Mental health problems create radicalization vulnerability only by blocking other life opportunities

Evidence

Importantly, mental health issues rarely seemed to be directly connected with radicalization or radical violence in our sample; rather, in these cases such challenges appeared to block other life-course opportunities or create vulnerability for being radicalized or being recruited into radical groups. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 285

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mental illness is not a major driver of extremism on its own — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 150; Domestic radicalization is primarily psychological and emotional, not material — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 151; Personal crises precede and open receptivity to religious radicalization — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 327 (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• Terrorism is not generally a product of mental pathology #qualifies (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4088
• Hopelessness stems from perceiving barriers as insurmountable, not from the barriers themselves #expands (0.80) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 287
• Personal crises precede and open receptivity to religious radicalization #exemplifies (0.78) — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 327
• Perceived exclusion and injustice prime society-wide breeding grounds for radicalization #expands (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 716
• The mental-disorder theory of terrorism lacks reliable clinical evidence #qualifies (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4089
• Psychological needs can outweigh material ones in guiding action during life crises #complicates (0.72) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 82
• Depression is a despecialization that ruptures the social bond #expands (0.72) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 20