Building Bridges Between Professions: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Understanding School Violence

Abstract

This article outlines a clinical psychoanalytic theory of working with major social issues, in this instance, school homicides. This article introduces a model referred to as socioanalysis, a form of applied psychoanalysis in which the social context and unconscious power dynamics are used to formulate interventions to reduce bullying and avoid explosions of violence at school. The conceptual framework suggests that prepackaged approaches to bully prevention are very unlikely to solve a complex problem such as violence. This applied psychoanalytic approach suggests the existence of a continuum of violence that begins with schoolyard bullying and can escalate to mass murder. This theory views school violence as being school specific, much like psychotherapy of an individual. This approach offers an alternative to simple recipes and over simplistic fixes offered for schools to use in packaged bully prevention programs. This approach views one of the main change agents as the principal. The role of the uncon...