Abstract

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.

Volume 1: Structural Violence and Creative Structures covers structural and symbolic violence, with violent states and State violence, and with creative responses and creative states at the local and global levels.

In this superbly informative and inspiring collection, various forms and manifestations of violence and of violent states of mind and of society are analysed 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. This volume is a treasure trove for everybody in all the many fields of violence reduction.
Friedemann Pfäfflin, MD, Prof. em. of Forensic Psychotherapy, Ulm University
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.
Earl Hopper, Ph.D., psychoanalyst, group analyst, and organisational consultant. Former President of the International Association for Group Psychotherapy. Editor of the New International Library of Group Analysis.
The extremes of contemporary human conflict, warfare and terrorism may eschew comprehension and beget reciprocal destruction in a dangerous escalation of global violence. This book offers a breathtaking understanding of human violence from its psychological and familial roots to its eruption in today's societal, ecological and political spheres. In exploring the progression of individual violent states of mind to state-sponsored violence, the authors bring an international perspective and provide creative responses to one of the most worrying epidemics of our times.
Jessica Yakeley, Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst and Director, Portman Clinic, London UK.
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.
Dr Kingsley Norton, Jungian Analyst and Medical Psychotherapist