The Law That Left Rob Reiner Defenseless Against His Own Son | Psychotherapist Explains
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the United States, you cannot force a competent adult into treatment. You cannot commit someone because you believe they're dangerous. You have to wait until the danger becomes imminent — which usually means you have to wait until someone gets hurt. Rob and Michele Reiner lived inside that impossible gap for eighteen years. And then the gap killed them.
Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott joins us to examine the systemic failures that leave families like the Reiners without options. We discuss what parents can actually do legally when an adult child is spiraling — and where their authority ends. We look at why the threshold for involuntary commitment is so high that families often recognize danger years before the law will act. We ask hard questions about whether the rehab industry itself can make certain patients worse. And we talk honestly about what would need to change for cases like this to have different outcomes.
This isn't about assigning blame to a grieving family. It's about understanding why our system forces parents to choose between respecting autonomy and protecting themselves — and why that choice shouldn't exist.
#RobReiner #MentalHealthLaw #TrueCrime #SystemicFailure #InvoluntaryCommitment #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #MentalHealthReform #AddictionCrisis #CrimePsychology
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske, Stacey Cole and Todd Michaels. |
| 0:08.6 | What are parents supposed to do when their adult child is spiraling and won't accept help? |
| 0:15.6 | That's the big question here. |
| 0:17.0 | In the United States, you can't force a competent adult into treatment against their will |
| 0:22.5 | in most circumstances. You can't commit someone just because you believe they're dangerous. You can |
| 0:28.1 | watch them deteriorate. You can offer resources. You can beg, but you cannot make them accept help. |
| 0:35.4 | Robin Michelle Reiner lived inside that paradox for 18 years. |
| 0:39.7 | Shavon Scott is with us to help us break all this down, psychotherapist and author. And I think |
| 0:46.2 | that's that to me, if there's any silver lining in this in terms of awareness and understanding, |
| 0:53.3 | is opening people's eyes up to |
| 0:56.5 | this paradox in the united states the way it currently is set up if the mentally ill person or |
| 1:05.5 | addict or all of the above wants to get the help we'll accept treatment, and you have the money, and you have the |
| 1:12.6 | resources to do it, then yes, they can get it. But just the money and the resources don't cut it. |
| 1:18.6 | They have to want it. Yes, you can get him to a 72-hour hold. Yes, you can get him to the temporary |
| 1:23.6 | this or that. But there's very little you can do to force compliance in terms of getting the |
| 1:31.1 | help that they actually need. And if they don't, your option is being their babysitter or let them |
| 1:37.0 | go die on the streets and hope maybe they come back. That's where the Reiner's were. And it seems |
| 1:42.9 | they've tried all of the above. Under the current |
| 1:47.3 | law, what can parents actually do when an adult child is showing signs of serious mental |
| 1:53.5 | deterioration and potential violence but refuses treatment? Where does their legal authority end? |
| 2:03.6 | Yeah, you're right. They really have no legal authority. I think one of the things that I've seen happen, and I encourage parents, if there's |
| 2:09.9 | threatening behavior, anything that you would not accept from a stranger, you would call 911. |
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