An exploratory study on the link between lone-actor terrorism and mental health

Abstract

Lone-actor terrorists are often perceived by the public as being mentally ill, mainly because of their lack of affiliation within an established terrorist organisation and the fact that they act independently. Despite this lack of affiliation, these individuals still undergo a process of radicalisation which leads them down the path of violent extremism. The aim of this dissertation is to explore the phenomenon of lone-actor terrorism and the role of mental health within the radicalisation process, by adopting a literature-based approach. Hence, thorough and extensive readings of the available literature on this topic was conducted to be able to provide the reader with a good understanding of lone-actor terrorism in general, followed by an exploration of the link between mental illness and loneactor terrorism within the literature. It is to be noted that although literature investigating this link is still somewhat lacking, this past decade saw various contributions from scholars. The evaluation of various research contributed to several observations, including how mental health problems prevail significantly more amongst lone-actor terrorists in comparison with group-actor terrorists, as well as the general population. Furthermore, schizophrenia was observed to be the most common type of mental disorder amongst lone actors with a diagnosis. Another key observation was that mental illness alone does not cause one to become a lone-actor terrorist, but where it is present, it may act as a contributing factor towards radicalisation. Lastly, the reader is provided with an overview outlining various policy responses and current practices to combat lone-actor terrorism through proactive means, mainly by prioritising the awareness and identification of signs of radicalisation and subsequently treating those susceptible to becoming lone-actor terrorists.