The Myth of Redemptive Violence: Implications for Developmental Theory and Clinical Practice

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

We are in a time of cultural crisis reflected in social disintegration occurring on all levels: the world, our nation, our cities, neighborhoods, families, and individuals. Within medicine, old institutions are crumbling: health care delivery systems, academic medical centers, psychiatry, doctor/patient roles.

Gil Bailie (1995) has hypothesized that what previously held these institutions and our individual identities together is the myth of redemptive violence. Disintegration is occurring because this myth is being exposed. We will describe the myth and then delineate the implications of its delegitimization on our theory of early childhood development and on our clinical practice.

Myth is used in two ways. First, we claim that redemptive violence is a myth that does not work, using myth to mean a false belief. Alternatively, we claim that the myth of redemptive violence has operated as myths do, that it has been the privileged narrative by which our community has come to understand and relate to what it holds to be the ultimate meaning of reality.