Causes and cures III: The psychology of violence

• Psychology, an intimate science, can contribute to understanding human violence.
• Psychodynamic theory is an especially unique perspective on human behavior.
• Psychoanalysis has shown that the mind is complex with many layers.
• Defenses and paradoxes of the mind can solve many quandaries about violence.
• Applying these dynamics elucidates clinical observations on trauma and resilience.

The past 2 years have been a landmark moment for violence prevention, with the publication of The Global Status Report on Violence Prevention 2014, a historic resolution on violence by the 67th World Health Assembly, and the release of multiple documents on violence by international and United Nations entities, with a corresponding building of momentum in scholarship. Most notably, in September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, addressing the need for violence prevention at an unprecedented scale. In this context, more than ever, violence studies have become a field of its own right. Still, a systematic approach to the topic is lacking, and no textbook yet synthesizes the knowledge of multiple disciplines toward a cogent understanding. This article is the third of a series that will cover an outline for summarizing the major bio-psycho-social and structural–environmental perspectives on violence. It discusses the complexity of the mind that can give rise to paradoxes and hidden perceptions and how psychology can elucidate them, especially with respect to human violence. It criticizes psychology's reductionism into neuroscience or behaviorism, or the useful but surface interpretations of cognitivism, while highlighting the strengths of psychodynamic theory in dealing with the depths of emotional life. While limiting the scope to intrapsychic events can be a drawback, these dynamics can help explain clinical features of trauma and resilience and how these can predispose or protect from violence.