Germanwings Crash and Mental Illness

Germanwings Crash and Mental Illness

How many times over the past few years have we heard about a mass shooting?What follows is a media frenzy over identifying the culprit: an isolated, delusional young man with mental illness. This time around it’s Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who prosecutors believe deliberately slammed the Airbus A320 he was flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf into a mountain in the French Alps last Tuesday, killing all 150 passengers that were on board.

Call me a skeptic, but I think it’s all to easy to blame a dead person with a past history of mental illness for this tragedy. It’s much harder to take a long hard look at how we as a society perceive mental illness and take responsibility for creating an environment in which mental health treatment is often inaccessible, and even if it is available it is likely not to be utilized because one has to hide mental illness and fear getting diagnosed and

treated because of stigma and the negative implications it may have on ones career and relationships.

According to APA Executive Director Dr. Katherine Noral, while research shows that investing in prevention-oriented programs can reduce mental illness and improve health, too few of these programs get the attention and the funding they deserve. The media headlines today scream “Germanwings co-pilot was treated for suicidal tendencies,” “received lengthy psychotherapy before receiving his pilot's license,” and “was prescribed antidepressants”.

What do these headlines do? Create stigma. Just because one has a history of depression and suicidal ideation does not mean one is going to take down a plane with 149 people on board.