New report advises mental health support for 'incels'

Involuntary celibates, also known as 'incels', are a community of (primarily male) people organised around a perceived inability to attract sexual or romantic relationships. The community is overwhelmingly found online, in spaces where high levels of 'dehumanising misogyny' are the norm, according to research. 

There have been isolated instances of these views spilling into offline actions, however; Elliot Rodger's 2014 murder of six people is perhaps the most famous example . There has also been a steep rise in incel-related referrals to the government's Prevent scheme (which focuses on preventing vulnerable people from being drawn into extremism), while a 2023 review of that programme argued that the incel community should be dealt with using hate crime legislation. Others, however, see incels primarily through the lens of mental health , and suggest that therapeutic interventions may be the most appropriate .

Which approach is most appropriate is at the heart of a recent government report, authored by Swansea University's Joe Whittaker, William Costello, and Andrew G. Thomas. Exploring the development of the incel community in the UK and the US, how the community communicates, and what interventions may be most useful, the team concludes that mental health support – rather than a counter-terrorism approach – is likely to be more fruitful.      

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