When building a house, the most important thing is the foundation; after all, without it, what can stand? In all relationships, there is one thing that would be equivalent to the foundation of this house- trust. Trust is having faith, believing that you, your secrets, and everything that makes you who you are is safe with someone or something. When this trust is broken, can it ever truly be repaired?
Psychology teaches -fundamentally- that the key to a healthy patient-psychologist relationship is building a healthy rapport and establishing trust. This seems to be an agreed-upon rule of therapy and treatment of mental health, for all except one group: minors. About 21.8% of children between 3 and 17 suffer from mental illness- but only 14.9% of children aged 5-17 years old received treatment. Among these children, 18% planned a suicide attempt, and an additonal 10% attempted. And these are only the reported cases- many, many go unreported. The privacy of minors should be respected the same way it is as adults, because if it is not, how will they ever trust an adult enough to reach out for help?
Laws on mandatory reporting should be slackened because children are fearful to be honest with counselors, grow resentful after these breaches of trust, and end up more traumatized after mandatory treatment. With our current laws, children are fearful to even reach out for help in the first place.
Picture this: you’re young, maybe 12 or 13, fiddling with your hands and pulling on your sweater sleeves. You’re sitting in some cramped little corner, on an armchair hard as stone. Across from you sits a seemingly-nice lady, holding a notepad. You begin to think that maybe you can really, truly talk to her– but then she says just a few words that zip your mouth shut.
Counselors, both therapists and psychologists, are required to let minor patients know that anything they say can be accessed by their parents. As they mark down what you tell them in therapy, it goes into their notes, which guardians can request at any time. Many patients are worried how their guardians will react– in fact, some patients are in counseling because of their parents!
Additionally, counselors are required to inform the parents if they believe anyone– not just their patient– is in danger. This includes a patient threatening suicide, homicide, or even past dangerous experiences. That’s right– if you ever were sexually assaulted, you couldn’t open up about it in therapy, unless you want your family to find out. Many kids confess in online surveys that they feel uneasy talking to their therapists out of fear of their parents finding out what they say, leading to resentment and mistrust.
Fear builds resentment. Now picture this same child, finally confiding in their therapist how they feel and getting sent to a hospital, stripped of fundamental rights and their dignity. They grow resentful, as any rational sentient being would. How would you feel if everything about you was spilled to everyone you didn’t want to know? This broken relationship between patient and counselor prevents both themselves and potentially those around them from getting treatment.
A professional therapist expressed her dislike of the law to me, stating that it made patient-therapist rapport hard to build. Rapport is the trust, the relationship, between a patient and their healthcare professional, and is essential in treatment for any illness, be it mental or physical. This trust can be easily broken. Think of a beautiful, beautiful plate– the kind you’d find in your mother’s cabinet–this plate is precious, not only to your mother but your father as well. If you drop this plate and it shatters, what will you do? The plate is broken, and though you may glue it back together, it will never be the same again.
Current laws on minors’ right to privacy don’t meet up to the standards set by those very same laws for adults, leaving children angry and distrustful of those who only wish to help them; trauma is so very easy to cause, but so, so hard to fix.
Anger and bitterness towards the system aside, mandatory treatment centers leave those in its care more traumatized than before. These types of places are meant to keep patients alive, rather than help them to get better, and the fundamental disrespect is incredibly damaging to a young psyche. Only 27% of admissions said they felt safe during treatment, and only 17% felt satisfied with the quality of care. Anywhere from 30% to 100% of all psychiatric hospitalizations are marked as involuntary per hospital, meaning they are taken against their will. Thirty percent of these involuntary commitments are readmitted in the same year, compared to the 10% regular annual readmission rate. In each hospital, there are a certain number of beds to be filled, and patients are shuffled through without ever checking in on them afterward. All of their secrets, fears, and hidden feelings are forced out of them in a cold, quiet little room. All of their personal possessions are stripped from them and searched through, leaving them only with their own hopelessness. This will discourage them from ever seeking help– be honest, would you ever trust such a broken system after an experience like this?
Our current laws on minor privacy in mental health departments cause children to become fearful of talking to their counselors, grow bitter and angry towards mental health care, and prevent future treatment. We strip our children of the barest rights, then turn around and call doing the very same things to adults cruel. Why should the rights of adults be any different than our children? We are destroying them, and in doing so we are destroying our country– they are our world.
However, you have the power to change this; vote for candidates who support the rights of minors’ privacy, and in doing so, save our children.
