The issue of violence in childhood and society is reviewed from the comparative perspective of the care of children by Anna Freud and her colleagues during the bombing of World War II and the plight of seriously troubled children and adolescents living in poverty and in violent families in contemporary society. Consistent with observations reported by Mahron, violence among these children is understood as a response to a world experience that is depleting and overwhelming; some sense of being alive is provided through aggressive behavior. Founded on the concept of the therapeutic milieu as described by Aichhorn, Bettelheim, and Redl and Wineman, the psychoanalytic intervention program described here fosters enhanced capacity for tension management and ego development via techniques of crisis management within the group living situation, incorporating the life-space or marginal interview, therapeutic education, and psychotherapy.