Substance abuse greatly boosts the chances of violent behavior in healthy subjects, too, suggesting that drug use may be a much better predictor of violence than mental illness. What is more, proper treatment of mental illness can effectively eliminate the small risk of violent behavior posed by a grave disorder. In the MacArthur study, Steadman’s team found no difference in the prevalence of violence between the severely mentally ill who were on their medications and mentally healthy people, whereas unmedicated patients lashed out at significantly higher rates. Of course, sick individuals who stop taking their medications could represent more difficult cases. Nevertheless, these results suggest that improving adherence to treatment may lessen the chances that severely ill people will behave violently.
Victims, Not Perpetrators
The stereotype of the crazed individual killing multiple strangers in public simply does not hold up to scrutiny. Although some noteworthy tragedies fit this description, these instances are quite rare. In fact, given how few mentally ill people become violent, a person with a severe psychological disorder is more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator of violence.
Mentally ill people are victims in their own right. A severe psychiatric condition is a terrible burden, even without being treated with suspicion by the community. A widespread belief that the afflicted are violent contributes to the stigma of mental illness and as such may interfere with their seeking and obtaining appropriate assistance. Debunking this misconception will likely lead to progress in helping troubled individuals and, by making treatment more broadly accessible, greatly reduce the threat that a small number of these individuals may pose to society.
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Add CommentI work with people who have a serious mental illness. I've been punched once in seven years and have never felt that I was in danger of dying. Aside from those whose disease prevents good communication I enjoy the company of our patients and look forward to seeing them. The only serious beatings I ever received in life came from "normal" people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Atomboy. I work with the mentally ill as well and facilitate a mental illness forum on the internet. My forum is much more civil than any other forum I have ever come across! Mentally ill people are often characterized by a high level of empathy and sensitivity. When you spend your life struggling and suffering, it can help to develop heightened empathy which is probably a deterrent to violence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing I thought was missing from the article is a mention of antisocial personality disorder (formerly sociopathic disorder). This disorder IS characterized by uncivil and violent acts against people and society. Ted Bundy is one famous example and you could probably lump most terrorists in there as well. Sociopaths are characterized by lack of remorse so they don't need drugs to impair their impulse control before committing a violent act.
Good point regarding sociopathic behavior, which seems to me to be common among serial killers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt also seems to me that when severely disturbed people do lash out at others their violent actions often seem to be without rational motive that the public can relate to.
I think this is why the public finds such seemingly pointless violent behavior so shocking, while they can generally comprehend that Ted Bundy was acting out of some desire for twisted self-gratification...
pabloson -> I find your characterization of mentally ill as being highly empathetic interesting. An empathetic person is not only prone to depressive behavior for their own suffering, but also engages in it because of others. American society, at large, is not empathetic. You can find a recent article in Scientific American that even states there is a massive decline in empathy among young persons in the United States.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor myself, empathy has been a devastating condition which has tormented me wherever I go. It draws me toward people who cannot help me advance in the world and alienates me from those who are not afraid to whole-heartedly embrace brutal and selfish capitalism. It has alienated me from studying trade skills in favor of religious and humanistic literature.
Empathetic behavior in society, especially in excess, is always a threat to the status quo. Major empathetic types in the world have been persistently assassinated or executed, such as Jesus of Nazarath, MLK, John Lennon, etc..
For this reason, it is hard to dismiss the plausibility given your assertion as well as my own encounters with meek persons who have been categorized as mentally ill that some diagnoses of mental illness are politically motivated.
It is disturbing that people place so much inherent trust in the DSM's assertions regarding what constitutes "ill" behavior when in few cases can it be empirically verified. We must remember that the APA considered homosexuality to be a mental illness until as late as the 70's, completely proving their lack of empirical evidence for that which they assert as being disorders.
In my personal experience with mental health professionals, I have found their desire to use the DSM as a weapon rather than a guide quite distasteful, and have, more than once, had these professionals disregard actual experiences as delusions while I was pursuing litigation against some fairly large organizations who had, multiple times, threatened to murder me.
Essentially, it is hard to regard the American Psychological Association's criteria for mental disorders as evident of anything other than a blind categorical book based on nothing but some sociologist's arbitrary taxonomy of mental paradigms purposed only for the control of the labor population.
Your characterization of the empathetic as those who get dismissed as crazy is not only accurate, it is a CONSTANT because group-think overshadows the individual in all circumstances.
Twain wrote of this tendency in "War Prayer," I believe you would find it enlightening.
I don't know if it "holds water" statistically but wouldn't it makes sense that less of these individuals would act out violently if they had another way to communicate or connect. I notice that Jared Lee Loughner didn't become violent while he was in therapy or attending classes or while he owned a pet. It seems that in many of these cases violence occurs after the individuals illness has put them in social isolation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIllness is not the only cause of social isolation. There are people in the world who have no friends and consistently cannot make them. Poverty, religion, race, gender, and social lines also contribute to social isolation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you ask me though, I think there's groups of people who intentionally target socially isolated people and try to torment them to death, like foxhunting used to be a popular sport for rich kids.
symptoms of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia usually begin by young adulthood, and the victims have great difficulty finding appropriate therapy. few psychiatrists in private practice treat them, focusing instead on patients who have money to pay the bill, usually show up for appointments, and take the inevitably prescribed meds - in short, nice neurotics aka the "worried well". meanwhile the really sick people have to do something overtly "crazy" (not to say violent) in order to be taken to a local psych emergency room and then perhaps on to the local psych hospital. they are "stabilized" for a few weeks on meds, released, only to return again and again. no surprise that those few who do act out violently are not effectively treated earlier - neither are the many others who are non-violent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo bloomingdedalus:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate to say this but you are wrong. Empathy does not lead to depression or mental illness. The latest findings from a new sub-discipline of psychology called "moral psychology" an outgrowth from cognitive psychology finds that both psychopaths and autistics lack empathy. Now, the research is focused on why psychopaths break the law and autistics generally don't. The best guess is that psychopaths want to dominate and autistics don't. Read the book "The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty" by Simon Baron-Cohen, or look up on Google, Jonathan Haidt's papers on moral psychology, or better still go to Amazon.com and look up the three volume set titled "Moral Psychology."
Depression is not linked to having/not having empathy but to hopelessness. Hoplessness is the best predictor of depression.
Loren Wingblade
Psychologists have interviewed terrorists and concluded that they are not mentally ill, in general, so no, you can't "probably lump in most terrorists" in that category. ( Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3880777.stm and http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dphoughton1/English )
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, Dr. Wingblade, your assertion about empathy in regard to psychopaths and autistics is false - the distinction must be made between cognitive and affective empathy. The former is known as 'theory of mind' and autistics lack this greatly. However, psychopaths have a great ability with theory of mind - in other words, they are able to predict states of mind of other people. What they significantly lack, however, is affective empathy. An emotional caring for the wellbeing of others. They simply disregard this. Autistics, on the other hand, have normal-to-above-average affective empathy levels, but below-average cognitive empathy. They have greater difficulty inferring states of mind than most others, but this does not imply they do not care about others. I agree with your comments on depression though - a loss of hope is often what precipitates such a drop in mood that can trigger a depressive episode.
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