Violence and Mental Illness : : Rethinking Risk Factors and Enhancing Public Safety / / Eric B. Elbogen, Nico Verykoukis.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 English
• VerfasserIn: Elbogen, Eric B.,; Verykoukis, Nico,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Psychoanalytic Crossroads ; 13
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 13 b/w illustrations

Shows that the myth that mental illness is strongly linked to violence makes us all less safeMass shootings have become a defining issue of our time. Whenever the latest act of newsworthy violence occurs, mental illness is inevitably cited as a preeminent cause by members of the news media and political sphere alike. Violence and Mental Illness: Rethinking Risk Factors and Enhancing Public Safety exposes how mental illness is vastly overemphasized in popular discussion of mass violence, which in turn makes us all less safe.The recurring and intense focus on mental illness in the wake of violent tragedy is fueled by social stigma and cognitive bias, strengthening an exaggerated link between violence and mental illness. Yet as Eric B. Elbogen and Nico Verykoukis clearly and compellingly demonstrate in this book, a wide array of empirical data show that this link is much weaker than commonly believed—numerous other risk factors have been proven to be stronger predictors of violence. In particular, the authors argue that overweighting mental illness means underweighting more robust risk factors, which are external (e.g., poverty, financial strain, inadequate social support), internal (e.g., younger age, anger, substance abuse), or violence-defining (lacking empathy, gun access, hate group membership). These risk factors need to be incorporated more fully into public policies around public safety. Priority is needed to focus on strategies for reducing the viability and acceptability of violence as a choice, which regards violence- defining risk factors necessary to every violent act.Violence and Mental Illness: Rethinking Risk Factors and Enhancing Public Safety offers a robust challenge to the inappropriate dominance of mental illness in discussions of mass violence, as well as proposed solutions that may be crucial to bringing about a greater degree of public safety.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: The Danger of Repeatedly Blaming Mental Illness for Violence -- 1. Current Definitions and Understanding of Mental Illness -- 2. Social Stigma and Exaggerations about Mental Illness and Violence -- 3. Cognitive Biases and Exaggerations about Mental Illness and Violence -- 4. Scientific Research on the Link between Violence and Mental Illness -- 5. Scientific Research on the Strength of Violence Risk Factors -- 6. Multiple Causes of Violence and Categorizing Three Types of Risk Factors -- 7. Preventing Violence: Strategies for Reducing Environment-Level Risk Factors -- 8. Preventing Violence: Strategies for Reducing Individual-Level Risk Factors -- 9. Preventing Violence: Strategies for Reducing Viability and Acceptability of Violence -- Conclusion: Prioritizing Stronger Risk Factors to Prevent Violence -- Acknowledgments -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Authors