Understanding Mental Illness in Terrorist Populations

Global governments, including those from Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa have taken a proactive stance to strengthening counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation efforts. The increasing international cooperation between individual nations reflects a growing recognition that terrorism is a global concern, one that erodes the foundations of democratic societies and induces social change. In this paper, the issue of mental illness and terrorism will be examined to see how mental health practitioners can effectively contribute to countering violent extremism. Questions remain as to whether addressing mental health can reduce an individual’s level of vulnerability or risk of endorsing terrorist violence. Descriptive results are presented of an offender analysis of terrorist attacks in Germany between 2001 and 2017, which build on the argument that terrorism and mental illness should be disentangled and, from a prevention point of view, should be addressed more subtly. Results show that the prevalence of mental illness among terrorists remains low. In line with previous research, terrorists are at greater risk of suffering from comorbid disorders than from only one mental illness. Further, not all mental illnesses contributed to the prevalence estimation. Mental illness was mainly characterized by affective disorders (depression and schizophrenia) and substance abuse disorders. Keywords – Violent extremism, mental illness, multi-agency prevention, policy recommendation, lone wolf