Before it Happens Again Part I: How Radical Acceptance, Trauma Science, and DBT Can Help Us Stop Mass Shootings
By Cindy Finch, LCSW
During a class debrief at Pepperdine following the Thousand Oaks shooting, one of my graduate students looked up from his coffee and said:
“It’s just going to happen again. I’m not even surprised anymore. It’s sad, but I think it’s just trending.”
He didn’t say it with anger. He said it with numbness.
And the most heartbreaking part?
He was right.
They’ve Grown Up on Gore
From GMAC (1990) to Columbine (1999) to Borderline Bar (2018), we’ve raised an entire generation in the era of mass shootings. These students—our next nurses, teachers, social workers—don’t remember a world without lockdown drills.
Mass shootings aren’t shocking anymore. They’re expected.
And while every part of me wants to scream, This isn’t normal… it is.
A Clinical Response to a Cultural Emergency
As a therapist and educator, I use tools that help people survive the unbearable. One of those is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—a therapeutic model originally designed for people in crisis.
DBT teaches that there are four ways to respond to overwhelming problems:
Solve the problem
Feel better about the problem
Accept the problem
Stay miserable
Let’s run the mass shooting epidemic through that lens.
1. Solve the Problem
Remove all guns? Arm every citizen?
Neither is realistic. Polarized fantasies won’t solve systemic failures.
2. Feel Better About It
We post. We rage. We cry.
But venting doesn’t equal change. It calms us—while the problem rages on.
3. Stay Miserable
We grieve for the victims. We feel grateful it wasn’t our child. We watch the next story roll in.
We call it “normal.”
We stay numb.
4. Radically Accept It—And Then Act
Radical Acceptance doesn’t mean approval.
It means facing reality as it is so we can move forward on purpose.
Until we accept that this violence is predictable—not accidental—we’ll keep treating it like lightning instead of a wildfire we can interrupt.
The Hidden Crisis: Stage 4 Mental Health Emergencies
In her TED Talk, Sue Klebold—mother of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold—shared that her son didn’t start out violent. He was suicidal. He was self-harming. He was suffering.
“He was in a Stage 4 mental health emergency,” she said.
That phrase stuck with me. Because when you Google “Stage 4 emergency,” all you get are physical conditions: chest pain, stroke, seizures.
No mention of psychosis. No mention of suicidal teens.
Even now, in 2025, mental health is invisible in our emergency response systems.
Why It Matters: The Science
When trauma goes unaddressed, it hijacks the nervous system.
Kids get stuck in survival mode—hypervigilant, disconnected, unable to regulate.
The longer it goes untreated, the more it becomes behavior, not just feeling.
And when despair festers in isolation long enough, violence can follow.
What If There Were a System to Catch It?
Picture this:
Pediatric Mental Health Emergency Rooms, open 24/7, in every U.S. county.
Staffed by trauma-informed psychiatrists, social workers, and nurse practitioners.
Accessible to teens and families before tragedy strikes.
Estimated cost? About $1.2 million per year, per county.
That's less than many school sports facility upgrades—and far less than the cost of a single mass shooting aftermath.
What Prevention Can Look Like (A True Story)
A few years ago, I worked with a 15-year-old boy who came to my office after being suspended for threatening self-harm at school. His story had all the same markers I’ve seen in mass shooter case files: emotional isolation, rage, exposure to violence, suicidal thoughts, and access to weapons.
But we got to him early.
With consistent trauma-informed therapy, a school team that cared, a parent who leaned in instead of backing off—we redirected his trajectory.
Today, that boy is 21. He’s alive. In school. Stable.
That’s what prevention looks like.
It doesn’t always take a miracle. Sometimes, it just takes systems that work.
Why We Don’t See It—Until It’s Too Late
After every mass shooting, universities and schools throw open their counseling centers.
That’s good.
But what if we opened them before the violence happened?
Early signs include:
Emotional volatility or shutdown
Deep sensitivity or flat affect
Bullying (as target or perpetrator)
Withdrawn, depressed behavior
Lack of protective adults in their life
We’re not looking for evil.
We’re looking for untreated pain.
The Getty: Where We Spend, We Reveal What We Value
Not long ago, I walked through the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It’s stunning—art, gardens, architecture. And security guards every ten feet.
That museum sits on a $6.6 billion endowment.
If even a third of that went to:
Equipping every U.S. school with on-site trauma triage
Funding empathy education for K-12
Building a network of pediatric mental health ERs…
…what might we prevent?
What kind of children might we raise?
Let’s Pilot a Real Solution
We’re currently exploring partnerships to launch a pilot program:
3 California school districts
A fully staffed trauma triage team
Integrated wraparound care
Pre/post data collection
Scalable to public and private school systems
Want in? We need:
Philanthropic partners
Educator allies
Mental health professionals
School board champions
If that’s you—or someone you know—[reach out here](mailto:cindy@epiccomeback.com?subject=Before It Happens Again – Pilot Inquiry)
📎 Free Download: Prevention Starts Now
Get our printable 1-pager:
“10 Questions to Ask Your School About Mental Health Readiness”
Perfect for PTA leaders, teachers, and parents ready to act.
We can’t change what we won’t face.
But when we do face it—with clarity, strategy, and radical acceptance—we become powerful.
Let’s stop being surprised.
Let’s start getting ahead of the next headline.
Let’s build the systems our kids are silently begging for.
Before it happens again.
— Cindy Finch, LCSW
