Commentary on “Toward Understanding and Treating Violence in America: Some Contributions From Group Dynamic and Group Therapy Perspectives”

Abstract

65, numbers 1 and 2) on the subject give the reader a broad perspective from which to view this paradox and the dilemma in which it leaves us. I will organize my commentary into three sections: an overview of the commonality of themes in the articles in both issues, the video review, and the interview; suggestions of ways to address an implicit and, at times, explicit set of questions raised about the problem; and questions that remain unaddressed or unanswered.

The Violence Prevention Community Meeting: A Multi-Site Study

“…The conditions of the current hospital psychiatric treatment environment are very different from the treatment environment in which the therapeutic community concept was first established, particularly in terms of the shortened length of hospital stay and the emphasis on pharmacologic rather than the psychotherapeutic methods of treatment. However, even with these changes, an admixture of psychopharmacologic treatment and therapeutic community principles has been advocated as an effective, realistic, and desirable treatment modality in today's hospital environment (Buchele, 2015; Klein & Schermer 2015; Rice 2015; Schermer, 2015; Yalom & Leszcz 2005). A synthesis of an extensive literature review from both a theoretical and research perspective on the community meeting is presented.…”

“…For example, Woods (1970) and Winston and Papernik (1970) believed that the community meeting had the effect of reducing overt and covert aggression by both staff and patients. Such articles approach outcome analysis from a theoretical or subjective experience viewpoint (Arons, 1982; Bernard, 1983; Buchele, 2015; Klein, 1981; Hopper, 2013; Parish, 2012; Post 2015; Russaskoff & Oldham, 1982; Swenson & Munich, 1989; Volkan, 2004; Winer & Lewis, 1984; Yalom & Leczyz 2005). …”