The criminal's keeper

Do we think the mother of the Newtown shooter would have gone to bed that night leaving guns accessible if she’d had even the slightest inkling that her son would kill her, much less innocent young children? We are all subject to moments of poor judgment, or of hoping the suicidal patient we opted not to hospitalize will make it through the night. Parents and psychiatrists both want luck to be on their side.

I like to believe that most parents try to do their best by their children, and most psychiatrists try to do their best by their patients. And when awful things happen, I feel badly for the mothers of both the victims and the perpetrators, and for the psychiatrists. It’s a myth – and a burden – we hold that any of us can completely control the behavior of another human being.

<[QM—Dinah Miller, M.D.

Dr. Miller is co-author of Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).