I am prepping for a talk on gangs in schools for a conference this weekend and in going over my notes I am reminded of the primacy of shame in violent conflicts between young men. James Gilligan’s Violence does an excellent job of laying out the argument that it is shame, rather than anger or rage, that is the true cause of violence. Indeed, young men who feel disrespected or humiliated are likely to feel the need to retaliate with violence. Treatment therefore should focus on helping young men feel empowered or to manage conflict without violence rather than traditional “anger management.” The problem with teaching young men just to “walk away” from conflict is that it fails to attend to the resulting shame that arises from feeling “punked” or “dissed.”
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What Causes Explosive Behavior?
So often boys are referred for services because of explosive verbal or physical behavior. The difficulty is that often the same behavior (e.g., telling a teacher to screw off) can have different causes in different boys. For instance, some boys talk back to teachers because they have an undiagnosed learning disability and are ashamed of not understanding the lessons. Other boys may have a trauma history and feel threatened by the teacher. In other cases, a boy may not respond well to authority and frequently get into power struggles with the teacher. These examples highlight the importance of having a trained professional properly diagnose the behavioral difficulties that a boy presents with and proceed with the best course of treatment.