About the Book
This is a provocative collection exploring the different types of violence and how they relate to one another, examined through the integration of several disciplines, including forensic psychotherapy, psychiatry, sociology, psychosocial studies and political science. By examining the 'violent states' of mind behind specific forms of violence and the social and societal contexts in which an individual act of human violence takes place, the contributors reveal the dynamic forces and reasoning behind specific forms of violence including structural violence, and conceptualise the societal structures themselves as 'violent states'.
Other research often stops short at examining the causes and risk factors for violence, without considering the opposite states that may not only mitigate, but allow for a different unfolding of individual and societal evolution. As a potential antidote to violence, the authors prescribe an understanding of these 'creative states' with their psychological origins, and their importance in human behaviour and meaning-seeking. Making a call to move beyond merely mitigating violence to the opposite direction of fostering creative potential, this book is foundational in its capacity to cultivate social consciousness and effect positive change in areas of governance, policy-making, and collective responsibility.
This two-volume set includes:
Volume 1: Structural Violence and Creative Structures ISBN 9781785925641
Volume 2: Human Violence and Creative Humanity ISBN 9781785925658
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements. Prologue, Estela Welldon. Introduction, John Adlam, Tilman Kluttig and Bandy X. Lee. Part I: Introductorily and Theoretically. 1. From Human Violence to Creativity: The Structural Nature of Violence and the Spiritual Nature of Its Remedy, John L. Young, Bandy X. Lee and Grace Lee. 2. Injury and Insult: Reciprocal Violence and Reflexive Violence, John Adlam and Christopher Scanlon. 3. The Story of Mr A: The Interplay between Individual Trauma and Global Politics, Tilman Kluttig. Part II: Violent States and State Violence. 4. Baltimore Past and Present: The Violent State of Racial Segregation, Annie Stopford with Gardnel Carter. 5. Psychosocial Implications of Political Trauma and Social Recognition I: A Lacanian Approach to State Violence in South America, Gina Donoso. 6. Psychosocial Implications of Political Trauma and Social Recognition II: Experiences from the Truth Commission of Ecuador, Gina Donoso. 7. State Violence and State Creativity: Caring for Women and Girls Who Were Raped during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Bandy X. Lee, Glorieuse Uwizeye and Thilo Kroll. 8. Perpetrators of Socially Accepted Violence: States of Mind beyond Pathology and Deviancy, Efrat Even-Tzur. Part III: Terror in the Public Sphere. 9. Terror, Violence and the Public Sphere, David W. Jones. 10. '1 in 5 Brit Muslims' Sympathy for Jihadis': What It Means to Be a Muslim Living in Britain Today, Ismail Karolia and Julian Manley. 11. Flight 9525: Andreas Lubitz and the Psychology of the Lone Terrorist, Klaus Hoffmann. 12. Terror in the Mind of the Terrorist, Barry Richards.Part IV: Creative Structures: From the Local to the Global. 13. The City Project, Aileen Schloerb. 14. Social Dreaming and Creativity in South Africa: Imag(in)ing the 'Unthought Known', Hayley Berman and Julian Manley. 15. The International Criminal Court and Global Justice, Matt Killingsworth. 16. Finding Stories in a Form that can Be Acted: Creative States in Response to Climate Change Denial and Biosphere Destruction, Lucy Neal.
Part I: Introductorily and Theoretically. 1. The Microcosm of Aggression: Early Parent-Child Interaction and the Struggle for Separation, Reinmar Du Bois. 2. Bad to the Bone or Breaking Bad?: A Developmental View of Violent States of Mind, Maggie McAlister. 3. The Pathological Third, Violence and Reality: Psychological Pathways to Violence in Psychosis and Narcissism, Clinton Van Der Walt. Part II: Violent States of Mind. 4. Is There a Murderer Here? : The Language of Agency and Violence in Homicide Perpetrators, Gwen Adshead, Zoe Berko, Sarita Bose, Martha Ferrito and Martina Mindang. 5. Forever Hungry for Her Eyes: The Pain of Maternal Absence, Anna Motz. 6. Violent States in Feeding Distress: The Antigone Paradigm and the Creative Possibilities of Collective Re-Imagining, John Adlam. 7. Anorexia Mirabilis: Voluntary Self Starvation and the Role of Spirituality as a Legitimate Response to Sexual Violence, Robyn Timoclea. 8. Violence, Rage and Creativity, Deborah J. Cohan. Part III: Terror in the Private Sphere. 9. Breaking into a Sacred, Bloodier Speech: The Healing Role of Monsters in Child Development, Trauma Play, and the Cultural Imagination, Claude Barbre and Jill Barbre. 10. 'You be the murderer now', Tamsin Cottis. 11. Into the Labyrinth: Working with Bizarre, Unspeakable and Extreme Violence, Sarita Bose, Martha Ferrito, Alex Maguire, Martina Mindang and Andrew Ware. 12. Treat Me Nice: Music Therapy and Extreme Violence, Alex Maguire. Part IV: Creative Approaches - From the Global to the Individual. 13. Restorative Justice Applications in Mental Health Settings: Pathways to Recovery and Restitution, Gerard Drennan. 14. Violent Acts and Creative Responses: Resilience Building Through Art Psychotherapy, Kate Rothwell and Simon Hackett. 15. Spiritual Movements as Creative Forms of Response to Structural Violence, James S. Vrettos. 16. Violent states and existential-therapeutic work in Mexican ex voto painting, Wayne Martin. Epilogue, James Gilligan.
About the Author :
John Adlam is Consultant Adult Forensic Psychotherapist at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, London, as well as a founding member of the Association for Psychosocial Studies.
Tilman Kluttig is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, Psychological Psychotherapist, and Forensic Psychotherapist in the Clinic for Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Reichenau Centre for Psychiatry, University of Konstanz, Germany.
Bandy X. Lee is Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine, co-founder of Yale University's Violence and Health Group, and project group leader for the World Health Organization Violence Prevention Alliance.
Review :
These well edited, wide-ranging volumes of contributions from an international network of colleagues in the developing field of psycho-social forensic studies are not only brilliant in their depth of insight and scholarship, but also extremely useful in clinical work. They also enhance our awareness of the rights and obligations of citizenship and participation in a moral community in which perpetrators, victims and bystanders enact a myriad of roles in plays within plays.
Violence is vital for human survival - protective as well as destructive. But violence begets violence, the cycle only being defeated by love's power, as Martin Luther King Jr. reminded. The editors have selected contributors who have axes to grind, in protecting matters close to their hearts. Contributions model creative, non-violent, responses to violent attacks, via channelling their authors' violent impulses into rational arguments and urgings. Do not skim-read this book. Dip in; pick out; read; muse; rest; and repeat.
In this superbly informative and inspiring collection, various forms and manifestations of violence and of violent states of mind and of society are analyzed and countered by creative alternatives. Volume 1 explores the concept of structural violence, examining state violence in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and dynamics of terror, protective function and creativity in the public sphere, locally and internationally. Volume 2 focuses on the origins and aftermath of individual violent states of mind and violence directed towards self or others and describes how psychotherapeutic, psychosocial and activist interventions can provide and promote creative alternatives. These volumes are a treasure trove for everybody in all the many fields of violence reduction.
These two multi-authored collections are to be heartily welcomed and recommended. Especially gratifying to me is the appearance of so many 'new' (to me) authors with sparkling ideas, in addition to the 'older' familiars. The excitement of our subject is reiterated to me; requiring, borrowing and applying from so many disciplines and different bodies of knowledge. Volume 1 analyses violent states of mind and behaviour from multidisciplinary clinical perspectives and places them within their social and political contexts. Volume 2, rather originally, emphasises 'creative states' as positively promoting individual and societal wellbeing, and not just in 'neutralising' or mitigating violent states. I am reminded of Melanie Klein's conjunction of 'Envy and Gratitude' as alternative states of mind of fundamental significance for the individual, and (necessarily) their behaviour; and the relative down-playing of gratitude in Kleinian praxis. By contrast, the editors and authors of these two volumes are, refreshingly, ever alert to the place of the positive, to the 'psychosocial creative' in helping the individual and in framing policies and politics. I congratulate all involved in these seminal writings.
