Matricide and attachment

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Violence and aggression in youth

Adolescent aggression

Anti social  behaviour during adolescence is statistically normal, and only a small proportion continue to behave in an antisocial way into adulthood. Criminological research shows that the prevalence of criminal involvement peaks during middle to late adolescence then declines rapidly and tapers off for most by their early twenties.

(My response:  One wonders what is the evolutionary advantage of having a criminal youth? Perhaps they give society a spark that results in change if need be. Keeps society on its toes so to speak?)

Anger management

Four core components of anger management.

1.  Exposure to provocation that leads to some level of emotional arousal.

2. Cognitive change that mediates the automatic thoughts which lead to angry feelings.

3. Self management skills that lead to the development of appropriate coping skills

4. Relaxation to reduce physiological arousal  and manage stress.

Engaging the violent client

One of the biggest challenges in working with the aggressive and violent client is engaging them in the process of change. Some (many) will resist taking responsibility for their own feelings and violent behaviour. Some steadfastly maintain they were justified in their behaviour  and it was appropriate for them to act violently. Habitually aggressive people can be hostile towards treatment providers.

Youth violence: family risk factors.

Poor behaviour management practice by parents such as poor supervision

High levels of family conflict

Family history of antisocial behaviour

Childhood abuse and neglect

All of the above comes from:

 InPsych: Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society,  June 2013.

Transactional analysis and youth violence

One would propose the presence of an early violence decision. This is similar in nature to the suicide early decision that I discuss in detail in my book - Working with suicidal individuals. 

When a young child makes the suicide decision it means it decides that suicide is a viable option as a problem solving technique should it to choose to use that option later in life. The violence decision is the same. The young child makes an early decision that violence is a viable option to solve a problem. If this decision is not made then that person will be very unlikely to use violence as a solution to a problem in adulthood. As is the same with the suicide decision.

Three aspects of violent behaviour

One can look at two further aspects of the violence decision which can be made in childhood and  are presumed to be a prerequisite for any pattern of violent behaviour exhibited by youth or adults.

It seems reasonable to assume that the child who is likely to make the early violence decision would have a natural temperament of fight, versus flight or freeze. That child who has an inbuilt propensity to deal with stress and adversity by fighting rather than fleeing or using the 'play dead' response. 

It seems plausible that the individual who has a natural temperament of fight is more likely to adopt the life position of You're not ok. Hence we have an interaction  between three variables. The temperament of fight, the life position of You're not ok and the early violence decision. Each one supporting the other thus making the violent individual quite resistant to therapeutic interventions because of this intertwined effect between these three personality factors.

The violence decision

This allows us to formulate a hypothesis on the psychology behind the violent and aggressive client. It shows a process of how the factors of temperament, life position and early decision could be seen to combine.

The suicide decision

Contemporaneously we can propose a similar process for suicidal behaviour. The temperament type in suicidal behaviour could be seen to be primarily the flight response. One could also argue that Fight can result in some of the suicide decisions. Debate on this exists though, as some argue that fight is simply used as a means to fulfill the primary response of flight.

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Thinking and doing

A recent article in InPsych magazine of the Australian Psychological Society (2012) concluded that in the literature there is wide disagreement about the negative effects of watching violent video games and other violence on TV. Researchers have tried forever to find a link between watching violence and subsequent aggression and it has just not been forthcoming. The results are very varied and have been so for years.

My personal view on this is one I have stated before. There is a very big difference about thinking or fantasizing about something and actually doing it. They are two quite separate things that involve two quite different psychological processes. 

Fantasy is an important part of human psychology

Confusing this however is the fact that we all think about things we have done and will do again in the future. We may daydream and fantasize about going on a holiday, getting angry at the boss or even some sexual behaviors and then go and do them. This however does not make them similar psychological processes. All it means is that it is acceptable to the individual to think about doing something as well as doing it. That does not make them the same and here I will provide some examples of how they are different.

The following list was present by the Australian Psychological Society (2006). It is a violence risk assessment tool being devised based on the various research about physically violent people and the characteristics of them:

Historical

Previous violence

Young age at first violent incident

Relationship instability

Employment problems

Substance use problems

Major mental illness

Psychopathy

Early maladjustment

Personality disorder

Prior supervision failure

Clinical

Lack of insight

Negative attitudes

Active symptoms of major mental illness

Impulsivity

Unresponsive to treatment

Risk management

Plans lack feasibility

Exposure to destabilizers

Lack of personal thought

Noncompliance with medication attempts

Stress

Interestingly, thinking or fantasizing about violence is not included.

It may look a bit aggressive but that does not mean they will act aggressive.

Thinking is a completely personal event that has no impact on anyone else. Others will only ever find out about it if the thinker discloses their thoughts. Behaviour is a public event that can effect others directly. One may try and hide the behaviour but there is always the danger they will be found out or secretly observed by someone else.

Thinking of being aggressive to another, as I said before, has no impact at all on the other. If one behaves aggressively towards someone that has a direct impact on the other person. Thus we have a major difference in the psychological processing between the thinking and behaving. 

Most people are capable of empathy. 

Thinking has no impact on others so empathy is not a consideration in choosing to have the aggressive thoughts or not.

Aggressive behaviour has direct impact on others so empathy is a key consideration in choosing to behave aggressively or not.

The same applies for legal considerations and damage to reputation. As thinking is completely private the legality of what one thinks and the possible damage to their reputation are not considerations at all. Behaviour being public, the legal considerations and damage to reputation may be very significant factors.

These two diagrams show the different psychological processes involved and as one can see they are quite different.

Video games and movies are pure fantasy as any player knows so their FC can be let free to run wild. To hit (let alone shoot) another person in reality is a very different process where empathy and Adult ego state considerations will significantly curtail any expression of the Free Child want.

This is supported by the violence risk assessment measure such that it does not even include thinking violent thoughts as a risk factor in expressing violent behaviour.

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Violence risk assessment

This comes from a violence risk assessment tool being developed. At the time of publication (2006) there was accumulating evidence that this is a valid measure and more research is being conducted. So as far as the empiricists are concerned it is looking good but is still not 100% ok from empirical research point of view. From the average guy in the street this is quite a good risk assessment tool with some significant scientific backing. It certainly is used a good deal in the literature

Like suicide risk questionnaires it uses the mathematical approach. You add up how many things the person has, the more they have the more risk there is of them acting violently. However as you would have found if you have read my book on suicide it pays to look at the various sections in more detail in order to get a more accurate assessment of risk. However disregarding that I make other comments on this assessment tool.

Historical

Previous violence

Young age at first violent incident

Relationship instability

Employment problems

Substance use problems

Major mental illness

Psychopathy

Early maladjustment

Personality disorder

Prior supervision failure

Clinical

Lack of insight

Negative attitudes

Active symptoms of major mental illness

Impulsivity

Unresponsive to treatment

Risk management

Plans lack feasibility

Exposure to destabilizers

Lack of personal thought

Noncompliance with medication attempts

Stress

Australian Psychological Society (2006)

This originally came to my attention because I was writing about the difference between thoughts and behaviour. I have mentioned before that some clients can come to counselling expressing distress abut the thoughts they are having. I recall a woman who had a fear of sharp knives because when she saw them she had thoughts of stabbing her husband. My first statement is there is a very big difference between fantasy and behaviour. Or there may be some kind of sexual fantasy. Again I will say there is a big difference between fantasy and behaviour. What some find very erotic in fantasy would be completely non erotic in real life.

One should note in support of this the list composed above by hard core empiricists has no mention of violent thoughts or fantasies at all.

My thoughts on further aspects of the assessment tool to consider:

Substance use problems. People who are habitual users of marijuana and opiates like heroin are less likely to be violent compared to those who use stimulants like amphetamines, also alcohol with its strong disinhibiting effects and steroids.

On the section of previous violence I would also investigate any previous violence against self as well. It is plausible from a human psychology perspective that if a person is physically violent to self they have more ‘permission’ to be physically violent to others compared to the person who has no self directed physical violence.

Also I would add in previous exposure to physical violence as we know modeling can have an impact on human behaviour. The person as a child:

At the first level were they told about violence in the home or heard violence in the home.

At the second level did they see first hand violent acts in the home between others.

At the third level did they experience violent acts in the home to them self from another.

At the fourth level did they engage in violent acts towards others in the home.

The higher the level experienced the more permission they have to do physically violent acts on others as an adult.

The early decision to use violence as a solution to problems. By using such techniques as the bad day at black rock one can ascertain if the child made the early decision that violence is a viable way to solve problems. Some children make this decision and some do not. Those who do not are far less likely to use physical violence no matter how many of the criteria they meet in the above lists.

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