ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the problem of social violence, an epidemic in our cities. It describes the long treatment in the National Health Service of a patient with a criminal background who offends again, some years into his return to society. This was during his higher education linked to becoming a healthcare professional which had to be terminated. He has to return to manual work and during twice a week treatment becomes profoundly depressed. He offers the therapist a present one day, a hideous statue of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit. The latter half of the paper focuses on Peter’s subsequent journey through the clinic, becoming a figure with whom the patient can identify since Peter’s father was a thief and Peter after him. At the end of the chapter the issue of whether patients like this can be treated in private practice is addressed.
