Title: On Violence: A Preliminary Communication

Author(s): Glasser, Mervin

Source: International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1998; v. 79, p887, 16p
ISSN: 00207578
Document Article
Type:
Language: English
Abstract: The author argues that although aggression is a central feature of
psychoanalytic theory and clinical thinking, little attention has been given by
psychoanalysts to the matter of violence. Manifest violence is heterogeneous
and an adequate understanding of it would involve a multi-disciplinary
approach. The author focuses on consideration of a psychoanalytic
contribution to this understanding. From this point of view all acts of violence
may be characterised as one of two types, or a combination of them, namely
self-preservative violence and sado-masochistic violence. These are
characterised and differentiated; and the relationship between the two is
considered, while use is made of clinical material. The issue of 'violence in the
transference' is illustrated and briefly discussed.
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On Violence: A Preliminary Communication

Mervin Glasser; 10 Nutley Terrace, London NW3 5SB

The author argues that although aggression is a central feature of psychoanalytic theory and
clinical thinking, little attention has been given by psychoanalysts to the matter of violence.
Manifest violence is heterogeneous and an adequate understanding of it would involve a multi-
disciplinary approach. The author focuses on consideration of a psychoanalytic contribution to
this understanding. From this point of view all acts of violence may be characterised as one of
two types, or a combination of them, namely self-preservative violence and sado-masochistic
violence. These are characterised and differentiated; and the relationship between the two is
considered, while use is made of clinical material. The issue of 'violence in the transference' is
illustrated and briefly discussed.

Although aggression is a central feature of psychoanalytic theory and clinical thinking, little
attention has been given by psychoanalysts to the matter of violence. For some years now, a

1
number of us at the Portman Clinic have been studying violent individuals through their
psychotherapy, with the aim of identifying the psychodynamic elements involved in the act of
violence.1 Although I have doubtless been influenced by our work together, what I shall present
in this paper has my own particular slant to it and I must accept sole responsibility for it.

Two Types of Violence

Manifest violence is heterogeneous and an adequate understanding of it would involve a multi-

disciplinary approach. This paper limits itself to considering a psychoanalytic contribution to this
understanding. The ubiquity of violence makes it difficult to discuss in a coherent and
constructive way. For example, a patient, Mr B, on one occasion punched his girlfriend, splitting
her lip, while on another occasion he punched a fellow-motorist. How do we differentiate these
two acts? Are they not in fact essentially the same? If there are different sorts of violence is any
given individual consistently going to practise one sort rather than any other?

Violence involves the bodies of both perpetrator and victim and it may thus be defined as a
bodily response with the intended infliction of bodily harm on another person (Walker, 1970). It
will be noted that through this definition I am limiting my use of the term to conscious,
intentional action involving the actual assault on the body of one person by another. I exclude
verbal and other forms of symbolic violence, as well as the assault on animals or inanimate
objects. Excluded also are unconsciously determined acts of violence such as stepping on the
toes of one's dancing partner or more serious accidental harmful acts. I have confined my
definition of violence in this way not only for the sake of simplicity but also because there are
crucial psychological differences between actual and symbolic assault, or violence displaced on
to non-human objects.

I use the term 'assault' to convey the penetration of the body barrier: we each of us have an
implicit physical limit to our selves—a sort of invisible membrane, a demarcation periphery—
and we preconsciously recognise any passing through it as a danger, and we thus resent this
when it occurs without our consent even in minor ways. 2 Thus we find it irritating when the
other person keeps, say, grasping our arm in conversation even as an apparently friendly
gesture.3 Such behaviour is aptly referred to in the phrase 'getting under one's skin'. Love-
making or medical examination are examples of the body barrier being voluntarily removed and
normally no violence is provoked. It should be noted that this is a different concept from that of
body boundary.

I think it worth making the point that violence in itself is not a symptom, not a crime, not a sin: it
is not in itself evidence of psychopathology. We are all capable of violence. 4 Furthermore, it
should not be overlooked that violence can be constructive (such as surgery).

From a psychoanalytic viewpoint we may characterise all acts of violence as one of two types,
or a combination of them, namely, self-preservative violence and sado-masochistic violence.
Even though, as will be discussed below, sado-masochistic violence derives from self-
preservative violence, this categorisation has proved to be valuable both theoretically and
clinically.

Self-preservative violence (S-P violence)

2
The fundamental nature of violence is built into us by biology. Biophysiologists such as Cannon
(1953) have shown that the body has an elaborate reaction pattern that prepares it for 'fight or
flight' in the presence of 'danger'. This reaction pattern involves widespread bodily changes:

    (There is called forth) stored carbohydrate from the liver, thus flooding the blood with
(energy-providing) sugar; the blood is distributed to the heart, lungs, central nervous system
and limbs, while taking it away from the inhibited organs of the abdomen; … quickly abolished
(are) the effects of muscular fatigue; … the blood (is rendered) more rapidly coagulable
(Cannon, 1953, p. 228).

In short, there are co-ordinated, integrated changes in all the bodily systems that prepare the
organism either to attack and destroy the danger or escape from it—the 'fight-flight' response.
In this context, a 'danger' is anything that threatens the survival of the individual: this type of
violence is thus the tool of primal narcissism (see Freud, 1914, p. 74; 1920, p. 52). This type of
violence has a single-minded, narrow-visioned quality like a laser-beam, which focuses on the
dangerousness of the object rather than the object itself. If it is the victim's look that is
experienced as threatening through accusation, it is the eyes that are attacked; if what is being
said is intolerable, the mouth is punched; and so on. But in the extreme, this quality is lost and
the violence is directed indiscriminately.

'S-P violence', then, is a primal reaction pattern triggered by danger. It is a very primitive
response and is more usefully regarded as an instinct in ethological terms (Lorenz, 1963). It
can thus be seen that I am in agreement with Brenner (1971) in turning away from the
conception of aggression as a drive in Freudian instinctual theory terms, with its implications of
such issues as a need for discharge of organically based energy, which have never been
substantiated (see, for example, Hartmann et al., 1949).

Put most fundamentally, we can consider that violence is evoked by any threat to psychic
homeostasis. This concept, derived from its physiological counterpart (Cannon, 1939),
considers a fundamental task of the ego to be the protection and integration of all the
psychological systems (including, in this context, especially narcissistic equilibrium),
maintaining a dynamic balance, a steady state at optimal levels. This implies that over-
gratification may be as disturbing as deprivation. It brings the economic point of view of
psychoanalytic theory into consideration, and with it the concept of trauma. Although these
ideas are not fashionable in psychoanalytic thinking nowadays, I believe one disregards them
at one's peril when considering violence, particularly clinically.

Re-stating this from another approach we can say that aggression and violence are aroused by
anything that constitutes a threat to the physical or psychological self. Thus, in a psychological
context, this self-preservative violence is a fundamental, immediate and substantial response
triggered by any threat to the self with the aim of negating this source of danger. Random
illustrations of such various dangers are: attacks on one's gender identity, the danger of
castration, the infliction of a blow to self-esteem, frustration, humiliation, an insult to one's self
or an ideal to which one is attached, and other such external threats. Violence may also be
evoked by internal events such as a loss of identity through inner confusion, feelings of
disintegration, the domination by an annihilative internal object, a remorseless castigation by a
tyrannical, sadistic superego, and so on. Such internal threats may be externalised so that the
attack on a person may appear inexplicable. In self-multilation or suicide the relevant parts of
the body are related to as 'external' objects (see for example Campbell, 1995). Such behaviour
may be regarded as a temporary psychosis but I consider it more appropriate to consider it as

3
an extreme regression to the most primitive level of functioning and this may or may not occur
in psychosis. Wolff et al. subscribe to such a view when they state: 'The patient's underlying
personality is probably an important factor in many cases of violence, even if they are mentally
ill. For example, a tendency for a psychotic patient to become violent may arise from pre-
morbid personality traits rather than the psychosis itself' (1990, p. 634).

Observations and accounts of such violent acts characterise them as being, during the
execution of the acts, so primitive that it may be considered that no object relationship is
involved. It is a matter of theoretical orientation whether such violent behaviour is understood in
these terms or whether it is insisted that object-relating must be operative in any human
behaviour. Similarly it can be considered that, although the ego is involved in perceiving the
object, in assessing it as dangerous and so on, it is not involved in the actual violent reaction,
which is more in the nature of a reflex, the ethological reaction-pattern referred to above—what
we may regard as proto-ego-functioning.

It may be argued that there are certain forms of violence that are certainly self-preservative yet
do not appear to be aimed at negating a danger—what Meloy refers to as 'predatory violence'
(1988, p. 25). A lion attacking its prey is a simple example. But further consideration leads us to
recognise that what the lion attacks is not the prey's edibility but rather the danger of its
unavailability by running away. We arrive at the recognition that whatever the particular events,
the lion killing and eating the prey is not violent! As Lantos recognises: 'The animal hunting its
prey is driven by hunger. Hunger makes him angry, but his anger is not directed against the
prey. On the contrary, he is pleased when it comes his way. No subjective aggression is felt
while chasing, catching, tearing, biting and swallowing it' (1958, p. 118). On the other hand, a
man hunting for sport would be exercising sado-masochistic violence (see below). I have
expressed my belief (1996) that the frequent uncertainty one encounters in such discussions is
partly the result of a confusion between activity and aggression, regarding the one as a
derivative from the other (see Spitz, 1965).

It can thus be seen that I regard S-P violence in the way that Freud looked at it in his earlier
thinking (Freud, 1915), that is, as an 'ego-instinct' and, far from conceiving it as an
externalisation of the death instinct, I consider it to be very much in the service of self-
preservation. It is noteworthy that the conditions that will arouse anxiety, as Freud elaborated in
Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926), will also arouse aggression; so it is appropriate to
consider anxiety and aggression as two aspects of a single reaction. It is not infrequent to see
violence erupt when fear is in operation—such as the rage between the drivers following a
minor car accident. When we remember that this is, in fact, the case in the fight-flight response,
we can appreciate how close the psychological and the physiological are in these basic terms.

In the interests of clarity I would define aggression as the psychic counterpart to S-P violence.
One might at least metaphorically regard it as the outcome of the development of the brain that
enabled it to become the organ of the mind. (Bodily) violence may be regarded as being at one
end of a continuum and (psychic) aggression, or even sublimated aggression, being at the
other end. At some point there is a cross-over where the aggressive impulse no longer requires
bodily expression: the danger of the object may be psychic or physical but the aggressive
response is carried out psychically. Needless to say, this 'cross-over' is a point that warrants
intense exploration, involving such issues as developmental fixation, the nature of the external
and internal object relations, the defences, symbolisation, the homeostatic functions of fantasy,
economic considerations—in short, the individual's total psychodynamic repertoire; but such
issues will not be considered in this basic paper. Similarly, discussion of the role of cultural

4
influences is beyond the confines of this paper. Since violence and aggression are
counterparts of each other, allusions to properties of one may generally apply equally to the
other (see Glasser, 1996).

The above contributes to the discussion as to whether aggression is an autonomous drive or

whether it is reactive. Shengold refers to this when he states: 'What we don't know is whether
[aggression] starts from within as an innate drive or only as a reaction to something from
without' (1995, p. 124). The view expressed in this paper is (as mentioned above) that this
endless debate is a result of asking the wrong question—that aggression/violence and the
stimuli that prompt it are artificially separated components of a unity: the triggers can only be
regarded as such in the context of the innate structure.

I have spent some time discussing S-P violence and aggression because it is essential to
recognise their primal nature if one is to understand them and appreciate that they are the
basic ingredients of any violence.

Sado-masochistic violence (S-M violence)

The second basic category of violence is sado-masochistic violence. (Although sadism and
masochism always go together—hence the abbreviated form S-M violence—I shall refer to
'sadistic violence' or S-M violence to avoid being cumbersome.) It is derived from the first
category although it is observed much more frequently. This derivation is a result of the
libidinisation of S-P violence, as is (psychic) sadism the result of the libidinisation of
aggression. It adds clarification to my discussion to distinguish 'libidinisation' as a psychic, and
'sexualisation' as a bodily, process. Sexualisation of violence is most prominently demonstrated
in the perversions.

The differences between these two forms of violence will be discussed below but at this
juncture I would point out that they are most immediately distinguishable by noting the
relationship to the object. In the case of S-P violence, at the time that the violent act is carried
out, the object holds no personal significance other than his/her dangerousness: it is carried out
in the interests of self-preservation and any other considerations have no relevance. The
response of the object in any other respect is of no interest. In the case of S-M violence, the
response of the object is essential: the object must be seen to suffer. For example, in war a
soldier may kill one of the enemy in the interests of his survival (S-P violence), while in different
circumstances the soldier might kill his enemy as an act of revenge for what was done to his
companions (S-M violence); or he may subject the captured enemy to bodily torture, often with
great conscious pleasure (S-M violence). Thus another distinguishing feature is that an
essential component of S-M violence is pleasure (which may or may not be manifest or
conscious), while pleasure is not a component of S-P violence. The nearest S-P violence
comes to involving pleasure is the relief when the danger is negated.

S-P violence is a physical response as aggression is a psychical response (to danger). When
S-P violence is libidinised it is converted into a psychic phenomenon, and an object relationship
is involved since this is an inherent quality of libido. In short, it is converted into psychic sadism.
(Needless to say another route to the creation of psychic sadism is the libidinisation of
aggression.) This in turn can find expression in S-M violence. When S-P violence is sexualised
it is converted into physical sadism, as the perversions vividly illustrate. S-M violence is much
more multifarious,5 ranging from such widely differing acts as a component of normal sexual
activity to acts of capital punishment (whether this is regarded as morally justified or not). It is

5
open to the influences of psychological mechanisms—such as the rationalisations or
affirmation of high principles involved in schoolboy caning or the justification of acts of revenge.
It can serve self-enhancement, such as the brutal suppressive acts of a dictator. As stated
above, S-M violence invariably involves a relationship with another person and shades into
psychic sado-masochism. When S-M violence fails it may regress to S-P violence. To give a
brief example of this type of event, a patient, while engaged in overtly sado-masochistic sexual
behaviour that involved pinning his girlfriend down on a bed and slapping and beating her,
suddenly found himself strangling her. Careful exploration of this led us to recognise that he felt
safe when engaged in sadomasochistic perversion: this had been instigated by his girlfriend
and he implicitly believed it to be under her control. It was when, in the above incident, he saw
a look of fear in her eyes that he understood her to be feeling that she was no longer in control
and this was the danger that had to be eliminated: irrationally, he had to destroy her
'uncontrollingness' by destroying her. This illustrates the profound irrationality that may be
involved in S-P violence. A further example of this irrationality is that of a person murdering his
partner because she threatens to leave him or has left him.

An Account of an Act of Self-Preservative Violence

Initial presentation

The most prominent feature in the diagnostic interview was the fear that Mr B, a 31-year-old
plumber, had of losing control over his violence. Throughout his life he had been involved in
fights but recently he had punched his girlfriend, L, and split her lip so badly that she had to go
to hospital to have the wound stitched. She had said something to annoy him that he could not
remember but the main thing was that whatever she had said it did not justify his violence and,
furthermore, 'you just don't hit a woman'. He was terrified that he would end up killing someone.
That was why he needed treatment: he would do anything I said just to stop his violence.
'Worry pills', as he called them, were not the answer.

The act of violence

In subsequent sessions he talked about how his relationship with L was going through a bad
phase. She kept criticising him and made him feel as if his love wasn't worth having. An
example he provided concerned her cat: he had gone to stroke it and when it moved away, he
moved after it following it all over the room—crawling under the bed, climbing to reach the cat
on a cupboard—determined to get to it; but without success. Watching him L had said he was
'schizophrenic', a term that played on his anxiety about not being able to control his violence.

This issue of control also had an anal relevance, 6 as was illustrated by his telling me in another
session at some length and with great irritation about his annoyance with his diarrhoeaic kitten
whose messing of his flat he could not control. He had ended up by throwing the kitten violently
into its basket, shouting at it, with the unclear impulse to make it just disappear. It reminded him
of the time when his baby went on and on crying. As much as he tried, he had no success in
calming it and the next thing he knew was that he had his hands on its throat ready to choke it
so as to obliterate it.7

Following on from my comment that the cat evidently regarded him in the same way as its
mistress, he remembered what transpired when he hit L. She had been out that evening with a
previous boyfriend. He felt insecure about this man, who was middle-class and intellectual, as
she was, while Mr B was an uneducated plumber. But more than this, Mr B had, in the

6
preceding weeks, developed a growth on his penis. This had become increasingly painful so
that he was unable to have sexual intercourse; and he hinted at having had sexual potency
problems. This caused him to fear that natural desires would drive L to have sexual intercourse
with the other man.

When L came home, she saw he was upset, and she laughingly reassured him and teased him
about his jealousy and insecurity. He felt angry and hurt and humiliated by her teasing, but
helpless to break away from her. He did what she wanted although he knew it was wrong. Like
her wanting this cottage in the country: he knew it wasn't right for him—what sort of a living
could a plumber make in the country?—but he had set about trying to get a cottage. He felt she
was possessing him, taking over his mind and his will.

In her teasing, she laughingly put her arms around him in a way that he felt to be patronising,
mocking and really quite unloving. Rather than comforting, the way she put her arms around
him was somehow smothering or enveloping and her words somehow stifling, and he just
wanted to push her off him. At the time he did not realise this clearly: he just felt himself lash
out at her to make her be away from him, and to make her stop talking. He punched L, splitting
her lip badly.

A full account of the dynamics of this act of violence is, needless to say, elaborate and
complex, involving as it does such issues as his basic, pervasive narcissistic vulnerability, his
concern over the derivations of his sense of anal and urinary incontinence behaviourally and
affectively, and so on. But I am limiting my discussion to the identification of the fundamental
nature of his violent act.

We note that the nature of the engagement in this event between him and L is a sado-
masochistic one, focusing on the vulnerability of his phallic narcissism and his fear of the loss
of L. But, although distressed by her humiliating teasing, there is no indication of an impulse to
violence in this interaction. The issue that triggers his violence is his sense of being annihilated
by her, her stifling talk and her enveloping, smothering arms, giving him the concrete bodily
experience of his belief that she was 'taking over his mind and his will'—that is, threatening him
with the negation of his separate, autonomous self. The act is thus to be characterised as one
of S-P violence.

It should be noted as part of the nature of the act that it was not planned or calculated and that
he carried it out in a state of altered consciousness: he talked about it as if recounting a dream
that he did not remember clearly.

The psychological primitiveness of the act was underlined when we came to see that the
triggers involved were those of the core complex anxieties of annihilation and abandonment
(Glasser, 1996). It hardly needs saying that these operated in his past and present relationship
with his mother. Briefly, in Mr B's eyes (and, I would say, in fact) she was unquestionably the
dominant member of the family and he related incidents that illustrated her powerful capacity to
invade the other person (including Mr B) with her feelings and thoughts/fantasies, that is, a
special capacity to make use of projective identification. At other times he experienced her as
being suffocating rather than intrusive but either way he experienced her as annihilating. (But
when he stayed away from her he felt isolated and abandoned.) He experienced all the women
with whom he had extended relationships as having the same qualities and this made him
leave them.

7
An Account of an Act of Sadistic Violence (S-M Violence)

The two forms of violence may be carried out by the same individual at different times, as can
be illustrated by a S-M violent act of Mr B. The day after a session I was given the message
that Mr B had telephoned about thirty minutes after he had left the session. I was no longer at
the Clinic and so he was advised to telephone the next day. When he did so, he told me that
after last night's session he had assaulted a man and he went on to mention some of the
details of what happened. He was very pleased with himself and implied that he thought I
would be pleased with him.

In the session that followed, which was a week later, he told me about the fight he had had
after our last session. The main thing about it was that for the first time in his life he had not
fought out of fear or in a temper, but like a man. He felt exhilarated about this afterwards and
that was why he wanted to tell me about it—that was why he had telephoned straight away: it
might bring out something important in the therapy. I had the thought that he was trying, under
the guise of its possible clinical relevance, to justify his desire to tell me what he had achieved
in order to earn my praise.

The incident had occurred something like ten minutes after our session. He had driven his
small van from the Clinic and had drawn up at some traffic lights, waiting to turn right. A young
man in a sports car drew up next to him on his left. He had his girlfriend with him. Mr B could
see that the man intended to turn right too. This would entail the young man cutting across him,
and he felt determined not to let him do so.

They raced off when the lights changed, 'me in my E-Type Mini', he laughingly commented.
What made him especially angry was that the man in the sports car was in this way forcing him
to drive in the middle of the road and, as they were approaching a hump-backed bridge, he
might collide with an unseen oncoming car. So he had to drop back. After the bridge the sports
car pulled away and Mr B felt he couldn't be bothered any more, saying to himself 'Oh let him
go'. (The tone of voice in which he repeated this to me in the session indicated that he did not
think it was a serious enough issue to be troubled about.)

But a bit further on the sports car was held up at some further traffic lights and when Mr B
pulled up behind him, the sports car driver got out of his car and came towards him. Mr B
commented that he did not, as he might have previously done, reach for the iron bar in his
van.8 Feeling quite calm and self-possessed, he got out of his van, saying to himself 'This chap
needs to be beaten up'. The young man got no further than saying (something like) 'I fail to
appreciate …' when Mr B punched him with his right fist. This made the young man turn his
head to his right (something which in boxing terms is a basic error, Mr B commented to me)
and as he did so Mr B hit him with his left and as the young man turned his head back, he
again hit him with his right.

Mr B said things like 'Cunt! You could've fuckin' killed me! Get back to your car, cunt, if you
know what's good for you!' The young man's girlfriend looked shocked and frightened. Mr B
said to me: 'The worst thing was that when he got out of his car he had a fag in the corner of
his mouth. That meant complete contempt! I reckon that's what made me hit him. For the first
time in my life I fought not out of fear or in a temper! It was … clinical'. He thought the treatment
was really getting somewhere: he was not 'soft Joe' any more (a characterisation made by his
brother's family).

8
Analysis of the Violent Act

Mr B is explicit about his feelings of rivalry with the young man. The reference to the young
man's girlfriend emphasises the oedipal dynamics operating. He acknowledges (or
emphasises!) his inferiority by joking about his 'E-Type Mini', which echoes his confessed belief
that his penis was smaller than normal. The fact that he nevertheless takes on the challenge
raises the obvious question as to why he does so. This can be interpreted in two ways: it may
be that in the phallic-narcissistic context in which the episode takes place, he is struggling to
deny his inferiority; or it may be, on the contrary, he needs to have this inferiority demonstrated.

When they are approaching the hump-backed bridge he falls back, saying without evident
distress 'Oh let him go'. His assessment of the weight of the situation seems appropriate and
there are other indications that his ego is functioning capably: he recognises the road dangers
and acts accordingly, his affects are not disproportionate; he does not seem to be taking this as
a demonstration of his phallic inferiority.

It is when the young man gets out of his car and comes towards him that Mr B reacts violently.
He experiences the young man's behaviour as manifesting contempt—and this in front of his
girlfriend. He was particularly affected by the man having a cigarette hanging from the corner of
his mouth: this evident nonchalance was seen by Mr B to embody the young man's disdain and
disrespect. It was this narcissistic denigration that Mr B would not tolerate—that's why he
thought 'This chap needs to be beaten up'. He felt quite self-possessed and was ready to
assault him, assessing there was no need for the iron bar.

It can be seen that the situation builds up rapidly into one in which Mr B acts violently but there
is no single 'trigger' rather, there is an accumulation of factors including the driver's whole
demeanour, the after-taste of his 'defeat' in the 'race' and the persistence of the transference
reactions that had taken place in the preceding session (see below)—all contributing to his
experiencing the event as an assault on his phallic narcissism in a triadic context. Throughout
his ego appears to be functioning effectively; at no time does he not know what he is doing;
there is no aberration of consciousness, there is no faulty perception; his judgement and
actions suit his purposes, which are not homicidal but denigratory. His memory of the event is
quite clear. These are some of the features that differentiate S-M violence from S-P violence.

The session preceding the act of violence did not seem to differ especially from others. He
started the session by dejectedly talking about how often he spoiled the work he was doing, or
even making himself fail. At times he just could not get himself to go to work and would be
dismissed for bad time-keeping. He despaired over ever being different. Yet at times he could
be an exceptional worker, tackling tricky technical problems successfully and working quickly
and efficiently. At some point in the session he said that he could do good work when he wasn't
under the pressure of someone in authority watching him or making demands of him: this
raised difficulties and he therefore failed. (The relevance of this to the transference relationship
is evident.)

He somehow linked his talk of his so often spoiling things for himself with his symptom (no
longer occurring, I understood) of how he just could not urinate in public lavatories, referring to
how they were so confining. He would have to drive to a park just to urinate and he would feel
'The space! It's wonderful!' His retention of urine would sometimes be so bad that he had to
have a catheter passed in a hospital casualty clinic.

9
He had recently visited a friend and longingly expressed his envy of him for having a family
home. He could have this with M, his present girlfriend, but he felt very worried that he would
spoil things with her, as he had done with L (the woman involved in the S-P violent act
discussed above). From a number of failed relationships he concluded that he would not
succeed in this initially promising relationship in achieving a family home in which he was the
pater familias like his father. In the course of his elaborating on this theme something in what
he said made me take up the delicate issue of his impotence: I asked him if he had worries
about this with M. He reluctantly acknowledged such worries but indicated no interest in them
and went on talking about how he was always messing things up. He saw how everybody was
looking to further his or her own ends while he 'just went round in a bucket of shit'. Later he
referred to how he raised people's hopes and then let them down.

The session ended with his glumly telling me about his having had a quarrel with M: she had
made him feel jealous by her amiable talk to a young man at a party to which they had gone
the previous weekend. He thought his jealousy was irrational and he expressed his worry about
spoiling things with M.

The dynamics in the session were essentially those of impotence. Mr B conducted his life in a
seemingly self-castrating way. Thus, in terms of the oedipal dynamics he was always
apparently backing down in his rivalry with his father; but it is noteworthy that this involved
deception—a pseudo-castration. This could be seen in the transference, in which generally he
manifested a subordinate status to me—as he did in our very first contact—but covertly he
exercised a great deal of control over our relationship by filling the session with his talk (thus
more or less obliterating me), by such acts of 'failure' as missing sessions and by negative
therapeutic reactions. He complained about how he was always raising people's hopes and
then letting them down. He so strongly wished he could become an ordinary, organised,
capable man. These are examples of his exercising the hidden sadism and triumph over the
object that is so characteristic of impotence.

It was my raising the concrete subject of his impotence that contributed to his subsequent
violent act. The material of Mr B's therapy was pervaded by his conflict with his superego.
Needless to say this is complex and cannot be elaborated here but particularly relevant is his
wish, on the one hand, to earn the favourable regard and praise of his superego while at the
same time, as he complained in the session, needing to fail as a means of asserting his
independence from his—mainly, in this context, paternal—superego (which was a prominent
characterisation of me in the transference).

Out of concern to be tactful in regard to his sensitivity over this issue I failed to pursue my
comment about his worry about his impotence, allowing him to brush it aside without giving it
any further attention. In the interaction with the driver of the other car, he was able to assert his
potency and independence positively and thus to believe that this would meet my implicit
denigratory criticism in referring to his impotence and my demands for him to be a man.

It can be seen that this 'choice' of tactics in the oedipal situation—his apparent submission and
failure—backfires, so to speak: it reinforces his narcissistic vulnerability; and it is because in the
violent act with the motorist he appears to have overcome this and to have openly asserted his
potency that he feels that he has really made a change for the better in himself and been able
to behave in a way with which I, his father/superego, am pleased. This is a function of his S-M
violence: it serves to enhance his narcissism without any intention of killing the sports car driver
and this is quite different from the primal narcissistic service of self-preservative violence. Its

10
function of preserving the object and the object relationship can be observed in the
transference.

Comparison of the Two Forms of Violence

It has not been my intention to give a full elaboration of the psychodynamics of either of Mr B's
acts of violence. I have limited the consideration of their features to what was sufficient to be
able to distinguish the one from the other without giving any attention to the many issues
involved in violent behaviour.

Both forms of violence are concrete pieces of behaviour in reaction to a danger perceived to be
external even when this may be the result of externalisation. If the internal danger is not
projected, the only violence carried out will be the result of the subject treating himself, or part
of himself, as an external figure, that is, carrying out acts of self-wounding or, at the extreme,
suicide. Unlike physical violence, psychic aggression can, as we know, undergo a wide degree
of vicissitudes as the result of psychic processing. I have drawn attention above to the
observation that S-P violence involves no object relationship, while a sine qua non of S-M
violence is that there is a relationship and the object must constitute more than simply a
danger. The purposes of such violence may thus be wide-ranging. S-P violence is eruptive,
while S-M violence is generally considered. S-M violence involves the affect of pleasure while
S-P violence does not. Violent affects such as rage may occur in both types.

The two types of violence, and the movement of aggression into violence, may be conceived as
lying on a continuum that may be expressed in stages. At one end of the continuum—the first
stage—are engagements that may be represented by good-natured teasing. It entails no bodily
component. Although there is a 'perpetrator' and a 'victim' it can be enjoyed by both people
involved, be a form of flirting, and so on.

The second stage of this continuum may be epitomised by 'cat-and-dog' marriages. 9 There is
an intense hurting of each other psychically that may overflow from time to time into physical
violence.

Violence is manifest in the third stage, which involves the prominent participation of the body in
the interaction. It may be represented by the frank sado-masochism in which sexual pleasure is
derived from inflicting and receiving physical assault involving bodily pain. There can be the
establishment of a perversion where violence has been sexualised: the psychic sado-
masochistic interaction receives bodily expression.

In the fourth stage, the continuum progresses into acts of sexual violence, such as rape.

In the fifth stage, the increasing domination of the violent component and diminution of the
sexual component is evident: we may include crimes of violence—bodily assault—in various
forms and to various degrees. The sexual element, if present, is at a minimum and is not
recognised by either perpetrator or victim.

The end of this continuum, the sixth stage, involves extreme bodily violence culminating in
homicide.

It can be seen that as we move along this continuum the relation to an object and the degree of
libido that is inextricably related to it, decrease, the body becomes more and more the focus of

11
the engagement, and the degree of violence becomes more and more intense and prominent.
Domination, which is an integral element of violence, becomes increasingly overpowering as
one progresses along the continuum.

Another way of conceptualising this is that regression is progressively involved from one end of
the continuum to the other so that when external and internal circumstances favour it, the
individual may move further and further along the continuum. This can be seen in the first-
discussed episode of Mr B's violence. The interaction between L and him is initially sado-
masochistic, with Mr B masochistically suffering narcissistic humiliation that appears to be
intensifying. There is nothing to indicate the presence of any impulse to violence at this stage.
But when he experiences L putting her arms around him as threatening to annihilate him his S-
P violence erupts.

Table 1

S-P S-M
feature
violence violence

to preserve
the object
to negate
and to
aim danger/nullif
make the
y the object
object
suffer

variable—
level of can be
primitive
functioning sophisticate
d

comparative usually
continuance
ly brief extended

nature eruptive considered

object dyadic ⇒ triadic ⇒

relationship absent present

core Oedipus
development
complex complex
al
contenta content

present:
libido absent
pre-genital

12
narcissistic present at
vulnerability every
present
at primitive libidinal
levels level

primitive, present at
ego- involving every
functioning protoego libidinal
functioning level

present;
superego
absent mainly
relationship
triadic

   
affects:

anxiety present absent

pleasure absent present

The most prominent differences, generally, between these two categories of violence at the
time of the violent act are summarised in Table 1 above.

Violence in the Transference

Such patients present many issues to consider in treatment and management, as well as
serious forensic considerations. There is always the danger that the aggressive dynamics
expressed in the transference relationship may be acted out in an assault on others or erupt
into an assault on the analyst. Such issues are too extensive to discuss in this paper but an
impression can be obtained from the following illustration of how violence may show itself in the
transference and how the categorisation discussed above helps the therapist to understand the
ongoing therapeutic process.

The treatment of Mr B, from which I shall be quoting, took place once-weekly over a number of
years. It was conducted on a strictly psychoanalytic basis. Violence was considered to be
expressing itself in the transference in the following session. In order to locate it in the
sequence of sessions discussed below I shall label it the Session of Week 15:

At the start of the session he did not refer to the four-week gap in the therapy but talked about
how he had got a decent job and he expressed his anxiety over being able to conduct himself
so as to keep it. He went on to tell me how he had had a rough time since we last met: he
referred to having nightmares from which he woke up screaming, and how he had been
drinking heavily.

13
In this way he finally came to the point over which he had struggled to get himself to tell me.
This was to relate, with much difficulty and distress, a particularly violent act he had carried out
when he was, I think, about 17 years old. He gave it the context of being one of a number of
violent and delinquent acts he had carried out at that time. His memory of it was unclear but it
still lived on him. He related what happened in a much more disjointed, unclear way than I am
now recounting: a gang of youths, of which he was a member, lay in wait and then pounced
upon an unknown bearded man in order to rob him. He remembered the man pleading to be
spared and turning out his pockets to give them all he had. Mr B beat him with a thick wooden
pole. He remembered smacking him in the face with the pole and also bringing it down on his
head when he was lying on the ground. He hit him with such ferocity that the pole broke! He
thinks he must have partly hit the ground as well because hitting him hard enough to break
such a thick pole would surely have split his skull open and killed him, but his memory of this
and other details was unclear. I could see that he had a nagging doubt that perhaps he had
killed him. In fact he went on to tell me that he had incautiously told all this to a friend the other
night when he was very drunk; but he couldn't remember all the details of what he had said to
him. He intended speaking to him and, even though it was embarrassing, asking him what he
had said—particularly if he had mentioned any details that would support or exclude the
possibility that he had killed the man.

In the course of telling me about this he expressed a great deal of shame and guilt and tears
came into his eyes when he was talking about the man pleading to be spared and how he had
hit him so violently that the pole broke. He struggled to stop himself from crying, commenting
on how he could not allow himself to do so (when he was a boy his father had contemptuously
said that tears were unmanly).

Also interspersed in the above account were references to a number of episodes where he
could easily have been killed.

In studying the psychodynamic development that culminated in this session, the 'Session of
Week 1' followed the break in treatment for two weeks over the Christmas period. Mr B failed to
attend for the first two sessions following the break (Weeks 1 and 2).

In the Session of Week 3: Mr B recounted a number of examples to show how he was rejected
by everbody—by his family and by his friends (and, I added referring to the break, by me). We
talked about his way of getting people to move to help him, and then making them reject him.
He would use this to show how unhelpful they were and how nobody cared about him.

In the Session of Week 4: he had made an impressive improvement: he had stopped drinking
(on a number of occasions he expressed his concern to establish that he was not an alcoholic);
he had got himself a good job and he had told himself that he had to take responsibility for
himself. He appeared clean and neatly dressed. He said that he realised there was a lot of
anger in him.

In the Session of Week 5: he referred to having suffered from attacks of migraine (of which
much earlier he had praised the therapy for curing him) but generally he was managing better.
He talked about how he would get anxious in his job about his work being not good enough
and he would therefore leave the job: he was determined not to do so this time even though he
was something of a perfectionist in his work.

14
He elaborated on his battle with the local administrative council to get repairs to his flat carried
out and he expressed his intense resentment of their attitude, which was to ignore his repeated
requests.

He also talked about issues that troubled him. He was concerned about his balding; he talked
with some embarrassment about how he was inhibited about urinating in public urinals; he
referred to his belief that his penis was smaller than the norm and this led him to talk about his
embarrassment about defaecating when in a youth prison because the cubicles only had half-
doors.

In the Session of Week 6: his general improvement was being maintained. He showed no
reaction when I told him I would not be able to see him the following week. He again talked
about his anxieties about his masculinity—his balding, his fears when doing judo and so on. He
mentioned that he was taking the administrative council to court and had been advised by his
lawyer that he had a very good chance of winning.

In the Session of Week 7: cancelled by me.

In the Session of Week 8: he told me how he had caused extensive damage to the building in
which he lived out of resentment of the administrative authorities who continued to ignore him.
The damage was so extensive that some of the other tenants were shocked and so was he.
This led him to be drunk all week.

In the Session of Week 9: he talked of the sadistic satisfaction he derived from the damage he
had brought about to the building—satisfaction because the officials involved with his flat would
get into trouble.

He talked about his general guilt but then attempted to deny it by telling me how hurtful his
parents were being. We considered how he achieved his revenge by failing and this led him to
recollect a childhood fantasy after being beaten by his father, namely, being locked up in a
room without food and water; the fantasy gave him a 'bitter-sweet' pleasure.

He expressed his longing to have sex with a 'dirty bird', that is, a woman willing to participate in
deviant, generally sado-masochistic, sexual practices.

In the Session of the Week 10: I informed Mr B that I would be taking a three-week break after
the next session. He responded by complaining in a joking manner. He asked me if it was all
right for a friend of his to come to the Clinic at which I worked: he knew that his friend would not
be seen by me because he, that is, Mr B, was having therapy with me. He talked about his
strained interaction with his father and how inflexibly rejecting he was being. In the course of
the session I suggested that he experienced my taking a break as a rejection and we again
considered the sequence of his feeling angry and this leading to his provoking rejection, which,
feeling hurt and resentful, he avenged himself by failing, or by violence, for example, the
extensive damage he had caused to his building.

In the Session of Week 11: Mr B did not attend.

In the Session of Week 12: I was away.

In the Session of Week 13 (Easter Monday): I was away.

15
In the Session of Week 14: I was away.

In the Session of Week 15: he recounted the assault on the unknown bearded man elaborated
above.

The sequence brings out how he has the need to feel, and even be, neglected by his parents,
by his friends and by the local council. In particular, we see how his experience of neglect by
me, epitomised by my evidently self-serving absences, lead to his feeling murderous violence
towards me. It is in keeping with this that his assault on his building followed my being away for
one session (Week 8). If we consider the nature of his assault on the bearded man it appears
to be sadistic and we would conclude that the intense resentment at those who neglect him
leads to his revengeful S-M violence.

However, if we consider his account of the violent incident more carefully we note that what his
murderous attack on the man was prompted by was 'the man pleading to be spared and
turning out his pockets to give them all he had', which was followed by his hitting the man with
such ferocity that the pole broke. We see his identification with the man in his being moved to
tears when talking of the man's 'pleading to be spared' 10 so that he hit him so violently that the
pole broke. This enables us to recognise how the actual trigger of his violence was the victim's
helpless, pathetic pleading, that it was this that he had to negate. The initial violence may have
been sado-masochistic but it became S-P violence when he came to experience the victim as
the representation of his baby, cowardly, helpless, shameful self. In the totally irrational way
that is characteristic of such disturbed acts, he sought to nullify this aspect of himself by
destroying the man so that an adult self of some status and esteem could survive. His anger
was a narcissistic one; it was just the same as when he had reached out to strangle his
interminably screaming baby. We may note the unclear consciousness characteristic of S-P
violence when he recounts his attempts to ascertain whether he had said anything to his friend
when he was drunk that would establish whether he had killed the man or not. It would seem
that this was the consideration that overcame his reluctance to tell me about the incident.

A further development is that this fury is turned on the supposed carers, whose uncaring
negligence drove him into this state. This shows itself in his indirect attack on the administrative
council and finally focuses on the me that abandons him, that is, drives him into feeling himself
to be in the helpless, ignored baby state. In so far as the feelings and ideation involved in his
attack on the sports car driver are derived from the transference, we can deduce that he
wanted to attack me in the session. His positive attachment to me, as well as the overall
psychological state he is in at the time, leads the assault to be of the S-M type: he silences me
but does not lose me, as his subsequent telephone call affirms.

It is noteworthy, however, that in the session he does not attack me, nor is he even conscious
of the wish to do so, and I felt no anxiety that he would do so. Rather, he acted this out by
missing the next session without communicating with me, just as I made myself unavailable to
him and not communicating with him at that time—what one might call an identification with the
neglector.

Conclusion

This leads into a discussion of the considerations involved in the treatment of such individuals.
What we have loosely referred to as 'violence in the transference' does not in fact refer to
bodily assault; that is, the antagonistic attitude to the analyst is expressed in sadism—such as

16
Mr B's impotence discussed above. It is of obvious great importance clinically to identify what
factors prevent such sadism from converting to violence. It is also relevant to forensic
considerations such as the indications for incarceration and the assessment of risk of
recurrences of violence after discharge. And there are many other issues concerned in the
treatment and management of violent individuals. The answer clearly lies in the nature of the
relationship between patient and analyst and to do this subject justice requires extensive
discussion. I must limit myself to referring to one evident basic factor: the analyst should seek
to enable the patient to feel safe in the session (which of course includes the analyst feeling
safe) for it is on this firm ground that the analysis of the innumerable factors which lead to acts
of violence can take place. This is as much a question of technique as the content of the
communications between patient and analyst.

The above discussion raises many questions and lines of discussion, perhaps the most
important of which is what makes an individual like Mr B, who can be sado-masochistic,
express himself in violent acts while, to what is objectively the same provocation, another
person will not. Considerations like 'narcissistic vulnerability' or 'ego weaknesses', which seem
to be invariable features of such individuals, only push the question further down the line.
Clearly there are many factors and many lines of approach I have not considered, for example,
any functional and developmental perspectives that shaped Mr B's violence (see, for example,
Fonagy & Target, 1995) nor even explored to any extent the 'meanings' of his violent acts (see,
for example, Perelberg, 1995). These and other considerations will be taken up in subsequent
publications both by myself and my colleagues.

This paper aims to go no further than to identify these two basic types of violence, which—one
or the other or combinations of the two—will play a part in any act of violence.

Footnotes
1
 Because this study has been conducted over a number of years, there have been changes in
the personnel. Apart from Mr Donald Campbell and myself, who have been with the study
throughout its existence, other members of staff that have been involved have been Dr R
Doctor, Mr C Fishman, Dr U Gurisik, Dr R Hale, Mrs B Krikler, Dr C Lucas, Dr D McLean, Dr B
O'Neill, Dr A Pieczanski, Dr N Temple. Those involved at present are Mrs S Dermen, Mrs M
Parsons, Dr A Zachary, as well as Mr Campbell and myself. This last-mentioned group
fashioned out our ultimate study process. This study has been partly funded by the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation. The outcome of our study will be published in due course.
2
 Thus, clearly, the matter of degree of danger is a relevant factor.
3
 Characterised by the untranslatable Afrikaans word vatterig—roughly translated as a
persistent fondness of touching or grabbing.
4
 '[In goal-keeping] I have a terrible flash-point and I know that when it goes I look an idiot …
But I have never truly been able to control it. I can say "I am going to mend my ways" but when
the moment comes and something aggravates me, it is very difficult to change. It is easy for
people to say "oh you should do this or that" but if there is something that sparks you it is
bloody difficult to do anything about it.' Bob Wilson, ex-goal-keeper, quoted in Martin Thorpe's
Football Diary, The Guardian, 30 August 1997.

17
5
 We may realise the breadth of the subject when we turn to consider such phenomena as mob
violence—which is, perhaps, more the territory of sociology than of psychoanalysis.
6
 I agree with Shengold (1995) and Hartmann et al. (1949) on the central role that they place on
anality in aggression and violence but I also underline the great importance of the role of orality
with its primitive psychic character.
7
 In one way, the 'it' in this sentence would be taken to refer to Mr B's baby, but more careful
thought would lead us to recognise that, with the primitive nature of this response (see my
discussion above), the 'it' he seeks to obliterate is the baby's throat, which is the source of its
crying.
8
 In a session two weeks before the incident Mr B told me how he had come close to having a
fight with four 'Asians'. They had drawn up next to his van and had been provocative. He
indicated through signs that they should pull over and he would fight them. He reached behind
his seat and got hold of an iron bar. He planned his strategy: he would attack the two in the
front of the car before the two in the back could get out; he would then have only two to deal
with; and so on. As it turned out, they drove off.
9
 As vividly illustrated in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
10
 This was very much as he described himself being beaten by his father.

 From the discussion of the development of S-M violence from the sexualisation of S-P
901

violence it will be recognised that S-M violence can occur in a pre-oedipal context.

References
1
  Brenner , C. (1971). The psychoanalytic concept of aggression. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 52 :
137-144. (IJP.052.0137A)
2
  Campbell , D. (1995). The role of the father in a pre-suicide state. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 76 :
315-323. (IJP.076.0315A)
3
  Cannon , W. B. (1939). The Wisdom of the Body. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner .

  Cannon , W. B. (1953) Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage. Boston: Charles T.
4

Banford Company .
5
  Fonagy , P. & Target , M. (1995). Understanding the violent patient: the use of the body and
the role of the father. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 76 : 487-502. (IJP.076.0487A)
6
  Freud , S. (1914). On narcissism: an introduction. S.E. 14 . (SE.014.0067A)
7
  Freud , S. (1915). Instincts and their vicissitudes. S.E. 14 . (SE.014.0000A)
8
  Freud , S. (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. S.E. 18 . (SE.018.0001A)
9
  Freud , S. (1926). Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. S.E. 20 . (SE.020.0075A)

18
  Glasser , M. (1996). Aggression and sadism in the perversions. In Sexual Deviation, third
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edition, ed. I. Rosen. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press , pp. 279-299.

  Hartmann , H. et al. ( 1949). Notes on the theory of aggression. Psychoanal. St. Child, 3 : 9-
11

36. (PSC.003.0009A)
12
  Lorenz , K. (1963). On Aggression. New York: Bantam Books .

  Lantos , B. (1958). The two genetic derivations of aggression with reference to sublimination
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and neutralisation. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 39 : 116-120. (IJP.039.0116A)

  Meloy , J. R. (1988). The Psychopathic Mind—Origins, Dynamics, and Treatment. London:

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Jason Aronson .
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  Perelberg , R. J. (1995). A core phantasy in violence. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 76 : 1215-1232.
(IJP.076.1215A)

  Shengold , L. (1995). The treatment and understanding of violence in children and young
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adults. Bulln. Anna Freud Centre, 18 : 123-129.

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  Spitz , R. A. (1965). The First Year of Life. New York: Int. Univ. Press .
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  Walker , N. (1970). Crime and Punishment in Britain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
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  Wolff , H. et al. ( 1990). UCH Textbook of Psychiatry. London: Gerald Duckworth .

Translations of Summary

L'auteur montre que bien que l'agression soit un point central de la théorie psychanalytique et
de la pensée clinique, les psychanalystes se sont peu intéressés à la question de la violence.
La violence manifeste est hétérogène et comprendre ceci requerrait une approche
multidisciplinaire. L'auteur s'attache à la considération d'une contribution psychanalytique de
cette compréhension. De ce point de vue tout acte de violence peut se caractériser par l'un des
deux types suivant, ou une combinasion des deux, à savoir la violence d'auto-conservation, et
la violence sadomasochiste. L'auteur en montre les caractéristiques et les différences; il étudie
le lien qui existe entre ces deux sortes de violence à l'aide d'un matériel clinique. Il discute et
illustre brièvement la question de 'la violence dans le transfert'.

Der Autor argumentiert, daß Psychoanalytiker trotz der zentralen Bedeutung der Aggression in
psychoanalytischer Theorie und klinischem Denken dem Problem der Gewalt wenig Beachtung
geschenkt haben. Manifeste Gewalt ist heterogen, und ein ausreichendes Verständnis von ihr
würde einen multi-disziplinären Zugang erforden. Der Autor konzentriert sich auf Überlegungen
zum psychoanalytischen Beitrag zum Verständnis von Gewalt. Aus dieser Sichtweise können
alle Gewaltakte als eine von zwei Arten oder als eine Kombination beider charakterisiert
werden, nämlich als selbsterhaltende Gewalt und als sadomasochistische Gewalt. Diese zwei
Arten werden charakterisiert und differenziert, und anhand von klinischem Material wird die
Beziehung zwischen beiden untersucht. Die Frage der 'Gewalt in der Übertragung' wird
illustriert und kurz diskutiert.

19
El autor sostiene que, aunque la agresividad es un tema esencial en la teoría
psicoanalítica y en el pensamiento clínico, sin embargo los psicoanalistas han
prestado poca atención a la violencia. La violencia manifiesta es heterogénea y su
comprensión adecuada debería implicar un enfoque multi-disciplinario. El autor se
centra en la consideración de cómo podría contribuir el psicoanálisis a dicha
comprensión. Desde este punto de vista, habría dos tipos de actos de violencia y todos
podrían englobarse dentro de uno de ellos o de una combinación de ambos: violencia
auto-preservativa y violencia sado-masoquista. Se exponen las características y las
diferencias de cada una de éstas, al mismo tiempo que la relación entre ambas,
empleando material clínico. Se dan ejemplos del tema de 'la violencia en la
transferencia', examinando éstos brevemente.

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