The impression I get from your posts is that you're angry at the media for making too much of this story, and therefore you're going to deride anyone in the media who enters the conversation--whether psychiatrist or journalist or whatever--as profiteers.

It is natural for laypeople to want to understand something like this for various reasons ranging from self protection to plain old gawking. What seems to be the typical result of satisfying the public's thirst for a sensational murder is to stereotype.

It is fine by me for knowledgeable experts to study and learn about human behavior in all its wondrous varieties. To think that something like this could have been prevented through examining other cases like this seems doubtful to me. Human behavior is unpredictable whether done by someone considered aberrant or someone considered normal.

The idea of preempting unpredictable behavior in the name of the greater good would certainly cause more harm than good. Someone close to solving the world's energy problems could get swept up because they are acting weird or eccentric and when questioned act even weirder. Don't get me wrong, people that are having social or mental problems deserve to get the best help that they need. But intervening where help is neither  wanted nor needed can only be counter productive.

So back to the parents. I believe that they should be left alone if that is what they want. I cannot see how they can contribute to preventing the next mass murderer from killing. There are plenty of weird people out there whose parents would love to talk about their children. Just because they are not made famous by a gruesome killing shouldn't make them less desirable by those truly seeking knowledge.

if only the experts and the interested folks would begin asking the following - exactly how people respond to this human being over a lifetime?

that is where the potential for constructive learning truly will be found.

in many ways and situations, behavior IS predictable.  much learning could come if we knew more - but rather than about Seung per se, about how he was (mis)treated, (mis)understood, and shamed by the systems in which he participated (family, school, etc...).

based on deviant or poorly understood behavior, if someone - a child or adult - is othered, misinterpreted, and treated as the problem in a family system or community where their deviance is a symptom of family or community unhealth, then such angry behavior might be absolutely predictable.

so far, in hearing reports directly of how members of his family and communities responded to him on many occasions, I have found little compassion for him evident in the choices folks made at the time and much judgment in how people responded to him when they felt offended by him.

their responses to him would have made me angry were they directed at me.

clearly he, and of course our society, requires much more compassion - acknowledgment of the humanness in even those who offend us or those who carry angry.

so interesting that some singled him out b/c they were offended or concerned by his anger but by virtue of their fear could not give him complete compassion and kindness in return.

if only Seung had trusted someone enough to connect or let his guard down.  to share how hurt he felt.  that trust was likely precluded when anyone responded to him with shoulds, disappointment, or disapproval.

what must be learned here is as much as possible about how family, teachers, and community responded to this individual over a lifetime and then how to respond differently to others in the future.  for this Seung's parents would be a good source.

then we must learn a different response, as human behavior and emotion is usually predictable when an individual is othered or disrespected over a lifetime.

even naming Seung's quiet as a child as a problem he had, is to blatantly other, label, and ignore that usually a child's symptom in a family or community system is evidence of something that in that system or environment to which this is a response.

you bet that Seung as a child knew he was being named as a problem when he may have been responding adaptively or even most aptly to his circumstance.

we must start looking at ourselves and how we as fellow humans responded to Seung and how we can respond differently to those who seem other or whose behavior we do not understand so that they remain connected to others and find trust rather than disconnect and distrust.

if Seung found most people responded to him with distrust rather than compassion when he did communicate or speak (i.e. through writing or deviant action) - as most people were afraid of his anger that he communicated - then speaking was not helpful for him and acting out was the way he felt 'heard'.

some people believe that anti-depressant use is a factor that predisposes many persons to violent acts and/or suicide.  Society might want to look into that.

"You may not recall a lesser-known case in Washington state six years ago in which a high school student took a rifle to school and held classmates and a teacher hostage, probably because this incident wasn't associated with any deaths. What prompted the teen's aggression? An abrupt switchover from Paxil to a high dose of Effexor.

Or, perhaps, consider the sad case of Andrea Yates who drowned her five small children in a Houston suburb, shortly after a revised antidepressant regimen that included Effexor and Remeron."

A variety of news sources have reported that Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 students and faculty members in a shooting rampage, was taking antidepressant drugs.

Antidepressants have also been used by the perpetrators of previous and similar acts of violence, including the shootings at Columbine High School eight years ago.

Many others may share a similar profile to Cho Seung Hui that pose absolutely no threat to anyone. It seems that trying to put together a profile would only endanger the civil rights of others who share characteristics of Hui.

I've tried to find help for two very troubled students recently.  There are huge obstacles.  One is the utter incompetence one can encounter at the mental health facilities they can get admitted to.  Another is that a school's mental health people hardly encourage professors to interfere in students' lives.  One is always told that nothing can be done by the authorities, so one should try to suggest to the students that they get help.  

  I'm  also not sure that PUBLIC disclosure of his family's observations is going to help experts gain any understanding of the mental health issues. These "experts" sound more eager to advance their careers and notoriety by using a famous event to get THEIR names publicity than they do to advance the "science" of the mind.

I'm certainly unconvinced that the Cho's familycan "broker" private  deals to make their statements "privileged" communications. Doctors and psychotherapists do not get to decide the parameters of privileges. Courts do that and it would take a rather radical extension of the principle to encompass a medical experts communications with third parties about another person -- especially whe that other person is dead and the communications cannot possible be for the purposes of treatment. I question whether your friend has much knowlewdge of the law.

  I'm also unconvinced that of all the issues here the exposure of the Cho family to legal liability is anywhere near the middle of the list. Of all the potential defendants the family appears to be among the least attractive targets both in terms of liability and, perhaps more importantly, ability to pay. The school, the police, the seller of the gun, people who did treat Cho and perhaps failed to adhere to rules requiring breach of confidentiality when cognizant of imminene t risks of harm would all be far more likely targets both because there are existing legal theories that arguably might establish duties to those who werre lilled or harmed AND they are all far more likely to have assets and insurance.

  this piece pretty much lost me when it focused on "experts" disclosing anything rather than conducting research. I don't see the main argument "that the public wants to know" as coming close to being one of the paraamount considerations here, and frankly it sounds a lot more like "WE" want to be the people to tell the public because we want the glory than anything I consider legitimate public interest.

i'm kind of heartened by that sentiment, actually. it's nice to see people not wanting to string them up.

but i also think that as a practical matter, the press is just not going to leave them alone. and i will lay money that some of the other families will demand answers. (there are dozens of them.)

with that starting point that they're going to be pressured, i (naively?) think it would be in their own interest to come to some arrangement where they can avoid the spotlight directly, yet get the info out.

and i also think they have some obligation to the rest of us. not as punishment for raising a killer, just that they have info that the culture needs.

when any person commits a murder--or any violent crime--we, as a society, demand that people who know anything relevant cooperate with police to solve it. we already have this principle that people have this obligation. i think that in a major national case like this, that principle extends--so that anyone who knows anything significant has a duty to the collective society to share that knowledge and insight.

When a person like this isn't violent, they can be ignored and the effect on society at large are relatively negligible.  Only when such troubled people commit these type of acts, that's the only time anyone pays attention in this country.