The link between psychosis and violence is not clear cut

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Jeroen Ensink’s life was cut short when a man with mental health problems stabbed him to death outside his flat in north London. At an inquest, Ensink’s widow, demanded to know why mental health homicides “keep happening again and again”.

Murders committed by people suffering from schizophrenia or psychosis make headlines and it’s easy to see why some people are afraid of people with mental illness. However, the scientific evidence linking schizophrenia with violent crime is not clear. Some studies looking at the relationship between psychosis and violence suggest that there is a strong relationship while others provide weak or no evidence that people with schizophrenia are more violent.

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Read up on this a few years ago. More violent crimes are done by people without mental illness than with, but I guess one could argue if you run around hurting people, you must have some sort of mental illness.

One Doctor told me that if a person is violent or whatever, they would be the same with or without a mental illness, it’s hard wired into their personality.

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I think it depends on the person. When I’m psychotic, I’m a danger to other people. I think about killing people and I actively make plans about doing so. I think about killing people in my own home because I’m paranoid that they’re out to kill me first. But I’m not a representation of all psychotic people.

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