The Roots of Violence: Converging Psychoanalytic Explanatory Models for Power Struggles and Violence in Schools

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that several psychoanalytic models taken together converge to collectively explain school violence and power struggles better than each does alone. Using my own experience in doing psychoanalytically informed community intervention, I approach the problem of school violence from a combination of Adlerian, Stollerian, dialectical social systems, and Klein—Bion perspectives. This integrated model is then applied to the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado.