ABSTRACT
Violence is an essential part of each one of us and, like the sea, it can run a benign course or it can escalate to a dangerous and destructive crescendo. There are other types of escalating violence: baby battering, for example, gang violence, violence associated with drug or alcohol intoxication, and need and violence erupting in the case of a pyrexial physical illness. An accumulation of traumatic events tends to be more provocative than traumata that appear singly. In such circumstances there can be more of a tendency to explode into violence. Sometimes an individual seeks external provocation or threat, which is used as an excuse for violent action. An intrapsychic violent constellation can then be expressed and moral justification claimed by the perpetrator. Violence contains a wish often felt as a need for action of a retaliatory, vengeful kind.
