Put a Psychiatrist in His Corner

The Nevada State Athletic Commission delivered a stinging blow that hurt Mike Tyson badly when it denied him a boxing license Jan. 29.

Yet no one seems willing to extend a helping hand to rescue the powerful fighter from the demons of the mind that pound him with greater force than any opponent.

For years, people have called Tyson crazy, out of control, a wild man, even an animal. He’s been fined, imprisoned, barred from the ring and shunned. Yet in all of his glorious years of ear biting, brawling, lawbreaking and serving time in prison, Tyson has never once been forced to seek and finish psychiatric treatment.

Tyson needs mandatory psychiatric care. And as a psychiatrist who for 25 years has worked with terribly troubled people, I have patiently waited for some sporting or legal authority to force Tyson to get the help he so desperately needs.

It seems, however, that there’s a stigma attached to mental health disorders that prevents the authorities from treating them like any other health issue.

I’m sure if Tyson were suffering from a concussion, the boxing authorities would allow him to fight only after a medical expert deemed him healthy. Why isn’t the same help given to those with mental health disorders?

Maybe Tyson’s race and educational background have influenced why he hasn’t been given help. How long would it take us to commit Andre Agassi if he jumped across the net and bit the ear or thigh of competitors like Pete Sampras or Lleyton Hewitt? Probably faster than a three-minute round in the ring.

I find it interesting that the same people who vilify Tyson for his actions could not find enough praise for the courage and spirit of professor John Nash for his triumph over his psychological demons, as chronicled in the film and book “A Beautiful Mind.” Nash was violent and dangerous like Tyson, and got better only after treatment was forced on him.

It’s sad that the United States is one of the few civilized countries that consistently does not require treatment for severely handicapped people.

Our recent history is filled with brutally painful lessons of the dark consequences of unrecognized psychiatric disorders. There’s evidence that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was psychologically impaired by depression in 1944 when he let Stalin steal Eastern Europe at Yalta, and that President Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease began while he was still at the White House.

And what about the FBI’s top counterintelligence officer, Robert Hanssen, who sold our nuclear secrets to Russia? For 20 years, Hanssen confessed his spying and his deep psychological problems to his Catholic priest, but all he received was advice to pray.

What kind of advice are we giving Tyson? I wonder how many people have said to him: “Don’t worry about the Nevada boxing license--there are so many other states we haven’t tried yet,” instead of just having him committed.

It was less than four years ago that the Nevada commissioners rejected another of Tyson’s licensing bids, naming lack of continued treatment for his erratic behavior as their main reason.

It doesn’t particularly matter to me whether Tyson ever fights in the ring again. But as a psychiatrist--and someone who wants to feel safe with people like Tyson roaming the streets--it does matter to me that he receives help, even if we have to force it on him.

We don’t have to accept Tyson’s outrageous acts. For society’s sake, and for Tyson’s own sake, we must open our eyes to the perils of untreated mental disorders.

Instead of continuing to attack this sick man, we need to help him get well.