Before and After Violence: Developmental, Clinical, and Sociocultural Aspects

(Hardback)

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From childhood onwards, humans use their environments responses to construct models or schemata to link feelings and impulses with actions and effects. If the environment during those formative years is unreliable, frustrating, or violating, the construction of those internal models can be disrupted and create a disjointed perception of the world, where violence is the only way to feel strong or good about oneself. Before and After Violence explores the complex network of experiences and relationships that contribute to both the origins and consequences of violence, starting in the early stages of life and compounding over time. The contributors to this collection examine the different settings in which violence takes place, look at the variables that propel its occurrence in local and global instances, and depict how each can be traced back to profound feelings of betrayal, helplessness, and anger that manifest in the physical discharges of aggression towards a single person or a whole group. Through a psychoanalytic lens, the contributors analyze and explain violence in its many forms, delve into its myriad of causes, as well as offer a variety of solutions that can be applied to various instances of violence whether it be physical or mental, self-directed or other-directed.

Reviews

This book is urgently needed! We are a violent species living in a violent society with the highest rate of firearm-related deaths in the 'civilized' world, and we are becoming inured by the epidemic of mass murder from terrorist attacks. The contributors to this very readable and celebrated text are all experts in the field and offer us a very comprehensive study of this problem. From the microscopic/ individual developmental to the macroscopic/ societal perspective, this vital contribution is a must-read for all clinicians and students of the human condition. -- Ira Brenner, MD, Jefferson Medical College; author of Dark Matters- Exploring the Realm of Psychic Devastation

Author Bio

Salman Akhtar, MD, is professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.