Cho's Deadliest Shooting: Seung-Hui Cho

On April 16, 2007, America experienced its deadliest shooting by a single gunman. Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, shot and killed 32 people and then turned the gun on himself (CNN). Cho had a history of mental health problems. Mental illnesses are defined as “diseases that causes mild to severe disturbances in thought and/or behavior, resulting in an inability to cope with life’s ordinary demands and routines” (Mental). Common mental health disorders include bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and dementia. Some signs and warnings that show that one might have a mental illness are: social withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety, and trouble concentrating. Sadly, Cho

As mentioned before, Cho had said he didn’t want to go to his appointment so the counselor didn’t make him. Cho was never diagnosed with a mental illness while in college, but mental health records show that he had been diagnosed and treated for an anxiety disorder as a young adult (Friedman). In a confession video, Cho had said, “You had a billion chances to prevent this [the shooting].” To me that means that the people evaluating Cho could have stopped the shooting by providing him with the right amount of help. Looking at records, the people evaluating Cho weren’t really concerned with what was happening with him. Statistics show that students said that they can avoid school shootings if teachers/professors/faculty would show that they actually cared about each student (Alfred

When it comes to health care, confidentiality is one of the most important things. Confidentiality is needed “to develop the trust and confidence important for a therapeutic relationship between consumers and providers.” People have the entitlement to be provided mental health services by people who will treat them and their information with full confidentiality. However, there are some cases were confidential information will be disclosed. HIPAA says that every person has the right to obtain their mental health records. In order to control the release of records you have to be 14 years old or older; that is if you under the nature of your documents. If you are under the age of 14, you parent or guardian has control over what information is released. A consumer also has to give written consent before a provider is able to release their records. When it comes to cases of psychotherapy, they are a different type of authorization. There are only certain cases where mental health information can be released without consent from the patient. Such cases include when it related to “the public interest.” This