Mental Illness And Violence: When 25% Of US Adults Are “Mentally Ill” … - BlissTree

The problem with talking about whether "the mentally ill" are more likely to commit violent crimes? The "mentally ill" includes one out of every four American adults. It might behoove us to get a little more specific.

This is the first thing I've written, here or anywhere, about the Sandy Hook shootings. I'm not the sort who feels the need to add my inadequate voice into the fray every time there's a national event or tragedy, and my intense pessimism for all things collective prevents me from believing any good will come from this horror. Five years ago, I might have; by this point, I feel like I've watched the whole sad spectacle of Addressing Mass Murder play out on the American scene again and again with little avail or variation. The players change (aside from the National Rifle Association), but the pleas — earnest or pandering or political — remain the same each time.

It's sick and sad.

This time, amidst our standard menu of pro- and anti-gun control arguments; But What About Mental Health Care?; and sides of hand-wringing over violent video games and movies, we've seen discussion (and more than typically so, at least in my view) of whether "the mentally ill" are more likely to commit acts of violence. At first blush, it's one of those statements that seems obvious: Of course crazy people the mentally ill are more likely to be violent! Or, conversely, of course anyone who commits mass murder must have the proverbial screw loose.

Then you hear statistics from the likes of the American Psychiatric Association, etc., about how the majority of mentally ill people are not violent and, actually, are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes. How do we reconcile these two ideas?

By stopping talking about "mental health" or "mental illness" as some sort of monolithic trait. Within the category of people with diagnosable mental health problems, we're looking at anorexics, the mildly depressed and the psychopathic. We might as well discuss whether "people with physical illnesses" are more likely to be violent. Neither term makes a meaningful distinction here.

And who cares? I mean, a little bit, right? There are all these dead children and mass murders have become a seasonal occurrence and maybe they always were but we all know about it now and thus we all feel compelled to do something about it. But nothing gets done. Or maybe nothing can be done. Nothing can be done to stop mass murders and here I am rambling about the words we use. I know.

The words we use do mean things — it's cliche but true to say that how we talk about things can define perceptions of and reactions to those things. But I'm not even talking about that metaphorical/framing type business here. I am saying that in terms of our very practical/applicable (attempts at) understanding how to deal, as a society, with gun violence, it matters that we are clear about who is committing these crimes. I'm not talking about the "stigma" of mental illness; I'm just concerned that we're missing the mark by looking at a category that includes 25% of Americans when trying to understand the psychological profile of mass murderers.