In November 1994 the Anna Freud Centre held its 16th International Scientific Colloquium, on the theme ‘The Psychoanalytic Understanding and Treatment of Violence in Children and Young Adults’. In order to accommodate a larger invited audience, the plenary sessions took place in a neighbouring hall and the number of participants totalled approximately 130. This year there were six workshop groups, and instead of a panel discussion the workshop chairmen brought questions from their groups for general discussion by the whole audience.

Three papers were pre-circulated to all participants: (a) a review of the psychoanalytic literature on violence, which included an account of an analysis of a violent patient, written by myself; (b) a clinical paper on the analysis of two young adults, by Mrs Anne Harrison and Mrs