Mental Illness And Violence

Mental Illness has been a common theme when violence is observed. One common mental illnesses, Schizophrenia, has multiple studies performed to see why violence either has happened to themselves, or why this mental illness is blamed for the cause of their own violence acts. Perpetrators who commit violence acts such as rape, emotional/behavior abuse, physical abuse are looked to see if they have any form of mental illness. According to Nederlof (2013) “Since the 19th century, it has been widely acknowledged that people with a mental illness are more often involved in violent crimes as compared to healthy populations. Nowadays the majority of the community still expect the mentally ill to be at a heightened risk for engaging in violent acts …show more content…
There is a number of studies that have been performed on people with the disorder of schizophrenia, Nordstrom (2006) found people with schizophrenia have four to six times higher risk to commit these crimes when looking at the general population around them (p. 57). It has been studied to see that in most cases the victims of these crimes are family or in close network members such as friends. The stress factors of someone who is suffering from this mental illness is a very important characteristic. The more the person is stressed, the higher chance of stressful events leading to provoke violence (Nordstrom, 2006, p. 58). Nordstrom (2006) explains types of “stressful events that might lead to tense situation and provoke violence. Impairment of social relationships is also suggested to be a risk factor for violence (p. …show more content…
There can be conflict between the relatives and the individual suffering from this disease. Hen relatives observe the behavior of schizophrenia and know the behavior is not of the norm, relatives are best to judge the person is out of their control. When close relatives are observed and the individual experiences violence or even domestic violence act, this is a high risk of behavior for violence later in life for the individual (Nederlof, 2013, p 183). While seeing and acknowledging the behavior as unnatural, this helps the families and friends who are around the individual suffering cope with the diagnoses if there is a violent outburst (Norstrom, 2006. p.60). Close relatives need to be careful on how much they provoke a situation to not cause an outbreak. There has been a stereotype founded within the media on psychiatric patients of schizophrenia who are described as dangerous and violence persons (Nederlof, 2013, p.183). By observing this illness, the start of the causes comes from those around the mentally ill but what to also be considered is the demographic characteristics and environmental factors that can cause the acts of violence. Different demographic characterizes that can influence the violence are substance abuse, mood disorders, anxiety and bipolar disorder (Tengstrom, 2001, p 205). Environmental factors that contribute to the