The role of grievance in fatal family violence and implications for the construct of lone actor grievance-fuelled violence.

Introduction: The concept of lone actor grievance fuelled violence assumes that homicides that occur in very different contexts can be thought about in a consistent manner because they share common motivations and resultant emotional states like resentment, outrage or revenge. Fatal family violence has been largely excluded from discussions of lone actor grievance-fuelled homicide, based on the assumption that it is conceptually different. This scoping review examines similarities and discrepancies between the characteristics and motivations of perpetrators of fatal family violence and those who have engaged in lone actor grievance-fuelled homicide outside the family context, and the relevance of the concept of grievance-fuelled violence to fatal family violence.

Public Figure Fixation: Cautionary Findings for Mental Health Practitioners.

Research in western nations has found that pathologically fixated individuals pose a risk of serious harm to public figures, and that many of these fixated persons are mentally ill and require treatment. Over the past decade, integrated fixated threat assessment agencies have been established in western Europe and Australia to specifically assess and manage this group. The current study examines 400 consecutive referrals to a fixated threat assessment center in Queensland, Australia, with a particular focus on the mental health and risk profile of those who engage in inappropriate contact with public office holders.

A model for managing the mentally ill fixated person at major events.

Objective: The main risk of serious harm at major public figure gatherings comes not from terrorists or criminal activity but from fixated persons, many of whom have a serious mental illness. This paper reviews a collaborative mental health-police diversionary model for assessing and managing mentally ill individuals who attend major events because of their fixation on a dignitary or some idiosyncratic cause.

Method: We examine the role of a multidisciplinary fixated threat assessment service during the pre-operational, operational and post-operational phases of major events in Queensland in 2014, including the G20 World Leaders' Summit.

Commentary: Stalking by patients--psychiatrists' tales of anger, lust and ignorance.

Stalking is a thriving social and criminal concern and a risk inherent in our personal and professional lives. Health care professionals, particularly psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners, are vulnerable to being stalked by their patients and, far from providing helpful insights that discourage the behavior, their training can be a hindrance. Neither a psychiatrist's gender nor seniority confers protection from the protracted vengeance or infatuation of a patient-turned-stalker, any more than does working through the transference and soldiering on.

Stalkers and harassers of British royalty: an exploration of proxy behaviours for violence.

Study of risk factors for violence to prominent people is difficult because of low base rates. This study of harassers of the royal family examined factors suggested in the literature as proxies for violence--breaching security barriers, achieving proximity, approach with a weapon, and approach with homicidal ideation. A stratified sample of different types of approach behaviour was randomly extracted from 2,332 Royalty Protection Police files, which had been divided into behavioural types.

Factors associated with escalation and problematic approaches toward public figures.

Detailed comparison of factors associated with abnormal approach to the prominent and with escalation from communication to approach has not hitherto been undertaken. This partially reflects the failure of individual studies to adopt compatible terminologies. This study involves a careful dissection of six public figure studies, three involving U.

Abnormal attentions toward the British Royal Family: factors associated with approach and escalation.

Abnormal approach and escalation from communication to physical intrusion are central concerns in managing risk to prominent people. This study was a retrospective analysis of police files of those who have shown abnormal attentions toward the British Royal Family. Approach (n = 222), compared with communication only (n = 53), was significantly associated with specific factors, most notably serious mental illness and grandiosity.

Attacks on the British Royal family: the role of psychotic illness.

The role of psychotic disorders in attacks on British Royalty is examined. In the 23 attacks, there was evidence of psychotic illness at the time in 11 (48%) cases, with evidence of mental disorder in 4 additional ones. These data almost certainly underestimate the contribution of major mental disorder, as psychiatric evaluations were not available on several attackers.

Legislation in Victoria on sexual offenders: issues for health professionals.

New legislation passed in Victoria (the Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act 2005) extends the role of doctors in managing and treating sex offenders. This legislation is not based on a solid understanding of the research evidence on treatment of sex offenders or on their risk of reoffending. The legislation creates ethical and professional dilemmas for health professionals through the conflation of legal control of offenders with the medical management of disorders of sexual preference.

Patients who stalk doctors: their motives and management.

The prevalence of stalking is increasing and healthcare professionals are overrepresented among stalking victims. The most common motivations for stalking are patients' developing a romantic attachment, due to delusional beliefs (as in erotomania) or misplaced expectations (often by socially inept patients), and patients' developing a resentment for some supposed injury. Strategies to prevent victimisation and minimise the impact of stalking include: taking care to preserve privacy and security, making clear to patients that the relationship will always be professional and what the boundaries are, informing colleagues and other relevant parties, transferring the patient's care to another doctor, and considering legal action.