...on Thursday, his defense attorney asked for a mental health assessment "to address his mental illness." But researchers and advocates say the rush to cast blame on a mental illness is misplaced. "There's no psychotic illness whose symptom is shooting other people," said Dr. Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University. "People are searching for explanations for behavior they don't understand. It's easy to put a label like mental illness on behavior that frankly seems just beyond the pale," said Angela Kimball, national director for advocacy and public policy at the National Alliance...
