ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Is there a connection between ideological violence and mental illness? That question's come up again as more details emerge about the man who allegedly killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. We know he'd been grappling with a debilitating back condition and had also largely dropped out of contact with friends, which raises questions about his mental health. NPR's Katia Riddle is covering this. Hi there.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: Is mental health a relevant lens to look at the shooting?
RIDDLE: Yeah. You know, this is a really good question. Several experts I talked to who study the intersection of violence and mental health said there's a lot more to consider here than his mental health, even from a psychiatric perspective. I talked to a psychiatrist named Terry Kupers. He studies mental - community mental health.
TERRY KUPERS: The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders has a section on cultural variables. That is, in diagnosing the individual, we look at their cultural experience.
RIDDLE: Kupers points out that there is a lot of political violence in the culture recently.
KUPERS: It's very similar to the violent attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. People take the situation into their own hands and concoct violent interventions, so they go after people they perceive as enemies.
RIDDLE: Other examples of this sort of thing include the January 6 insurrection, the two recent attempted attacks on Donald Trump or even just the vitriolic rhetoric that is common on social media. Kupers and others point out that these kinds of targeted attacks can create a permission structure. And that is not just an issue of mental health for one individual but something that impacts the well being of the entire culture.
SHAPIRO: So that's the cultural context. Given what we know about the Defendant Luigi Mangione's apparent behavior, is there anything experts could say about his mental health specifically?
RIDDLE: Not much. You know, I've talked to several experts in the last few days, and what I've heard consistently is that it's possible a mental health disorder was part of the equation here. But there's a lot of other potential explanations. I talked to Paul Applebaum. He's a psychiatrist and professor at Columbia University. He said something that is concerning was Mr. Mangione's withdrawal from society in the months leading up to this event.
PAUL APPLEBAUM: Yes, you do see that. Sometimes when people are developing particularly psychotic disorders and they become suspicious of and withdraw from the people around them - but there also could be almost an infinite number of other explanations.
RIDDLE: Applebaum and other experts I talked to were emphatic about the fact that mental illness is not a predictor of violence.
APPLEBAUM: If you, you know, look across the spectrum of the tens of thousands of murders that are committed in this country each year, only a relatively small proportion are associated with people with serious mental disorders.
SHAPIRO: And so he's saying it's possible for someone to shoot and kill a person in broad daylight and not have any sort of mental illness.
RIDDLE: Right. You know, people commit acts of violence when they are motivated by vengeance, for example. Some people have severe anger management issues. Adverse childhood experiences can normalize violence from an early age. Another possibility several people raised to me was that he could have become very involved with an online community that reinforced his irrational beliefs. So we just don't know yet all the circumstances behind this heinous act, but there are a lot of potential factors outside of mental health.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Katia Riddle, who covers mental health. Thank you very much.
RIDDLE: Thank you, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.