' think?"


Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

The Secret Service and the Prostitutes

Mark Sullivan, Director of the United States Secret Service, believes that what happened in Cartagen (Columbia) last April, twelve secret service agents caught with their pants down, is an isolated event.  He insists it is not a systematic, cultural issue. Dumbfounded is the word he uses about hearing the story for the first time.


For us, that he would be dumbfounded, is the hardest part to believe.

What's that mean, anyway, a systematic, cultural issue?

Systematic, in research, indicates that an event repeats, often, under predictable circumstances.  Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, noted the agents used their own names when signing in prostitutes as overnight guests in their hotel rooms. Senator Collins thought that had this been an isolated event, then the agents would have feared exposure, would never have used their own names registering at the hotel.

But they didn't seem to worry about a thing, visited several night clubs and strip bars, and brought home the known prostitutes, who registered under their own names, too.

That they feared nothing is an indication that they had done this so many times before, they learned there was nothing to fear.  They knew there would be no discipline.  There's that repetition thing.

The cultural issue would be a description of how a system responds to variants of behavioral norms.  No discipline, laxity, tolerance of behavior unbecoming to the protectors of the President of the United States, should be a variant of executive branch culture.  But since such behavior is tolerated, it is the cultural norm.

What is egregious about this lack of discipline, tolerance of sexual promiscuity and alcohol indulgence to the degree that it impairs decision-making, is that as sworn public servants, these men should know the circumstances that contribute to compromising the success of their mission in foreign lands.

This is why so many are upset with a culture tolerant of systematic promiscuous behavior.  It isn't because we're such prudes.

Collins noted that "it is basic 'counterintelligence 101' that Secret Service personnel and others holding sensitive positions of trust in the U.S. government should avoid any situation that could provide a foreign intelligence or security service or criminal gangs with the means of exerting coercion or blackmail. Yet two of the primary means of entrapment -- sexual lures and alcohol -- were both present here in abundance."

While preliminary findings are that no weapons or classified material was in the agents' rooms, those involved "could easily have been drugged or kidnapped, or had their liaisons with these foreign national used to blackmail them," she said. "They willingly made themselves potential targets not only for intelligence or security services, but also for groups like" drug cartels.

Step down, Mr. Sullivan.  The job market isn't that tight that the country can't replace you. As should the twelve agents implicated in the scandal.

And the new hires?  Something tells us they won't repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

We'll be glad to discuss the science of systems and dysfunctional culture with members of the Executive Branch, and the Legislative and Judicial branches, as well.  The objective of our workshops (Safe Service division of Relationship-Wise, Inc.) is clarity of thinking, and the essence of representation-- even on road trips.  It is not as easy as people might think.  Just ask Mr. Sullivan.

Linda Freedman, PhD