Mental Health and International Relations: Why We Need to Look at Mental Health as a Security Issue

Abstract

A topic new to International Relations is introduced in this chapter—namely, mental health, which is becoming ever more important in the West as well as in other countries around the world. The chapter argues that mental health issues pose a security problem and therefore need to be taken into account by our discipline. It examines the specific mental illness of schizophrenia, even though this is not the most common mental illness, and looks into its potential causes. This chapter relies more on Social Psychiatry, rather than Social Psychology, but some arguments can be derived from a critique of Capitalism, the rise of which, it is here argued, might explain the rise in mental illnesses generally. Furthermore, it is argued by evaluating mental health data that mental illness is connected to violence. These data illustrate that rising rates of depression in any country can possibly predict the emergence of violence and terrorism in and from that country.