Vince Young was suicidal? (1 Viewer)

[gianmarco]

As a psychiatrist, and a forensic military and government one at that, I think there could be several reasons why the therapist may have contacted Fisher.1. Imminent danger - depends on the state law, but most states have "duty to warn/protect" - if the therapist feels there is enough info to believe the client may be a danger to self OR others, he can break confidentiality. If self, then notifies the police or mental health response team. If others, notifies the police and/or the party in danger.2. She is a team psychologist and there were previous waivers signed. In the military and certain government agencies, the psychologist has dual roles. In this case, confidentiality may be limited. In the military, this would include cases were the law was about to be broken, or national security issues were at stake. Or there is a fitness for duty issus. Then the psychologist can discuss cases with the commander, supervisor. I imagine team psychologists may have similar limited confidentiality.

#2 is a great point and makes sense. At first, I didn't think it would be appropriate to ask players to sign that kind of waiver but when you put it in that context, I would actually be surprised if they didn't in some form or another. My guess is that he simply mentioned suicide but didn't have an actual plan in place nor did she think he was in imminent danger and thus did not contact the police. The fact that it became a police matter is the only reason the information got public, but that is pretty unfortunate. I hope for everyone's sakes that things were done correctly, although it may take a while to find that out if we ever find out at all. Either way, I hope he's able to get what he needs regardless of the rest of his football career.

 

[HellToupee]

As a psychiatrist, and a forensic military and government one at that, I think there could be several reasons why the therapist may have contacted Fisher.1. Imminent danger - depends on the state law, but most states have "duty to warn/protect" - if the therapist feels there is enough info to believe the client may be a danger to self OR others, he can break confidentiality. If self, then notifies the police or mental health response team. If others, notifies the police and/or the party in danger.2. She is a team psychologist and there were previous waivers signed. In the military and certain government agencies, the psychologist has dual roles. In this case, confidentiality may be limited. In the military, this would include cases were the law was about to be broken, or national security issues were at stake. Or there is a fitness for duty issus. Then the psychologist can discuss cases with the commander, supervisor. I imagine team psychologists may have similar limited confidentiality.

I think she either worked for the team in some aspect or had him on her fantasy team.

 

[fatness]

SOMEBODY did something wrong here.

The prevailing theme of the Shark Pool these days.

 

[ookook]

Couple quick thoughts:

(1) A "therapist" may well not be a psychologist or psychiatrist and not be liscenced. Not sure I read the degree. So revocation may not be an option even if warranted.

(2) Whether the therapist had called Fisher first or police first it still becomes a matter of public record.

(3) Many of our "rights" can be signed away in a legal, including confidientiality.

(4) Ethics and laws are not always the same thing. So what a psychologist is required to do by law, is able to get away with under law, and what a professional code of ethics compels one to do can sometimes be in juxtaposition.

 

[monessen]

We know many athletes carry a weapon for protection. But if Vince Young has been treated for depression and spoken of suicide, how can any loved one (like his mom who urged the community in a newspaper article to support Vince during this time) allow him to disappear with a handgun after a particularly upsetting experience like the one on Sunday? My hope is that the agent or someone close to Young stripped him of that weapon though he certainly can hurt himself lots of ways if that's his intention.

I understand what you're saying, but I think that's easier said than done, and the unarmed person trying to disarm a 6'4" 245# man would potentially be putting his/her and others' well-being in jeopardy.Also, even if you disarm a truly suicidal person, they're gonna find a way to do the job. You'd probably be surprised how creative some people can be.

Yes, I believe I covered most of that ground in my original post, particularly in the last sentence. Thanks for the affirmation.If it was his mother that reported Young took his gun and left the cell phone behind, I would hope he didn't consider harming her if she had attempted to hide the weapon. Do we know who noted the development about the phone and the gun? Was the person's identity established?

What is it about mothers, controversy, and Titan QBs? Steve McNair's mother made local news a fair amount down there for the wrong reasons and now Felicea Young is asking for public support which must embarrass Young a bit.

 

[the hairy scotsman]

We know many athletes carry a weapon for protection. But if Vince Young has been treated for depression and spoken of suicide, how can any loved one (like his mom who urged the community in a newspaper article to support Vince during this time) allow him to disappear with a handgun after a particularly upsetting experience like the one on Sunday? My hope is that the agent or someone close to Young stripped him of that weapon though he certainly can hurt himself lots of ways if that's his intention.

I understand what you're saying, but I think that's easier said than done, and the unarmed person trying to disarm a 6'4" 245# man would potentially be putting his/her and others' well-being in jeopardy.Also, even if you disarm a truly suicidal person, they're gonna find a way to do the job. You'd probably be surprised how creative some people can be.

Yes, I believe I covered most of that ground in my original post, particularly in the last sentence. Thanks for the affirmation.If it was his mother that reported Young took his gun and left the cell phone behind, I would hope he didn't consider harming her if she had attempted to hide the weapon. Do we know who noted the development about the phone and the gun? Was the person's identity established?

What is it about mothers, controversy, and Titan QBs? Steve McNair's mother made local news a fair amount down there for the wrong reasons and now Felicea Young is asking for public support which must embarrass Young a bit.

Oh yeah. If that was my mom, I'd be telling her to shut her wordhole. Of course, she'd completely ignore me and do whatever the f she wants. That's probably something similar to what happened here, if I had to guess.

 

[Byron_nyc]

My sense from the news reports is that its the Nashville PD that leaked the information that the therapist had said VY had said he was thinking of suicide. The therapist totally has an obligation to report Young's statement to the police if he says it and goes missing -- but the police have no business leaking this whatsoever.

I think this is a case of some police officer not being able to keep a secret.

 

[cobalt_27]

My sense from the news reports is that its the Nashville PD that leaked the information that the therapist had said VY had said he was thinking of suicide. The therapist totally has an obligation to report Young's statement to the police if he says it and goes missing -- but the police have no business leaking this whatsoever. I think this is a case of some police officer not being able to keep a secret.

Inaccurate on several points. The psychologist (not therapist) did not report Young's concerns to the police. She told Jeff Fisher. Second, the police do have business providing the media with their reports. ESPN chose to investigate, pull the report, and announce the details to the public.

 

[the hairy scotsman]

My sense from the news reports is that its the Nashville PD that leaked the information that the therapist had said VY had said he was thinking of suicide. The therapist totally has an obligation to report Young's statement to the police if he says it and goes missing -- but the police have no business leaking this whatsoever. I think this is a case of some police officer not being able to keep a secret.

Inaccurate on several points. The psychologist (not therapist) did not report Young's concerns to the police. She told Jeff Fisher. Second, the police do have business providing the media with their reports. ESPN chose to investigate, pull the report, and announce the details to the public.

Does HIPAA have any bearing when it comes to the media and police reports involving medical info?

 

[cobalt_27]

My sense from the news reports is that its the Nashville PD that leaked the information that the therapist had said VY had said he was thinking of suicide. The therapist totally has an obligation to report Young's statement to the police if he says it and goes missing -- but the police have no business leaking this whatsoever. I think this is a case of some police officer not being able to keep a secret.

Inaccurate on several points. The psychologist (not therapist) did not report Young's concerns to the police. She told Jeff Fisher. Second, the police do have business providing the media with their reports. ESPN chose to investigate, pull the report, and announce the details to the public.

Does HIPAA have any bearing when it comes to the media and police reports involving medical info?

Well, first of all, there are a lot of other breaches of confidentiality that something like this would fall under before we even mentioned HIPAA. Nevertheless, health professionals are prohibited from going to the media, most certainly. But, they have absolute liberty--in fact a duty--to protect, which over-rides any rights to confidentiality. Thus, going to the police with medical information pertinent to the case is not considered a breach of confidentiality if there is a concern about imminent danger. To protect her own ###, that's what I believe this psychologist should have done (of course, there may be some circumstances that we're all unaware of that makes her call to Jeff Fisher appropriate; I'm just skeptical about that at this point). The loophole here, though, is that the police are under no such duty to protect ANY information. They write up everything in their reports, and as I understand it, the public (and media) have access to those reports. So, unfortunately for Young, whether the psychologist went to Fisher or the police, I think the same result would have happened here, and we'd all know about this reference to suicidality. My only thing is that, from my perspective, I think the psychologist potentially exposed herself to some liability by contacting Fisher. Again, I don't have all the details or know of the stipulations that concerned his care, or any authorizations Young gave to her. I'm simply speculating. But, if she thought Young was at imminent risk to harm himself, I think she should have called the police. If she didn't think he was an imminent threat to harm himself, she should have grabbed some Chinese food and a movie and not talked to anyone.

 

[JamesTheScot]

Agreed, I've seen a therapist before, never to this extent... mostly helps to have an unbiased opinion on regular problems... but for somebody that took a code to let this leak should get their license revoked. This is probably the worst thing that could have happened to Vince Young at this time, he has a hard enough of time talking about his problems and this took a comfort zone away from a community of people that are paid to be trusted... if this gets blown out of proportion it looks like Vince is going to be very cautious about seeing another therapist which is such a terrible thing for somebody in his position. I wish him the best of luck and hope he manages to overcome this.

Here's the scenario.The therapist talks to VY and he seems very depressed and mentions suicide. Therapist discusses this with Fisher so the team can help VY.

VY goes missing with a gun and no cell phone.

VY friends and family report him missing to Fisher with details about the gun and phone.

Fisher calls the police and reports VY missing.

Police say they won't do anything since he's an adult and might just be needing some "me time". Call us back in 48 hours if he hasn't shown up.

Fisher says "You don't understand, he was talking to his therapist about suicide this afternoon and ran off with his gun and without his phone!"

The police, no doubt according to mandatory procedure, paper the file to explain their justification for going out looking for an adult who has only been missing for a few hours.

**** Up to this point, VY is being treated like any other person would be.****

A reporter, using the Freedon In Information Act, which is perfectly legal BTW, forces the PD to show them the paperwork.

The police department obey the law (imagine that!) and provide the paperwork as mandated by state law.

Reporter writes it up and disperses the info throughout the media.

NFL fans everywhere eat it up and post their opinions about VY on message boards.

****Because VY is a celebrity, this is news. It just goes with the territory. That's just the way it is.****

Don't blame the therapist, Fisher, the police or VY's friends and family.

Do the press want to sell news? Yes.

We've had how many threads about this on this message board? We're the consumers driving the demand. Don't blame the press.