Either or? Reconciling Findings on Mental Health and Extremism using a Dimensional Rather than Categorical Paradigm

Gøtzsche‐Astrup, Oluf; Lindekilde, Lasse

doi:10.1111/1556-4029.14014

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(74 reference statements)

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“…Psychopathology will seldom be a causal factor in the engagement of violent extremism and terrorism. However, specific psychological functions and processes, particularly maladaptive ones, might be relevant for understanding a person's pathway into and through violent extremism and terrorist activity (5,8,30). Commitment to an ideology that justifies the use of violence, and grievances about perceived injustice, and the anger or outrage in response to perceived injustice are specific for violent extremism and mostly for terrorism (5,7,(31)(32)(33)(34).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychopathology of Young Terrorist Offenders, and the Interaction With Ideology and Grievances

Duits¹,

Alberda²,

Kempes³

2022

Front. Psychiatry

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Psychopathology might be a risk factor for terrorist offending as it is for violent offending. Therefore, we examined the prevalence of psychopathology in young and adult Jihadist terrorist offenders on the basis of primary source judicial information and forensic mental health reports with the European Database of convicted Terrorist offenders (EDT). We hypothesised that psychopathology might be associated with ideological risk factors, and that these associations might be different for young and adult terrorist offenders. Therefore, we examined whether and to what extent psychopathology is related to a violent ideology, to grievances and anger about perceived injustice. We investigated whether this differs among 120 adult and 46 juvenile terrorist offenders. We found that most adult and young Jihadist terrorist offenders with a forensic mental health report had psychopathological problems. Most frequently found were symptoms and traits of intellectual disability disorders, depressive disorders, psychotic/schizophrenic disorders, substance use disorders, and personality disorders. Most frequently found clinically relevant personality traits were problems with relationships, poor regulation of aggression, feelings of anger, and paranoid feelings. We found some first indications for a positive association between psychopathology and grievances and anger about perceived injustice. In the young terrorist offenders with depressive symptoms, grievances about perceived injustice were more often present than in young terrorist offenders without these symptoms. In adult terrorist offenders it was found that grievances about perceived injustice and the anger were related to cluster B personality traits. In addition, in both young and adult terrorist offenders expressed grievances about perceived injustice were related to problems with relationships. Further research into psychopathology in terrorist offenders seems necessary with larger groups of adolescents and adults in relation to ideological, personal and contextual risk factors and how these factors relate to different terrorist acts. This may lead to more knowledge about engagement into terrorism and possible disengagement from terrorism. It may also lead to the inclusion of psychopathology into violent extremism risk assessment tools.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychopathology of Young Terrorist Offenders, and the Interaction With Ideology and Grievances

Duits¹,

Alberda²,

Kempes³

2022

Front. Psychiatry

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“…For instance, some covariates measured exposure to other protest-related traumas, but not participant’s prior experience of traumatic events. Mental health issues might sometimes be associated with violent extremism (Gøtzsche-Astrup & Lindekilde, 2019) and prior experience of traumatic events could generate more violent engagement with the police, hence leading to our observation of a link between EPV and degraded mental health. Although we have reasons to believe this is very unlikely, future studies using longitudinal designs should be conducted to rule out this possibility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Positive Links Between Exposure to Police Violence, PTSD, and Depression Symptoms Among Yellow Vests Protesters in France

Çelebi

Mahfud²

2020

J Interpers Violence

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Police violence during protests occurs worldwide with varying levels ranging from physical abuse to lethal use of force. Although prior research has investigated the health consequences of exposure to police violence (EPV), EPV’s relationship with protesters’ mental health has not yet been examined. Therefore, we designed a cross-sectional study which included measures of self-reported EPV, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. The computerized survey was disseminated among a large sample of Yellow Vests protesters in France ( N = 523; average protest attendance = 18). Overall, 49% of protesters displayed severe symptoms of depression and 15.5% met the criteria for provisory post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses. Subsequent analyses revealed, as expected, positive associations between EPV, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms in our sample (.30 < d < .63). These were robust to adjustment on several potential confounds (e.g., physical injuries, demographics, political extremism) and similar when analyzing provisory diagnoses rates (1.65 < OR < 3.02). This study is the first to assess potentially detrimental effects of EPV on mental health during protests. Furthermore, prevalence rates for both provisory depression and PTSD diagnoses were comparable with those found among war-refugee populations. We call for further research on EPV among various protester samples and use longitudinal designs to investigate a potent risk factor for mental health issues among civilian populations.

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“…A four-class solution suggests that severity is not linear but might be better represented in (four) 'levels', metaphorically reminiscent of energy-dependent electron orbits in quantum mechanics. This provides a new perspective to the extensive discussion about the dimensional vs. categorical nature of mental health disorders [49][50][51][52]; so that mental health disorders might be a mix of both. Further, these four classes differed with respect to within-class variability: with increasing overall severity between the four classes, the within-class phenomenological richness (variability) increased, too.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stratification of adolescents across mental phenomena emphasizes the importance of transdiagnostic distress: a replication in two general population cohorts

Štochl

Jones

Soneson

et al. 2021

Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry

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Characterizing patterns of mental phenomena in epidemiological studies of adolescents can provide insight into the latent organization of psychiatric disorders. This avoids the biases of chronicity and selection inherent in clinical samples, guides models of shared aetiology within psychiatric disorders and informs the development and implementation of interventions. We applied Gaussian mixture modelling to measures of mental phenomena from two general population cohorts: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, n = 3018) and the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN, n = 2023). We defined classes according to their patterns of both positive (e.g. wellbeing and self-esteem) and negative (e.g. depression, anxiety, and psychotic experiences) phenomena. Subsequently, we characterized classes by considering the distribution of diagnoses and sex split across classes. Four well-separated classes were identified within each cohort. Classes primarily differed by overall severity of transdiagnostic distress rather than particular patterns of phenomena akin to diagnoses. Further, as overall severity of distress increased, so did within-class variability, the proportion of individuals with operational psychiatric diagnoses. These results suggest that classes of mental phenomena in the general population of adolescents may not be the same as those found in clinical samples. Classes differentiated only by overall severity support the existence of a general, transdiagnostic mental distress factor and have important implications for intervention.

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Either or? Reconciling Findings on Mental Health and Extremism using a Dimensional Rather than Categorical Paradigm

Cited by 22 publications

References 53 publications

Psychopathology of Young Terrorist Offenders, and the Interaction With Ideology and Grievances

Psychopathology of Young Terrorist Offenders, and the Interaction With Ideology and Grievances

Positive Links Between Exposure to Police Violence, PTSD, and Depression Symptoms Among Yellow Vests Protesters in France

Stratification of adolescents across mental phenomena emphasizes the importance of transdiagnostic distress: a replication in two general population cohorts

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