{"id":857699,"date":"2026-09-23T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857699\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:20:16","slug":"patrick-clancy-opens-up-about-kids-mental-health-in-extended-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857699\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Clancy opens up about kids, mental health in extended interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick Clancy<\/a> believes that there are \u201ccompassionate\u201d ways to handle cases where postpartum psychosis and mental health issues lead to violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can find a compassionate way to deal with these tragedies, and that doesn\u2019t mean no accountability,\u201d Clancy said in a newly-released, extended version of his interview with CBS\u2019s 60 Minutes<\/a>. \u201cIt just means that we recognize the suffering and the stigma, and we try to find a way to prevent this from happening in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always how I\u2019ve looked at it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Clancy\u2019s ex-wife Lindsay Clancy has been charged in the January 2023 killing of their children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, eight months.<\/p>\n

During her weeks-long trial, which ended in a hung jury earlier this month, Clancy\u2019s defense argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she strangled the children and can\u2019t be held criminally responsible.<\/p>\n

In the extended interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat, Patrick Clancy spoke more about her mental health decline in the lead up to the killings and his own struggles in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

Clancy told Douthat that he\u2019s spoken to victims of postpartum psychosis \u2014 mothers who experienced it and fathers who lost children to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t discriminate, it can happen to anyone,\u201d Clancy said. \u201cIt\u2019s best detected early.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also spoke more about his children, describing Cora as a shy and cautious girl who was simultaneously good at making friends. Obsessed with princesses, Cora once convinced her teachers her name was Sophia, like the Disney character Sophia the First, he said.<\/p>\n

Dawson was almost the opposite of his sister but also Cora\u2019s best friend. Clancy said that the three-year-old was precocious, counting up to 20 before his second birthday, one day in the car, then surprising his father again by counting up to 10 in Spanish.<\/p>\n

Callan was an easy going baby, but Clancy said he had to mourn him in a different way than his older siblings, telling Douthat, \u201cI didn\u2019t really get to know him as well as my other kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

For part of the interview, Douthat and Clancy sat in the park dedicated to the children in Duxbury.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy kids are buried here, and I still have family here, but it\u2019s hard,\u201d Clancy said. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult coming back to this town, even though I loved it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clancy had told Douthat that after the killings, he felt suicidal, and in the extended version of their conversation, he credited Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, called EMDR, for being a major help to his mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put you right back in that place that you tried to avoid for years\u2026 and you face it head on,\u201d Clancy said, explaining that after many sessions, \u201cthe horrible dreams, the waking up screaming, they mostly stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also credited his wife Dr. Rachel Danis. The couple said they met in January 2024 and got married this past April.<\/p>\n

At first, Danis said she was hesitant to date Clancy and didn\u2019t immediately see their relationship as anything more than friendship.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone paused, understandably so,\u201d Danis said when she told a few friends about the situation. \u201cI think people were worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, after Danis saw how Clancy reacted when meeting her sister, who has Down Syndrome, she said she started to see there was something more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you can tell a lot about someone when they\u2019re interacting with a person with special needs,\u201d she said, describing Clancy meeting with her sister as warm and friendly.<\/p>\n

From there, the relationship grew and it seemed like what they wanted in life was aligned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time Sundays felt like Saturdays,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Danis questioned how \u201cthe story has become so twisted,\u201d saying that the couple hasn\u2019t done anything wrong, despite the conspiracy theorists online.<\/p>\n

When Douthat asked what the couple would tell someone who was fresh to their story, Clancy said, \u201cWe\u2019re carrying forward what happened, we\u2019re carrying my kids\u2019 legacy forward together, I think that\u2019s really important for both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PatrickPatrick Clancy and Rachel Danis sit for an interview with 60 Minutes. (Photo courtesy 60 MINUTES\/ CBS News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Clancy believes that there are \u201ccompassionate\u201d ways to handle cases where postpartum psychosis and mental health issues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[10673,97,78707,201892,259,260,698,201893,340951],"class_list":["post-857699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-60-minutes","tag-health","tag-killings","tag-lindsay-clancy","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-murder","tag-patrick-clancy","tag-postpartum-psychosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}