ABSTRACT
A way of exploring alienation and violence in schools is through an approach that views symptomatic behaviour in light of the unconscious conflicts, deficits, and distortions of intrapsychic structures and internal object relations. The individual’s internal world is given paramount importance and is explored through dreams, associations, impulses, wishes, self-images, perceptions of, and psychological reactions to others, and projections heaped upon them. Donald Winnicott emphasizes one kind of psychological classification, which he views as vitally important within the framework of the education system. James Grotstein speaks of conatus, from the Latin conatio, as the principle that guarantees the continuity of the self during change. Shame and identity only become linked when one is able to articulate a shame experience. Incidences of narcissistic rage are attempts to get rid of experiences of shame. The experience of shame becomes almost intolerable and as a defense, a world of violent fantasies develops. Alfred Adler writes of a human propensity toward anti-social behaviour.
