Gun Violence and Mass Shootings: How Mental Health Professionals Can Help
Gun violence and mass shootings are complex and tragic events. Types of shootings vary widely, but the devastating impact is universal: trauma to victims, families, communities, and society as a whole. Within the variety of shootings there are confusing sets of data that can complicate our personal and societal response. More important, what can we do as clinicians?
This intermediate level course, presented in an interview format facilitated by Dr. Glenn Marks, provides information to help clinicians make sense of, and respond to, incidents of gun violence. Dr. LaBrie will break down the differences between immediate crisis response and aftermath treatment, providing clinical tools to assist in each stage of recovery. In addition, he will present an approach to addressing the systemic mental health issues that may be driving gun violence, drawing from recent mental health, law enforcement, and social studies.
Educational Objectives
This course will teach the participant to
- Identify different types of mass shootings and their impact on clients.
- Describe the different clinical response opportunities after gun violence and a mass shooting.
- Explain the broad set of drivers behind most gun violence that we as clinicians can address in practice.
Syllabus
- Different types of gun violence and mass shootings
- Recent statistical data
- Public perceptions and misconceptions
- Law and enforcement and community responses before, during, and immediately following mass shootings
- Law enforcement
- Mental health responses
- Treatment of survivors by mental health providers
- Differences between survivor of public or private mass shootings and other types of gun violence
- Acute, versus compounded versus long-term
- The larger role of mental health clinicians
- The impact of the media on clinicians and public perceptions
- Largest overlapping factors among shooters
- The behaviors of public mass shooters
- Though not predictive can be utilized in threat assessment
- Countering the “epidemic despair”
- Specific steps and actions