Disciplined?? This judge should lose his job for the lack of care and respect he's shown, not just to that kid but what he's implied to all people who struggle with thoughts of suicide. Here's someone in a position of authority not only saying suicide is acceptable but actually encouraging it and saying "the world and the System would be better off if you were dead"
There has been a bit of talk recently in blogs and comments about how suicide needs to be treated seriously in all cases. This is a perfect example of how that isn't happening.
Sickening.
~Shiv

Judge Holtz had better hope that karma's a myth.

Matt

Actually, doesn't what Holtz said amount to incitement to, or counselling and procuring of, a criminal offence (assuming that suicide is, laughably, still a criminal offence, in Michigan)?

Matt

This takes things further than not taking suicide seriously. Although people can be paranoid that the system is out to get them, this is one of those cases in which it seems to unfortunately be true.

Deplorable behavior for a judge. She should be removed from her position.

That's deplorable for anyone to say, and being a Judge, makes it completely sick. But, then who says people with power are compassionate all of the time? or smart for that matter.

As someone who has watched friends and family members struggle with drug and alcohol abuse and seen and experienced first-hand the hell that it puts people through, I think the judge was merely trying to tell the kid to quit drinking and stop committing suicide by degrees. Without knowing the specifics, I can't really say more, but how do we know that the previous charges weren't more serious? Generally speaking, most judges don't say things like that unless they've seen someone in their courtroom repeatedly for the same sort of charges.

Besides, what she said wasn't that uncommon to hear not so very long ago in treatment programs that dealt with people who kept relapsing. Is it insensitive? Yup. On the other hand, addicts tend to miss things when they're said tactfully. That's part of the problem with abusing drugs - it destroys your ability to parse things when they're put more diplomatically.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I have told addicts before that they should either quit or kill themselves because they're going to wind up dead anyway and at least they wouldn't do anymore harm. And I'd do it again.

Puckett's right, there's even a formula known as paradoxical therapy I had to study back in college, the textbook called GO AHEAD, KILL YOURSELF!

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Ahead-Kill-Yourself-Paradoxical/dp/0942963067

That fad sort of died out (so to speak,) but hints remain in Dialectal Behavioral Therapy and the newest fad, motivational counseling,. All told a sort of ice water in the face technique designed to wake the sleepyheads up.

here's the deal. a Judge has a different so-called "status" hence can be smacked down (like i did) for what the Judge says in court to a person. I think that counts.

BUT, I have also driven with the car door wide open (recently!)as my daughter held it open on the freeway--and what did i say? "hey, it's your life, you want it or you don't." she shut the door.

flawedplan wrote:
"Puckett's right, there's even a formula known as paradoxical therapy I had to study back in college, the textbook called GO AHEAD, KILL YOURSELF!.."

"Negging" requires real skill, and I don't think that there is any evidence that the judge was attempting to use dialectic, as a means of on-the-spot counselling. To reiterate: simply contradicting somebody, or using blunt "reverse psychology" is a crap approach, unless one has something a good deal more sophisticated in one's locker. If one uses dialectic, one has to be prepared to run the argument the whole way to ultimate agreement - using a single aggressive counterproposition (and refusing the other party the opportunity to come back, which people in authority tend to do), is not something to be used indiscriminately, because one will never know what impact it might have on the recipient.

Matt

Stephany wrote:
"..."hey, it's your life, you want it or you don't." she shut the door."

There's a very good psychological reason why that worked, and may demonstrate that Lindsay's still perfectly capable of making decisions for herself. That is: you presented her with an entire universe of possibility, and she took the positive option (from our perspective).

Some people would have jumped, presumably to demonstrate how shit they thought their life was. That's why one has to be very careful, when taking this approach, and Judge Holtz really ought to be made aware of that.

Matt

There was of course a brief period of enlightenment when the science that contradicts the medicalizing of alcoholism came to light, but no more, and it's true, even I don't overtly fight the medical model, still this kid was in court for possession of alcohol, he wasn't even drunk, hence no charge for intoxication. Thus, under the allergy theory of alcoholism, it's unlikely the kid had an alcohol problem because had he had such an illness, he would have been compelled to drink. That the judge thinks inconvenient people should kill themselves makes me hope that when the kid does it, the judge is charged with murder. I wonder if the judge ever was in possession of alcohol when under 21, probably. Hypocracy and ignorance, yuck.