Week of September 14, 1998Media coverage of people with mental illness who commit acts of violence, such as the Capitol shooting and the Michael Laudor case, are typically rife with exaggerations and distortions, leaving the public to believe that mental illness and violence are linked.
The best minds on the subject have strongly conflicting views. Dr. John Monahan is a clinical psychologist and professor of law and psychology at the University of Virginia. He's a principal investigator in a recent study of mental illness sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation. D.J. Jaffe runs a public relations firm in New York and is one of the founders of the Treatment Advocacy Center. He coauthored a recent article in National Review magazine, headlined "Violent Fantasies," critical of Dr. Monahan's study. Mary Zadonowitz is an attorney and executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, VA. She has a brother and a sister with schizophrenia. Harvey Rosenthal is executive director of the New York Association for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, and has suffered from depression. Jody Silver is a director of Advocacy for Community Access, a New York City group that provides services for people with psychiatric disabilities, and is herself a mental health consumer.
Dr. Monahan explains that the MacArthur study found that people with mental illness who had been discharged from short term psychiatric facilities were on average no more violent than the general public -- unless they had drug or alcohol problems. Jaffe, on the other hand, ociating mental illness with violence. Rosenthal finds those who have had mental illness are now more willing to disclose that they are on a path of healing and recovery, and care providers have higher expectations of those with disorders than in the past. Jaffe disagrees, denying there is any stigma to having a neurobiological disorder, the same way there is no stigma attached to being a member of any other minority group.
Silver says that stigma is real, and leads to acts of discrimination. It needs to be addressed head-on, she says, by talking about how to prevent it. Effectively addressing violence, says Zadonowitz, involves increasing public support for treatment. By reducing the incidence of violent episodes linked to lack of treatment, stigma can be reduced. Dr. Monahan agrees, but warns that overstating the connection in the belief that the public will fund what it fears can backfire, leading to more discrimination and more jails.
Commentator John Hockenberry offers his thoughts about violence and the human condition.
Bill Lichtenstein, executive producer of The Infinite Mind, says in a commentary that the stigma of violence indelibly stains those affected by schizophrenia, manic depression, clinical depression.
