Counterterrorism advancements across mental health services

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Introduction

The aim is to offer an updated and practically oriented understanding of empirically substantiated insights pertaining to the care of radicalised individuals presenting with mental health issues. This will include research impact on every level within the mental health service system, ranging from initiatives in the community, over outpatient services and lower security forensic hospitals, to high-secure settings. As such, the special issue addresses stakeholders’ needs to further their understanding in areas relating to the assessment, risk formulation, care pathway planning, and prevention of recidivism when working with radicalised individuals. Furthermore, the practical findings will be contextualised with considerations on a societal level, outlining international extremist trends, such as extremist ideology entering public discourse.

To offer guidance for mental health services working with radicalised individuals, it requires consistent contributions from psychology and psychiatry. The special issue will present a rare insight from these professions, while also encouraging more scholars from these research fields to make more consistent contributions. While the role of mental health issues in extremist violence remains a challenge, recently news has focused heavily on the impact of neurodiverse presentation in offenders. The discussion is emotive and has resulted in the inclusion of autism in Australian risk assessment tools linked to extremist violence, despite a lack of empirical evidence. Nevertheless, recent publications have highlighted the contextual role of ADHD, autism, and personality styles, encouraging a new perspective that emphasises the relevance of influences as opposed to the presence of factors.

The special issue will continue this trend to support a complex and current debate in a rational and empirically founded manner. This new perspective has yet to be introduced to practitioners and is an explicit goal of this special issue. Overall, the goal is to support a rationally led discussion in a politicised and sensationalised arena, while offering concrete guidance for professionals to navigate current challenges.

List of Topic Areas

• Extremism
• Mental Health Issues
• Risk Assessment
• Care Pathway Planning
• Rehabilitation

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening for submission: 1st Feb 2024
Closing date for submissions: 1st August 2024

Guest Editors

Dr Sören Henrich, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, [email protected]
Dr Rachel Worthington, MMU, UK, [email protected]