Addressing Issues of Violence and Aggression in Individuals and Communities: Development, Prediction, and Intervention

Highly publicized and seemingly increasing instances of violence, including mass shootings, police brutality, domestic violence, and international conflict, have raised awareness amongst the general public regarding aggression and its aftermath. Despite a sensitized public with urgency regarding growing mental health needs, a gap remains in practice and policy surrounding how clinicians, communities, and systems can effectively intervene, even in instances when risk has been clearly identified.

Join Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, Research Director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention, to explore the detection of ‘violence potential’ of mass shooters, intimate partners, youth, adults, and police, how aggressive behaviors develop, and the implications for both preventative and treatment approaches. Dr. Meichenbaum will discuss how anger affects brain functioning and decision-making processes and evidence-based cognitive and behavioral strategies and tools to address emotional reactions that lead to harmful acts of aggression and violence in children, adolescents, and adults. Conducting individual, group, and community interventions will be considered, as well as interventions proven to work and approaches that do not.

Moreover, the workshop will consider violence toward oneself in the assessment and treatment of suicidal patients. Evidence-based interventions for perpetrators and victims of violence will be considered, as well as the psychobiological impacts of trauma in the etiology of anger and violent behavior.