<p>Agree, sodiumfree. There was a case about 10 year ago where a psychologist felt he had a duty to warn a named potential victim, but sought peer consultation before ultimately deciding to report the threat 2 weeks later. IIRC, it was because of that delay in reporting, while discussing it with colleagues, that the psychologist was successfully sued for breach of confidentiality, because by the time he reported it, the person no longer met criteria for posing an “imminent threat”. It is such a difficult position to be in.</p>
<p>Yup, I don’t envy psychotherapists!</p>
<p>SodiumFree and jym626: thanks for the discussion</p>
<p>You’re right, Sodium that I was combining child abuse laws and physical violence and elder abuse laws in my post. In trying to make it simple, I caused more confusion - sorry! You are correct that the 24 hour time limit is on child abuse reports only. Regarding situations of threats of physical violence between adults, you are also correct that there must be a serious threat against a reasonably identifiable victim. The notification of the threat can come from the patient (Tarasoff decision) OR the patient’s family (Ewing decision 2004). The actual decision to report is often muddled, as you so rightly point out, jym626. And a patient saying “I wanted to KILL him!” is not enough, in itself, to trigger a warning. The context must be examined. Thanks for all your clarifications, jym626.</p>
<p>In the case of a child abuse report, any suspicion that it may have happened is enough to trigger a report. Often the mandated reporter has never met the person being reported (and may never have met the alleged victim, as the report of abuse may come from a third party), so has no way of verifying the truth at all.</p>
<p>The point of my post, really, was to draw a parallel in response to all the discussion about what this young man’s motives are. We really have no way of knowing, and it is not our job (or the job of the OP) to figure it out. A report is not the same as an accusation. Her job as mom is to make a report along the proper channels, and let other authorities figure it out.</p>
<p>Thanks, calla1.</p>
<p>So after all this (323 posts), perhaps the original poster is not returning to let us know what happened. I hope that means good things.</p>
<p>Or she felt driven off by those criticizing her for worrying. 
OP, hoping this is all getting straightened out and everyone is safe.</p>
<p>She said the Dean was handling it, she thanked us for our opinions and requested that the conversation end. If I were her, I’d be concerned about confidentiality - I don’t know how easy it would be to figure out what college this is and what students are involved. If someone were to recognize this situation… I rather doubt the college or any of the students involved would appreciate this situation being spelled out on the web.</p>
<p>I think we should respect her request to end the conversation. She didn’t post here for our entertainment.</p>
<p>thanks, calla1</p>
<p>
Well, not all that hard, but I don’t know that it’s relevant to a general question of what to do in the event that one’s S or D is in a similar situation, which is still germane.</p>