Violence in Children: Understanding and Helping Those Who Harm

Editor : Rosemary Campher

Part of The Forensic Psychotherapy Monograph series - more in this series

Violence in Children: Understanding and Helping Those Who Harm

Book Details

  • Publisher : Routledge
  • Published : 2008
  • Cover : Paperback
  • Pages : 288
  • Category :
    Forensic
  • Category 2 :
    Child and Adolescent Studies
  • Catalogue No : 25071
  • ISBN 13 : 9781855754775
  • ISBN 10 : 1855754770
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This book explores various aspects of violence and the attendant emotional, psychological, biological and social features that may be found to accompany these states in children. It highlights the importance of prevention and early intervention and the implicit use of therapy to help children who are in these vulnerable and dangerous states of mind and body. Interdisciplinary research is also advocated as a research tool to help us to obtain as complete an understanding as possible of violence and it's vicissitudes in children.

Because violence may have many antecedents and consequences in the mind, the provision of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is a very useful and elucidative method to use as a form of intervention. This book rests on fundamental psychoanalytic principles and processes as well as something very simple that we all know, yet tend to lose sight of: that children and parents who have increased social and emotional support in our society are less likely to develop pathological ways of coping with the various stressors and strains that are in part an inevitable element of living in the 21st century, and which may also be at times an inherent part of our psycho-biological make-up.

Clinical material in all the chapters of this book also provide supporting evidence for how useful psychotherapy can be for children who have already developed coping strategies that are pathological, particularly in relation to violence. Research has found that too many obstacles are actually placed in the way of allowing violent children to receive the necessary treatment that could help them to overcome their violent tendencies.

Reviews and Endorsements

'This is a rare book. Although much has been written from a psychoanalytic point of view about aggression, very little has been written about violence, and even less about violent children. This book goes some way to redressing that imbalance. Every chapter in Rosemary Campher's book ... is written by a psychoanalyst or child psychotherapist who has worked therapeutically with children. Violent children hunger for a real response to their aggression that recognizes them as distinct and separate. They are yearning for a reaction that takes them into account without negating them or retaliating, but one that is reparative in the way that understanding can be. The therapist's real but non-retaliatory reaction to being hurt is the beginning of a new experience for children who often experience others as reacting intrusively or by withdrawing. Rosemary Campher's book invites the reader into the physicality and reflectiveness of the therapeutic relationship to learn about what makes these children violent and how to help them.'
- Donald Campbell, from the Foreword

'"Violence in Children" consists of a wide-ranging series of contributions from eminent workers in the theory, practice and research into violent behaviour. It traces the many roots of violence to sources in childhood and it seeks to throw light on the complex problems that arise when extreme violence manifests itself in society. However,the authors do not attempt to offer direct and simplistic solutions to these problems. What they do provide is a series of illuminating questions and, above all, a framework for creative thinking from which helpful solutions might be arrived at and applied.'
- Dr Bernard Barnett, Training and Supervising Analyst at the British Psychoanalytical Society; Director, The Squiggle Foundation, author of "You Ought To!"[Karnac Books]

'Both the glamorization and the demonization of violence helps us avoid having to understand the violent mind. We should enter the violent person's subjective world, not just in order to be able to offer treatment, but also to better anticipate the nature of the risks they embody both to themselves and to society. The attempt at explanation does not amount to an exculpation; rather, understanding is the first step in the prevention of violence. The answer to the riddle of how an individual can lose restraint over his or her propensity to injure others must lie in what is ordinary rather than extraordinary: normal human development.'
- Peter Fonagy, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis, Director, Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College, London; Chief Executive, Anna Freud Centre, London

About the Editor(s)

Rosemary Campher is a Practising UKCP registered Psychotherapist who works with children and adults. She lectures Psychology and Psychotherapy at the British American College in London and works in private practice with children, adults and supervisees. She has worked for fifteen years with children. Special interests include Psychoanalysis, Child Therapy and Early Intervention and Prevention Programmes.

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