Violent extremists often struggle with mood, anxiety or stress disorders, a new study from Montreal reveals. Cécile Rousseau, who led the research, campaigns for these radicalized people to have better access to mental health care.
Among the 150 people who visited the Polarization Clinical Team of the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, between 1is January 2016 and December 31, 2021, 86 had violent extremist ideas. Among them, 31.4% adhered to the extreme right, 25.6% to a gender ideology, 20.9% to religion and 12.8% to conspiracy theories. The third did not adhere to a precise ideology.
“People who have very deadly ideas, it’s usually because they’re unhappy,” adds Cécile Rousseau, professor at McGill University and member of the Clinical Polarization Team. “They have many grievances, they are often very isolated, they have conflicts with their families. They often feel rejected, harassed, intimidated at work or at school,” describes Cécile Rousseau.
“Think of Alexandre Bissonnette,” she adds. During his trial, witnesses said that the author of the massacre at the great mosque of Quebec was isolated, that he had been the victim of intimidation and had experienced episodes of anxiety and depression as a teenager.
Among the 86 patients in the study, three quarters had few or no friends, 43% had experienced harassment or intimidation, 65.1% had grievances against their family. Most were not integrated into work (73.7%) or school (77.9%) and were not involved in community (86.2%) or sports (91.9%) .
“When we are desperate, when we reach extremely high levels of psychological distress, when we feel that we no longer have a future, that the world and our loved ones have betrayed us, we risk translating this despair into hurting themselves or others with suicidal or homicidal gestures,” explains the doctor of psychiatry.
The researcher also affirms that the isolation of patients increases their feeling of despair and distress. But thanks to the internet, vulnerable people can find people who share the same grievances as them. Violent extremism, such as mass killings or neo-Nazism, is also glorified on some sites, which can encourage radicalized people to take action.
“That’s the explosive cocktail right now,” says Mme Rousseau.
Radical, but not violent
The researcher insists that not all people with mental health problems are violent extremists, far from it. She affirms that it is also possible to be radically in disagreement with others without falling into violence.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Cécile Rousseau, doctor of psychiatry
From the moment I tell myself that the person who does not share my point of view on a political, ethnic, national or religious question must die, that is when we fall into extremist violence.
Cécile Rousseau, doctor of psychiatry
The professor also argues that a serious culture change in mental health must be adopted in order to better deal with violent extremism. She believes that it is necessary to better train front-line teams on violent radicalization and better take care of patients in order to prevent them from “falling between two chairs”.
“The people who scare us, who are in distress, are also people who need help. They’re not just criminals. If we don’t do that, we have a lot of problems in store for ourselves,” she said.