What About People Whose Mental Illness Makes Them Violent?

Question: I was telling someone about your work and she asked about the people whose mental illness makes them violent. She did not believe it would be good for these people to go off their psych meds. I did not know how to respond to her. What are your thoughts? How would you respond?

Chaya Grossberg: Thanks for asking. This question is complicated because it involves certain assumptions and interpretations that have never been proven to be true.

It isn’t “someones mental illness” that makes them violent since people can be violent whether or not they’ve received a psychiatric label. It is a matter of many factors that get someone labeled with a mental illness, but none are objective.

Some psychiatric drugs cause violence (it is fairly well known that most of the mass murderers in schools in recent years have been on psych drugs). The other complication is that psych drugs, like all toxic substances, have withdrawal effects which might lead to violence. So someone in withdrawal might be more likely to be violent. Violence is mostly a learned behavior and is generally perpetuated by victims of violence and trauma.

I think focusing on healing from abuse and trauma would be more direct than labeling and drugging. There may be cases where drugs are chosen to sedate someone and make them less likely to be aggressive (if they are really tired) but I see this as a short term emergency “solution” and certainly not a resolution.

Psychiatric drugging and other mental health “treatments” are also a form of violence. So we must ask ourselves if this repression of emotions is in fact acceptable as an approach if we strive for non-violence.

It has never been shown that persons labeled with a mental illness are more likely to be violent than others though. I know violent people who have never been to a therapist or psychiatrist and the gentlest people in the world who have many psych labels.

In fact, Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, recently stated that all DSM labels lack validity and are not scientific. So it’s important to admit and acknowledge that these labels are arbitrary and can be given to anyone in a crisis at any time. They don’t indicate a fundamental illness. Ever.