June 8, 2025 • 22 mins
Unpacking the Misuse of Mental Illness Labels in Society
In this episode of PsyberSpace, host Leslie Poston explores the harmful cultural habit of attributing acts of cruelty, violence, and abuse of power to mental illness. Leslie discusses the psychological reasons behind this impulse, the impact it has on our perceptions of justice and morality, and how it reinforces harmful stereotypes and biases. The episode digs into cognitive dissonance, the just world hypothesis, and the fundamental attribution error, examining how these concepts contribute to mislabeling people and behaviors. The discussion also covers the uneven media portrayal of violence committed by different racial groups and the systemic consequences of conflating mental illness with intent. Leslie emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between illness and responsibility, highlighting how current narratives stigmatize those with mental health struggles and misdirect resources away from addressing the real root causes of violence.
00:00 Introduction: The Dangerous Habit of Labeling
01:31 The Psychological Impulse Behind Labeling
04:32 Media Bias and Racial Disparities
07:33 Systemic Harm and Misdiagnosis
13:14 The Impact on Marginalized Communities
19:16 The Weaponization of Disability Language
21:36 Conclusion: The Need for Truth and Responsibility
Resources:
Alvarez, A., & Bachman, R. (2024). Violence: The enduring problem (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Cornell, D., Evans, AC, Guerra, NG, Kinscherff R. (2013) Gun violence: Prediction, prevention, and policy. American Psychological Association.
Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review
Ben-Zeev, D., Young, M. A., & Corrigan, P. W. (2010). DSM-V and the stigma of mental illness. Journal of Mental Health
Corrigan, P. W., & Watson, A. C. (2002). Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry
Dar-Nimrod, I., & Heine, S. J. (2011). Genetic essentialism: On the deceptive determinism of DNA. Psychological Bulletin
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Haslam, N. (2005). Dimensions of dehumanization: The psychology of being (and not being) human.
Haslam, N. (2022) Dehumanization and the lack of social connection. Current Opinion in Psychology.
Kroska, A. & Harkness, S.K. (2006) Stigma sentiment and self-meanings: Exploring the modified labeling theory of mental illness. Social Psychology Quarterly. Retrieved from JSTOR.
Meng, H., Yancan, C., Yunan L., Yang, Y., Lee, J., Zhang, R. & Less, Y-C. (2025) What is Stigma Attributed to? A Theory‑Grounded, Expert‑Annotated Interview Corpus for Demystifying Mental‑Health Stigma. arXiv:2505.12727. Accepted to ACL 2025 Main Conference.
Monahan, J., Steadman, H. J., Silver, E., Appelbaum, P. S., Robbins, P. C., Mulvey, E. P., Roth, L.H., Grisso, T. & Banks, S. (2001). Rethinking risk assessment: The MacArthur study of mental disorder and violence. Oxford University Press.
Phelan, J. C., Link, B. G., & Dovidio, J. F. (2008). Stigma and prejudice: One animal or two? Social Science & Medicine
Prilleltensky, I. (2003). Understanding, resisting, and overcoming oppression: Toward psychopolitical validity. American Journal of Community Psychology. Wiley Online Library.
Rodriguez, N. & White, D. (2023) An Analysis of Protesting Activity and Trauma Through Mathematical and Statistical Models. Crime Science.
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. Advances in
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leslie Poston (00:11):
Welcome back to PsyberSpace. I'm your host,
Leslie Poston. Today, we'retalking about a habit that's
become so baked into ourculture, most people don't even
notice that they're doing it.Something awful happens like a
mass shooting or a serial killergets caught or a political
figure enacts policies thatdevastate entire communities and
(00:34):
someone inevitably says, oh,they must be crazy. It sounds
simple.
It even sounds empatheticsometimes. Like, maybe we're
trying to understand theincomprehensible, but this
reflex we have to explain awaycruelty, violence, and abuse of
power by reaching for mentalillness labels, it's not
(00:55):
harmless. It's a deeplyingrained psychological response
with far reaching consequencesfor how we see justice,
morality, disability, and thepeople around us. This episode
is about understanding thatimpulse, naming its harms, and
pushing for a better way to talkabout mental illness and
(01:15):
responsibility. It's not aboutdenying the reality of mental
health struggles.
It's about drawing a sharperline between illness and intent.
Because when we blur that line,we don't just misunderstand
what's happening. We excuse it.Let's start with why this
impulse happens in the firstplace. When something horrific
(01:37):
or incomprehensible happens, ourhuman brains scramble for a
framework that helps them makesense of things.
It's part of how we maintain oursense of psychological safety in
a chaotic world. If we believepeople who commit atrocities are
fundamentally different from us,say mentally ill, broken, or
(01:59):
unstable, that allows our brainsto feel protected from the idea
that, quote, normal people arecapable of evil acts.
Psychologists call this a formof cognitive dissonance
reduction. It's also related towhat's known as the just world
hypothesis. That's the beliefthat good things happen to good
(02:20):
people and bad things happen tobad people.
When a seemingly ordinary personcommits an atrocity, it disrupts
that belief system. To restorethe feeling of balance, we need
to manufacture a story that putsthat person back outside the
realm of the ordinary. Andthat's where the word crazy
(02:41):
comes in. It gives us a box toput people in, to say they're
not like us. They're notresponsible.
They're mentally ill. There'salso the role of attribution
theory. This psychologicalframework suggests that we're
constantly trying to make senseof other people's behavior by
assigning a cause either tointernal traits or external
(03:03):
circumstance. When the behavioris shocking or incomprehensible,
people lean heavily on internalexplanations. Labeling someone
as crazy is a form ofdispositional attribution.
It places the cause inside theperson, not in the systems,
ideologies, or materialconditions that shape their
(03:24):
choices. And this bias isintensified by what
psychologists call thefundamental attribution error.
We tend to overestimate internalcauses when evaluating others'
behavior, especially in highstakes or emotionally charged
situations. That makes it somuch harder for us to consider
(03:44):
social context, ideologicalindoctrination, or calculated
evil as real possibilities.Mental illness becomes the
default explanation, not becauseit's true, but because it feels
intuitively satisfying.
The problem is this instinctdoesn't reflect reality. Most
(04:05):
harm, especially systemic harm,isn't chaotic or irrational.
It's calculated. Methodicaleven. The worst atrocities in
history weren't committed in afit of madness.
They were often carried out bypeople following orders or
driven by ideology or justpursuing power and money. And
(04:26):
that's the scary part. It's notmadness. It's intent. The crazy
label doesn't get appliedequally either.
When a white man commits massviolence, media coverage often
focuses on his mental state,saying he was troubled. He had a
hard life. He was quiet,withdrawn, or maybe a little
(04:49):
strange. We hear about hischildhood trauma, mental health
issues, or isolation. Thesedetails are used by the media to
humanize him, to suggest thatsomething must have been broken
inside him that made thishappen.
And now compare that to howblack or brown people are
treated in similar situations.Their mugshots get shown. Their
(05:10):
criminal records, real oralleged, get highlighted. Their
communities are blamed. There'srarely room in the media
narrative or dinner tablediscussions for their complexity
or humanity.
They aren't described asmentally ill. They're described
as dangerous. And this isn'tjust about individual bias. It's
baked into how our media andinstitutions operate. It's a
(05:32):
pattern, and it's not limited tomass violence.
Think of current events whenDonald Trump spreads lies that
get people killed or Elon Muskempowers harassment and white
supremacy on his platform.People often say, oh, he's lost
his mind or he's clearly unwell.That narrative frames their
harmful actions as symptoms andnot choices. There's also a
(05:57):
psychological benefit for us,the public, when we frame
destructive leaders as mentallyunstable. It allows us to
preserve a belief in thelegitimacy of systems.
If a leader's harm is due tomental illness, then that means
to us the institution isn'tbroken. It's just temporarily
infected. It gives us anemotional out, a way to avoid
(06:20):
grappling with the possibilitythat corruption, racism, or
violence might be structuralrather than accidental. This is
what psychologists call a systemjustification theory, our
tendency to defend the statusquo even if it's harmful because
the alternative feels toodestabilizing the process.
(06:41):
Labeling the elites, so tospeak, as crazy instead of
corrupt also reinforces the mythof meritocracy.
It suggests these people rose topower on ability alone and then
somehow lost their way ratherthan acknowledging that systems
often reward harmful traits likemanipulation, coercion, and
(07:02):
exploitation. Mental illnessbecomes the scapegoat that keeps
us from seeing the machinerybehind the behavior. But these
men aren't stumbling around inconfusion. They're strategic.
They're doing harm with intentand consistency.
So much intent that theypublished a book about it a year
ago. And when we dismiss that asmadness, we excuse it. We
(07:27):
minimize the threat and letpowerful people off the hook.
The data's clear (07:31):
people with mental illnesses are far more
likely to be victims of violencethan perpetrators. And this
isn't new research.
Study after study has shown thatthe vast majority of people
living with schizophrenia orbipolar disorder or PTSD or
(07:51):
depression are not dangerous.And when violence does occur,
it's much more often tied tosocioeconomic factors, trauma,
substance abuse, or access toweapons and not mental illness
itself. But that's not the storywe hear. Sensational media
coverage consistently linksviolence with mental
(08:12):
instability. When someonecommits a violent act,
especially if they're white,mental illness becomes the
dominant narrative.
The question becomes not whatdid they do, but what was wrong
with them. And this false linkbetween mental illness and
violence also plays intoavailability heuristics. The
more dramatic or memorable anevent is, the more likely we are
(08:36):
to overestimate how common itis. Because violent acts
committed by people withpsychiatric diagnoses get
massive media attention,mistakenly believe those events
represent the norm. In reality,those are statistical outliers.
But when our brains rely onvividness instead of data, our
(08:57):
beliefs become skewed. TheAmerican Psychological
Association has warned for yearsagainst the danger of this
misperception, noting that fewerthan five percent of violent
crimes are committed by peoplewith serious mental illness. And
that statistic bears repeating.It's a tiny fraction. But it
dominates headlines and fuelsfear based policy.
(09:20):
And those policies tend tocriminalize rather than support.
And this matters. It shapespublic perception and influences
policy, creating a false senseof threat around mental illness,
which, again, drives stigma,fear, and discrimination. And it
distracts us from the real riskfactors that lead to violence,
most of which have nothing to dowith psychology. When we
(09:44):
conflate cruelty with mentalillness, it hurts everyone.
It distorts public understandingof mental health, fueling stigma
and making life harder forpeople who are already
struggling. People become afraidto seek help. They fear they'll
be labeled dangerous orunstable. Employers and
landlords and even familymembers buy into the idea that
(10:06):
mentally ill people areunpredictable and unsafe. This
leads to isolation,unemployment, homelessness, and
more untreated suffering.
This dynamic also feeds abroader psychological pattern
called symbolic threat. Peoplewho are perceived as different,
especially when they're framedas unpredictable, are often seen
(10:30):
as threatening even if they poseno actual danger. This is part
of how stigma operates. Mentalillness becomes a symbolic stand
in for chaos or disorder. Theperson becomes a walking
metaphor stripped of theirindividual humanity and treated
as a risk category.
And, again, that perceptionshapes not only personal
(10:52):
relationships but public policy.If the public believes people
with mental illness are tickingtime bombs, then restrictive,
punitive, and even violentinterventions start to feel
justified, whether that'sinstitutionalization, forced
medication, or surveillance. Thepsychology of fear becomes a
tool of control. It alsomisdirects our precious
(11:15):
resources. Instead of addressingthe root cause of violence like
poverty, inequality, racism, orrampant access to guns, we pour
money into speculative securitysystems and mental health
screenings that often don'twork.
It's theater. It looks likeaction but solves nothing. Worst
of all, this mindset weakens ourcollective capacity for moral
(11:37):
clarity. When we treat everyform of evil as a pathology, we
forget how to recognize greed,cruelty, abuse, and power hungry
behaviors for what they are. Andwe forget that people can choose
to do harm even when they arefully aware of what they're
doing.
Social media has made us allamateur diagnosticians. People
(12:01):
throw around terms likenarcissist, sociopath, or
psychopath without understandingthe nuance of what they mean.
Entire political takes are builton speculative diagnoses of
public figures, but this isn'tanalysis. It's deflection.
Calling someone a narcissistdoesn't tell us anything about
what they've done or why itmatters.
(12:23):
It just gives us a way todisengage from the specifics. It
blurs the line betweendescription and judgment and
makes real psychiatric termsinto moral insults. And the
truth is some people are justunethical. They just exploit
others intentionally. They lie,manipulate, harm, or destroy
(12:45):
because it benefits them, andsome just because they like it.
That doesn't make them sick. Itmakes them responsible. We need
to get better at describingbehavior clearly without leaning
on diagnostic labels. Was theperson violent? Did they abuse
their power?
Did they incite harm? Did theyencourage others to incite harm?
(13:09):
That's the conversation weshould be having. This issue
hits especially hard formarginalized communities. Black
children are far more likely tobe punished for behaviors that
would result in a diagnosis orsupport for white children.
Instead of being referred tocounseling, they're suspended or
(13:30):
arrested. They're treated likemini adults. This tracks them
into the school to prisonpipeline and locks them out of
the support systems they need.Indigenous people have a long
history of being labeledunstable or unfit as a way to
justify institutionalization andland theft. Government records
show that mental health labelswere often weaponized to remove
(13:53):
indigenous children from theirfamilies or justify
surveillance, sterilization.
Immigrants too are frequentlydenied access to mental health
services while simultaneouslybeing policed for instability or
deviance. They're painted asthreats to national security,
radicalized or dangerous, whichcreates a double bind where they
(14:15):
are both excluded from care andtargeted for punishment. There's
also a long psychologicalhistory of using
pseudoscientific language tojustify the oppression of
marginalized communities. In thenineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, for example,fabricated diagnoses like
drapotomania, a so called mentalillness said to cause enslaved
(14:37):
people to flee captivity, wereused to pathologize resistance
itself. These weren't fringeideas.
They were treated as legitimatepsychology, taught in medical
schools, and used to justifyviolence and control.
Unfortunately, these legacieshaven't disappeared. Today,
black children are stilldisproportionately labeled with
(14:58):
conduct disorders instead ofautism or ADHD, which delays or
blocks access to services.Immigrant communities,
especially undocumented people,often avoid seeking care for
fear of deportation orsurveillance. We've seen a lot
of that in the news thisweekend.
Indigenous populations continueto experience generational
(15:20):
trauma, but their mental healthneeds are frequently minimized
or medicalized in ways thatstrip them of cultural context.
When people rise up againstinjustice, those in power often
respond by questioning theirsanity. Peaceful protesters are
called unhinged, irrational, orout of control. Recall after
(15:42):
George Floyd was murdered, BlackLives Matter demonstrators were
labeled as anarchists andterrorists. That language wasn't
just dismissive.
It was strategic. It was used tojustify military style police
crackdowns and surveillance.This is a pattern that has deep
roots. During the civil rightsmovement, leaders like Martin
Luther King Junior weresurveilled under the pretense of
(16:05):
being dangerous or unstable.Activists at Standing Rock were
targeted by counterterrorismunits.
The idea is simple. If dissentcan be framed as madness, then
it doesn't have to be takenseriously. This framing isn't
just discrediting. It's alsoisolating. When protest is seen
as irrational or dangerous,people feel discouraged from
(16:28):
joining movements that couldlead to change.
They don't want to be seen asunstable or radical, especially
if they rely on employers,schools, or social services that
might retaliate. This kind ofpsychological chilling effect,
the fear of social punishmentfrom moral engagement, keeps bad
systems in place by silencingdissent before it begins.
(16:51):
Psychologists studying politicalrepression have found that
labeling resistance as madnessis a common tactic in
authoritarian regimes. It severspeople from their communities,
makes them easier to discredit,and reframes ethical courage as
psychological disturbance. Andwe're not immune to that in The
United States, even if thelanguage is more polished.
(17:13):
But protest is not a symptom.It's a response. A response to
injustice, violence, andsystemic harm. And when we treat
it like instability, wedelegitimize the pain and the
courage behind it. In The UnitedStates, we treat suffering like
a crime.
Instead of care, we offerpunishment. Instead of therapy,
(17:36):
we offer jail time.Psychologists studying
punishment attitudes in TheUnited States often point to the
phenomenon of moral absolutism,an all or nothing thinking style
where people are viewed aseither inherently good or
irredeemably bad. This binaryworldview makes rehabilitation
feel naive or even dangerous. Itsupports harsh penalties and
(18:00):
strips away empathy, especiallywhen combined with racial and
class bias.
We also see echoes of whatbehavioral economists called
just desserts reasoning, thebelief that people get what they
deserve. If someone issuffering, it must be because
they failed morally. Or ifthey're in prison or living with
mental illness, the logic goesthey must have done something
(18:23):
wrong. And this just desertsmindset leaves little room for
compassion, care, or reform. Ourlargest mental health
institutions in The UnitedStates are prisons.
People in crisis are more likelyto encounter police than a
counselor. And what happens nextis often fatal. People with
(18:43):
untreated mental illnesses arekilled by law enforcement at
disproportionately high rates,not because they're violent, but
because they're misunderstoodand criminalized. The carceral
system doesn't just lock peopleup. It locks society into a way
of thinking, one that sayspeople are either good or bad,
functional or broken, worthy ordisposable.
(19:05):
And when you believe binarythinking like that, it's easy to
justify any form of violence aslong as it's framed as justice.
It's not just mental illnessthat gets misused. Disability
language has long been a tool ofdehumanization. Terms like
feeble minded, defective,degenerate, or retarded have
(19:27):
been used to label entirepopulations as unworthy of
rights, autonomy, or even life.In recent years, we've seen
echoes of this in the treatmentof immigrants, incarcerated
people, or marginalized groups.
Think about the ICE detaineesbeing forcibly sterilized under
the guise of protecting publichealth or the disabled parents
(19:48):
who had their children takenaway because of unproven
assumptions about their capacityto parent. When society labels
people as mentally orcognitively deficient, not
because they are, but becauseit's politically useful, it
opens the door to horrificabuse. Surveillance,
institutionalization, familyseparation, medical violence,
(20:10):
all of it becomes, quote,justified through a
pathologizing lens. And thisisn't just history. It is
happening right now.
There's also the concept ofdisability drag where disability
language is metaphoricallyapplied to people who are not
disabled in order to mark themas deviant, defective, or
threatening. This metaphoricalframing primes audiences to
(20:34):
devalue and fear certain groups,whether or not the label has any
clinical validity. It's a formof linguistic stigmatization
that weaponizes diagnosis as asocial tool. The slippery slope
from metaphor to policy issteep. When people are labeled
unstable or defective,intentionally or rhetorically,
(20:55):
it opens the door to statecontrol.
Psychologists studying masscompliance and systemic harm
have pointed out how languagecan desensitize people to
oppression. If someone is seenas mentally broken, then forced
treatment, removal, orsterilization starts to look
like a public service. This ishow atrocities get
(21:16):
bureaucratized. When we mislabelcruelty as illness, we don't
just get the story wrong. We letthe wrong people off the hook.
We turn victims into villainsand power into pathology,
reinforcing a culture thatpunishes pain and excuses abuse.
And the truth is some people arejust cruel. Some systems are
(21:40):
just built to harm, and someharms are chosen, not suffered.
So let's stop reaching for crazyas our explanation and start
telling the truth because thestakes are far too high to get
this wrong. Thanks for listeningto PsyberSpace.
I'm Leslie Poston signing off.Until next time, stay curious,
(22:01):
and don't forget to subscribe soyou never miss an episode.
Welcome back to PsyberSpace. I'm your host,
Leslie Poston. Today, we'retalking about a habit that's
become so baked into ourculture, most people don't even
notice that they're doing it.Something awful happens like a
mass shooting or a serial killergets caught or a political
figure enacts policies thatdevastate entire communities and
(00:34):
someone inevitably says, oh,they must be crazy. It sounds
simple.
It even sounds empatheticsometimes. Like, maybe we're
trying to understand theincomprehensible, but this
reflex we have to explain awaycruelty, violence, and abuse of
power by reaching for mentalillness labels, it's not
(00:55):
harmless. It's a deeplyingrained psychological response
with far reaching consequencesfor how we see justice,
morality, disability, and thepeople around us. This episode
is about understanding thatimpulse, naming its harms, and
pushing for a better way to talkabout mental illness and
(01:15):
responsibility. It's not aboutdenying the reality of mental
health struggles.
It's about drawing a sharperline between illness and intent.
Because when we blur that line,we don't just misunderstand
what's happening. We excuse it.Let's start with why this
impulse happens in the firstplace. When something horrific
(01:37):
or incomprehensible happens, ourhuman brains scramble for a
framework that helps them makesense of things.
It's part of how we maintain oursense of psychological safety in
a chaotic world. If we believepeople who commit atrocities are
fundamentally different from us,say mentally ill, broken, or
(01:59):
unstable, that allows our brainsto feel protected from the idea
that, quote, normal people arecapable of evil acts.
Psychologists call this a formof cognitive dissonance
reduction. It's also related towhat's known as the just world
hypothesis. That's the beliefthat good things happen to good
(02:20):
people and bad things happen tobad people.
When a seemingly ordinary personcommits an atrocity, it disrupts
that belief system. To restorethe feeling of balance, we need
to manufacture a story that putsthat person back outside the
realm of the ordinary. Andthat's where the word crazy
(02:41):
comes in. It gives us a box toput people in, to say they're
not like us. They're notresponsible.
They're mentally ill. There'salso the role of attribution
theory. This psychologicalframework suggests that we're
constantly trying to make senseof other people's behavior by
assigning a cause either tointernal traits or external
(03:03):
circumstance. When the behavioris shocking or incomprehensible,
people lean heavily on internalexplanations. Labeling someone
as crazy is a form ofdispositional attribution.
It places the cause inside theperson, not in the systems,
ideologies, or materialconditions that shape their
(03:24):
choices. And this bias isintensified by what
psychologists call thefundamental attribution error.
We tend to overestimate internalcauses when evaluating others'
behavior, especially in highstakes or emotionally charged
situations. That makes it somuch harder for us to consider
(03:44):
social context, ideologicalindoctrination, or calculated
evil as real possibilities.Mental illness becomes the
default explanation, not becauseit's true, but because it feels
intuitively satisfying.
The problem is this instinctdoesn't reflect reality. Most
(04:05):
harm, especially systemic harm,isn't chaotic or irrational.
It's calculated. Methodicaleven. The worst atrocities in
history weren't committed in afit of madness.
They were often carried out bypeople following orders or
driven by ideology or justpursuing power and money. And
(04:26):
that's the scary part. It's notmadness. It's intent. The crazy
label doesn't get appliedequally either.
When a white man commits massviolence, media coverage often
focuses on his mental state,saying he was troubled. He had a
hard life. He was quiet,withdrawn, or maybe a little
(04:49):
strange. We hear about hischildhood trauma, mental health
issues, or isolation. Thesedetails are used by the media to
humanize him, to suggest thatsomething must have been broken
inside him that made thishappen.
And now compare that to howblack or brown people are
treated in similar situations.Their mugshots get shown. Their
(05:10):
criminal records, real oralleged, get highlighted. Their
communities are blamed. There'srarely room in the media
narrative or dinner tablediscussions for their complexity
or humanity.
They aren't described asmentally ill. They're described
as dangerous. And this isn'tjust about individual bias. It's
baked into how our media andinstitutions operate. It's a
(05:32):
pattern, and it's not limited tomass violence.
Think of current events whenDonald Trump spreads lies that
get people killed or Elon Muskempowers harassment and white
supremacy on his platform.People often say, oh, he's lost
his mind or he's clearly unwell.That narrative frames their
harmful actions as symptoms andnot choices. There's also a
(05:57):
psychological benefit for us,the public, when we frame
destructive leaders as mentallyunstable. It allows us to
preserve a belief in thelegitimacy of systems.
If a leader's harm is due tomental illness, then that means
to us the institution isn'tbroken. It's just temporarily
infected. It gives us anemotional out, a way to avoid
(06:20):
grappling with the possibilitythat corruption, racism, or
violence might be structuralrather than accidental. This is
what psychologists call a systemjustification theory, our
tendency to defend the statusquo even if it's harmful because
the alternative feels toodestabilizing the process.
(06:41):
Labeling the elites, so tospeak, as crazy instead of
corrupt also reinforces the mythof meritocracy.
It suggests these people rose topower on ability alone and then
somehow lost their way ratherthan acknowledging that systems
often reward harmful traits likemanipulation, coercion, and
(07:02):
exploitation. Mental illnessbecomes the scapegoat that keeps
us from seeing the machinerybehind the behavior. But these
men aren't stumbling around inconfusion. They're strategic.
They're doing harm with intentand consistency.
So much intent that theypublished a book about it a year
ago. And when we dismiss that asmadness, we excuse it. We
(07:27):
minimize the threat and letpowerful people off the hook.
The data's clear (07:31):
people with mental illnesses are far more
likely to be victims of violencethan perpetrators. And this
isn't new research.
Study after study has shown thatthe vast majority of people
living with schizophrenia orbipolar disorder or PTSD or
(07:51):
depression are not dangerous.And when violence does occur,
it's much more often tied tosocioeconomic factors, trauma,
substance abuse, or access toweapons and not mental illness
itself. But that's not the storywe hear. Sensational media
coverage consistently linksviolence with mental
(08:12):
instability. When someonecommits a violent act,
especially if they're white,mental illness becomes the
dominant narrative.
The question becomes not whatdid they do, but what was wrong
with them. And this false linkbetween mental illness and
violence also plays intoavailability heuristics. The
more dramatic or memorable anevent is, the more likely we are
(08:36):
to overestimate how common itis. Because violent acts
committed by people withpsychiatric diagnoses get
massive media attention,mistakenly believe those events
represent the norm. In reality,those are statistical outliers.
But when our brains rely onvividness instead of data, our
(08:57):
beliefs become skewed. TheAmerican Psychological
Association has warned for yearsagainst the danger of this
misperception, noting that fewerthan five percent of violent
crimes are committed by peoplewith serious mental illness. And
that statistic bears repeating.It's a tiny fraction. But it
dominates headlines and fuelsfear based policy.
(09:20):
And those policies tend tocriminalize rather than support.
And this matters. It shapespublic perception and influences
policy, creating a false senseof threat around mental illness,
which, again, drives stigma,fear, and discrimination. And it
distracts us from the real riskfactors that lead to violence,
most of which have nothing to dowith psychology. When we
(09:44):
conflate cruelty with mentalillness, it hurts everyone.
It distorts public understandingof mental health, fueling stigma
and making life harder forpeople who are already
struggling. People become afraidto seek help. They fear they'll
be labeled dangerous orunstable. Employers and
landlords and even familymembers buy into the idea that
(10:06):
mentally ill people areunpredictable and unsafe. This
leads to isolation,unemployment, homelessness, and
more untreated suffering.
This dynamic also feeds abroader psychological pattern
called symbolic threat. Peoplewho are perceived as different,
especially when they're framedas unpredictable, are often seen
(10:30):
as threatening even if they poseno actual danger. This is part
of how stigma operates. Mentalillness becomes a symbolic stand
in for chaos or disorder. Theperson becomes a walking
metaphor stripped of theirindividual humanity and treated
as a risk category.
And, again, that perceptionshapes not only personal
(10:52):
relationships but public policy.If the public believes people
with mental illness are tickingtime bombs, then restrictive,
punitive, and even violentinterventions start to feel
justified, whether that'sinstitutionalization, forced
medication, or surveillance. Thepsychology of fear becomes a
tool of control. It alsomisdirects our precious
(11:15):
resources. Instead of addressingthe root cause of violence like
poverty, inequality, racism, orrampant access to guns, we pour
money into speculative securitysystems and mental health
screenings that often don'twork.
It's theater. It looks likeaction but solves nothing. Worst
of all, this mindset weakens ourcollective capacity for moral
(11:37):
clarity. When we treat everyform of evil as a pathology, we
forget how to recognize greed,cruelty, abuse, and power hungry
behaviors for what they are. Andwe forget that people can choose
to do harm even when they arefully aware of what they're
doing.
Social media has made us allamateur diagnosticians. People
(12:01):
throw around terms likenarcissist, sociopath, or
psychopath without understandingthe nuance of what they mean.
Entire political takes are builton speculative diagnoses of
public figures, but this isn'tanalysis. It's deflection.
Calling someone a narcissistdoesn't tell us anything about
what they've done or why itmatters.
(12:23):
It just gives us a way todisengage from the specifics. It
blurs the line betweendescription and judgment and
makes real psychiatric termsinto moral insults. And the
truth is some people are justunethical. They just exploit
others intentionally. They lie,manipulate, harm, or destroy
(12:45):
because it benefits them, andsome just because they like it.
That doesn't make them sick. Itmakes them responsible. We need
to get better at describingbehavior clearly without leaning
on diagnostic labels. Was theperson violent? Did they abuse
their power?
Did they incite harm? Did theyencourage others to incite harm?
(13:09):
That's the conversation weshould be having. This issue
hits especially hard formarginalized communities. Black
children are far more likely tobe punished for behaviors that
would result in a diagnosis orsupport for white children.
Instead of being referred tocounseling, they're suspended or
(13:30):
arrested. They're treated likemini adults. This tracks them
into the school to prisonpipeline and locks them out of
the support systems they need.Indigenous people have a long
history of being labeledunstable or unfit as a way to
justify institutionalization andland theft. Government records
show that mental health labelswere often weaponized to remove
(13:53):
indigenous children from theirfamilies or justify
surveillance, sterilization.
Immigrants too are frequentlydenied access to mental health
services while simultaneouslybeing policed for instability or
deviance. They're painted asthreats to national security,
radicalized or dangerous, whichcreates a double bind where they
(14:15):
are both excluded from care andtargeted for punishment. There's
also a long psychologicalhistory of using
pseudoscientific language tojustify the oppression of
marginalized communities. In thenineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, for example,fabricated diagnoses like
drapotomania, a so called mentalillness said to cause enslaved
(14:37):
people to flee captivity, wereused to pathologize resistance
itself. These weren't fringeideas.
They were treated as legitimatepsychology, taught in medical
schools, and used to justifyviolence and control.
Unfortunately, these legacieshaven't disappeared. Today,
black children are stilldisproportionately labeled with
(14:58):
conduct disorders instead ofautism or ADHD, which delays or
blocks access to services.Immigrant communities,
especially undocumented people,often avoid seeking care for
fear of deportation orsurveillance. We've seen a lot
of that in the news thisweekend.
Indigenous populations continueto experience generational
(15:20):
trauma, but their mental healthneeds are frequently minimized
or medicalized in ways thatstrip them of cultural context.
When people rise up againstinjustice, those in power often
respond by questioning theirsanity. Peaceful protesters are
called unhinged, irrational, orout of control. Recall after
(15:42):
George Floyd was murdered, BlackLives Matter demonstrators were
labeled as anarchists andterrorists. That language wasn't
just dismissive.
It was strategic. It was used tojustify military style police
crackdowns and surveillance.This is a pattern that has deep
roots. During the civil rightsmovement, leaders like Martin
Luther King Junior weresurveilled under the pretense of
(16:05):
being dangerous or unstable.Activists at Standing Rock were
targeted by counterterrorismunits.
The idea is simple. If dissentcan be framed as madness, then
it doesn't have to be takenseriously. This framing isn't
just discrediting. It's alsoisolating. When protest is seen
as irrational or dangerous,people feel discouraged from
(16:28):
joining movements that couldlead to change.
They don't want to be seen asunstable or radical, especially
if they rely on employers,schools, or social services that
might retaliate. This kind ofpsychological chilling effect,
the fear of social punishmentfrom moral engagement, keeps bad
systems in place by silencingdissent before it begins.
(16:51):
Psychologists studying politicalrepression have found that
labeling resistance as madnessis a common tactic in
authoritarian regimes. It severspeople from their communities,
makes them easier to discredit,and reframes ethical courage as
psychological disturbance. Andwe're not immune to that in The
United States, even if thelanguage is more polished.
(17:13):
But protest is not a symptom.It's a response. A response to
injustice, violence, andsystemic harm. And when we treat
it like instability, wedelegitimize the pain and the
courage behind it. In The UnitedStates, we treat suffering like
a crime.
Instead of care, we offerpunishment. Instead of therapy,
(17:36):
we offer jail time.Psychologists studying
punishment attitudes in TheUnited States often point to the
phenomenon of moral absolutism,an all or nothing thinking style
where people are viewed aseither inherently good or
irredeemably bad. This binaryworldview makes rehabilitation
feel naive or even dangerous. Itsupports harsh penalties and
(18:00):
strips away empathy, especiallywhen combined with racial and
class bias.
We also see echoes of whatbehavioral economists called
just desserts reasoning, thebelief that people get what they
deserve. If someone issuffering, it must be because
they failed morally. Or ifthey're in prison or living with
mental illness, the logic goesthey must have done something
(18:23):
wrong. And this just desertsmindset leaves little room for
compassion, care, or reform. Ourlargest mental health
institutions in The UnitedStates are prisons.
People in crisis are more likelyto encounter police than a
counselor. And what happens nextis often fatal. People with
(18:43):
untreated mental illnesses arekilled by law enforcement at
disproportionately high rates,not because they're violent, but
because they're misunderstoodand criminalized. The carceral
system doesn't just lock peopleup. It locks society into a way
of thinking, one that sayspeople are either good or bad,
functional or broken, worthy ordisposable.
(19:05):
And when you believe binarythinking like that, it's easy to
justify any form of violence aslong as it's framed as justice.
It's not just mental illnessthat gets misused. Disability
language has long been a tool ofdehumanization. Terms like
feeble minded, defective,degenerate, or retarded have
(19:27):
been used to label entirepopulations as unworthy of
rights, autonomy, or even life.In recent years, we've seen
echoes of this in the treatmentof immigrants, incarcerated
people, or marginalized groups.
Think about the ICE detaineesbeing forcibly sterilized under
the guise of protecting publichealth or the disabled parents
(19:48):
who had their children takenaway because of unproven
assumptions about their capacityto parent. When society labels
people as mentally orcognitively deficient, not
because they are, but becauseit's politically useful, it
opens the door to horrificabuse. Surveillance,
institutionalization, familyseparation, medical violence,
(20:10):
all of it becomes, quote,justified through a
pathologizing lens. And thisisn't just history. It is
happening right now.
There's also the concept ofdisability drag where disability
language is metaphoricallyapplied to people who are not
disabled in order to mark themas deviant, defective, or
threatening. This metaphoricalframing primes audiences to
(20:34):
devalue and fear certain groups,whether or not the label has any
clinical validity. It's a formof linguistic stigmatization
that weaponizes diagnosis as asocial tool. The slippery slope
from metaphor to policy issteep. When people are labeled
unstable or defective,intentionally or rhetorically,
(20:55):
it opens the door to statecontrol.
Psychologists studying masscompliance and systemic harm
have pointed out how languagecan desensitize people to
oppression. If someone is seenas mentally broken, then forced
treatment, removal, orsterilization starts to look
like a public service. This ishow atrocities get
(21:16):
bureaucratized. When we mislabelcruelty as illness, we don't
just get the story wrong. We letthe wrong people off the hook.
We turn victims into villainsand power into pathology,
reinforcing a culture thatpunishes pain and excuses abuse.
And the truth is some people arejust cruel. Some systems are
(21:40):
just built to harm, and someharms are chosen, not suffered.
So let's stop reaching for crazyas our explanation and start
telling the truth because thestakes are far too high to get
this wrong. Thanks for listeningto PsyberSpace.
I'm Leslie Poston signing off.Until next time, stay curious,
(22:01):
and don't forget to subscribe soyou never miss an episode.
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