Currently in the world there are two mental health paradigms: one is predominant, while the other is emerging. They can be summed-up as follows:
1. Genetics-based Paradigm: This paradigm is not a specialised science, but is an extension of existing medical science. It believes that all health and behavioural problems are caused by genetic faults and/or epigenetic changes. Its main psychological treatment involves cognitive-behaviour therapy, which believes that changing your thoughts can change your behaviours. When this fails, psychology, psychiatry, and general medicine revert to providing prescription drugs to lessen symptoms and seemingly control the adverse mental problems and behaviours.
2. Pain-based Paradigm: This paradigm has gradually developed into a specialised science that is separate from medical science. Its latest format is represented by the laws of pain. It believes that the current crop of health and behavioural problems are caused by a history of unresolved psychoemotional pain. Such pain miswires the brain, twists the psyche, and contorts behaviours. Pain-resolving psychotherapy is employed to resolve the history of pain. This rewires the brain back to normal, straightens the psyche, and dissolves abnormal behaviours.
Since the emergence of mental health as a medical arm from several hundred years ago, the genetics-based paradigm has come to rule society. The paradigm is supported by government and taught to the following generations at universities. And what has been the result? While there has been a general improvement in recognition of mental health problems, and helpful treatments provided - overall, such problems have only increased in occurrence. The following list exemplifies this.
After the last World War, a "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" subculture developed, and drug use has only increased to become a common dependency, and a major criminal activity. There have been upsurges in extremist religious movements, terrorism, suicide bombings, and general suicides. The serial killer of yesteryear - who secretly killed numerous people over a length of time - seems tame by today's standards of violence. He/she has been surpassed by the spree killer, who kills numerous people in one event - and often then commits suicide him/herself. And brand new behaviours have emerged: such as "king hit" killings - single knock-out punches that cause falling victims to crack their skulls on pavements; and "road rage" - where drivers become so frustrated and enraged that they jump out of their cars and attack other drivers (or even cyclists).
In fact, if it wasn't for gun control laws in most (Western) countries, spree killings would be endemic in modern society. The violent rage is still present in some people, but the gun control laws are effectively keeping it suppressed (while being unable to resolve it via the mental health system). The US is a complete contrast to this though. Its gun lobby is culturally dominant, so there are weak gun control laws - which has seen spree killings become endemic there. This society is regarded as the world's leader: it has the most advanced technology; the biggest companies, the wealthiest individuals, the best universities, the most prestigious science publications, and probably the largest number of mental health professionals. Yet, one could say that it prefers that a small proportion of its own citizens are shot dead each month, rather than change either its gun control laws or its mental health paradigm. It always claims that such perpetrators have "fallen through the cracks" in the system. But in reality, they just refuse to accept that the fault is in the system itself, which has cracks so wide that they are unable to identify potential perpetrators before they do damage. This is a measure of the influence that both the gun lobby and medical science exerts over government and mainstream society. It is also a measure of how warpt a society can become when it follows out-of-date cultural mores for too long.
Clearly, both the gun lobby and the genetics-based mental health paradigm have failed their own people. But there is a way out of this trouble. If the US does not want to change its gun laws to stop spree killings, it can instead change its mental health paradigm to stop them. The government could instigate a sweeping review of the mental health sector. It could lay everything out on the table: the old theories and practices, the newer ones, and the more radical ones, and interview a range of patients to get their views. Then a decision could be made on the appropriate way forward under a new mental health paradigm - that has been updated to suit modern times and the current range of mental health problems. The newly updated paradigm (ideally, a more pain-based one) could then catch more mental health sufferers earlier in life, and provide more effective treatments to resolve their problems before they do social damage. By undertaking such an initiative, the US society could restore some of its lost pride, and continue to be an example for other nations to follow.