New label for angry teens: Intermittent Explosive Disorder

Research confirms the disparities in access to mental health services between African-American and white youth. African-Americans are consistently less likely than their white counterparts to seek out or receive mental health treatment. When it's time for school, schools are often left with the serious task of "diagnosing" what mental health/learning issues students may have.

The result of being diagnosed by schools, more often than not lead to students having Individual Education Plans (IEP). In my opinion a IEP is nothing more than a gerbil wheel; a tracking device that students never seem to shake. The IEP will follow them from K-12, it is a label that limits the student's ability to grow. Unfortunately, in more instances than not, schools push students with IEPs aside, while receiving federal dollars for their special education.

Now there is a new diagnosis for hard to deal with youth, Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). I shudder to think what schools can and/or will do with this diagnosis. Is the IED diagnosis just another label, or is it something that could bring students who really need help closer to getting the necessary mental health care services?

The condition is characterised by persistent and uncontrollable anger attacks. A new study, based on a household survey of 10,148 young teenagers in the US, found that nearly two thirds had a history of anger attacks involving real or threatened violence.

It also found that one in 12 met strict criteria for a diagnosis of IED. Across the US, that would equate to almost six million individuals.

IED, recognised as an impulse control disorder, usually begins in late childhood and persists through the middle years of life.

To be diagnosed with IED, a person must at any time in life have had three episodes of ''grossly out of proportion'' impulsive aggressiveness.

For the new study, published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, a more stringent definition of IED was used which ruled out other mental disorders contributing to angry outbursts.

The research also indicated that IED was not being properly treated. Although 37.8 per cent of teenagers with the disorder obtained treatment for emotional problems, only 6.5 per cent were specifically given help with anger management.

Lead researcher Professor Ronald Kessler, from Harvard Medical School in the US, said: ''If we can detect IED early and intervene with effective treatment right away, we can prevent a substantial amount of future violence perpetration and associated psychopathology.''

Stupidly is as stupidly does

Enough already of Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates and Cambridge Police Sargent James Crowley!

Gates and Crowley both handled this situation “stupidly” (as President Obama so succinctly put it) and owe it to us all to end it ASAP. They both "took it there". The argument is superficial, nobody can win, but we all stand to lose.

I must admit, I was disappointed when the learned Professor did not manage to avoid being arrested; then I was disappointed when the learned Professor did not just end the story; now I am convinced the learned Professor is so highly pissed because he was treated like so many other black men (i.e., those he refers to in the "prison system"). Professor Gates was reminded Race Trumps Class even if you are the pre-eminent Harvard Scholar Henry Louis "Skip" Gates.

AND, lest we let Sargent Crowley off the hook for being as learned as he is. After all, he is a Sargent with the Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Department. As a police sergeant he is trained to be the bigger person, take the higher road, be more professional. The learned Sargent has spent the past five years teaching a class at the Lowell Police Academy to Cambridge and Lowell police cadets about how to avoid racial profiling. He knows just as well as Professor Gates, that this situation didn't need to escalate.

It's an unfortunate fact, that most, if not all black men expect to be hassled by the police at some point in their lives. Why would Henry Gates expect the “sky to fall from the heavens” before it ever happened to him? Does graduating from Harvard somehow put him above it all (this is sarcasm)? If only an advanced degree from an Ivy League school was all it took for black folks to escape racial profiling.

I don’t like the fact that Professor Gates is letting the issue of black folks dealing with racial profiling take the heat. Should he be mad as hell about what happened to him on Thursday? That's his prerogative. However, there are many, much more effective ways for a learned Professor, who produces documentaries for PBS, to speak out about racial profiling and the plight of black men in the prison system.

Unfortunately, even President Obama was pulled into the frey by a reporter, while taking questions at a press conference on health care. Seeing how the President knows Skip Gates and he knows a little bit about being black at Harvard, he dared to answer the question. Regardless of what the President’s answer was regarding Gates-Gate, somebody was bound to be offended.

Here we are, days later and the MSM continues to focus on Gates-Gate. It's time for the MSM to let Gates-Gate go. The plight of Skip Gates, pre-eminent black Harvard Professor, is more of a Cambridge story than a human interest story. Enough already.

Article of interest: Skip Gates Speaks, Please, Professor Gates!, Officer Says He Won't Apologize