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 2: Human Violence and Creative Humanity explores violent states of mind, behavioural or subjective, interpersonal violence (including self-injury) and the fine distinctions between violent and creative states of mind.

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 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. 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
This is a magnificent book. In the introduction there is a half apology that it is not aiming to be encyclopaedic, but it is amongst the most encyclopaedic accounts of violence, its many threads, and especially its structural roots, that I have encountered. Diverse, experienced, expert and coherent chapters moving from the political/structural to the intrapsychic, and back and forth between violence, and its proposed antidote, creativity. I thoroughly recommend this book, not just to those whose interest is therapeutic, but to those who really ought to be reading it because their hands are on levers of power.
Dr Dickon Bevington, Medical Director, Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families
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
How does healthy aggression become pathological violence? How do victims become perpetrators? In part two of Violent and Creative States leading experts in the field focus on developmental and clinical aspects of human violence and show how therapeutic, not punitive, interventions can lead to rehabilitation, recovery and restitution. I highly recommend this book to all those working with violent individuals and groups in health, social and legal settings.
Jessica Yakeley, Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst and Director, Portman Clinic, London UK.