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The second two-day International Psychoanalytic Conference took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in May 2010, with the aim of discussing the origins and treatment of aggression and violence from a psychoanalytic perspective. Paul Williams, who has written extensively on violence and terrorism, edited transcripts of the presentations into a timely discussion, published as Aggression: From Fantasy to Action.
The conference was sponsored by key organizations of Northern Ireland and England, including the British Psychoanalytical Association, and involved participation by therapists from correctional, institutional, and psychiatric settings. The presenters were challenged to overcome simplistic notions of good and evil, and to look at the complex problem of aggression and violence via a psychoanalytic understanding and the more personalized and humane approach of psychotherapy. I found this challenge to have been successfully met.
In the keynote address, Donald Campbell, former chairman of the Portman Clinic, which provides outpatient treatment for violent and delinquent patients, set the tone for the conference and described his professional experience over thirty years. An important part of the treatment of violent patients is to help them develop the ability to think and to verbalize thoughts in place of action. Campbell described his fear of a very violent 37-year-old patient, Mr. D, noting that when he met with this