Psychiatrists Report On Dangers Of Violence

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31974, 29 April 1969, Page 13

Psychiatrists Report On Dangers Of Violence

NEW YORK. April 27. Violence enabled prehistoric man to survive —but could now destroy the technological society that modern man has created, according to two Stanford University psychiatrists.

Writing in the current issue of “Science” magazine Dr Marshall Gilula and Dr David Daniels said aggression and violence were essential to man in overcoming the obstacles that stood in the way of evolution, enabling him to prevail over predatory animals and severe climate.

Now. aggression and violence had been outmoded by advanced machinery which could effect change easily and efficiently. The major obstacle to removing violence from society, the psychiatrists said, was “our slowness to recognise that our violent type of cop-

ing with problems will destroy us in this technological era.”

Survey In their article. Dr Gilula and Dr Daniels reported the results of a survey on violent behaviour undertaken by Stanford's psychiatry department after the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy last year. Political assassination, militant student and civil rights protests and severe police and military reprisals taken to put down dissent were all indications of violence, the psychiatrists said.

Violence, they said, was “part of a struggle to resolve stressful and threatening' events—a struggle to adapt.": But alternatives to violence were needed in this technological age “because the survival value of violent aggression is diminishing rapidly." The two psychiatrists defined violence as the destructive manifestation of aggres-: sion—all behaviour which Is assertive, instrusive and at-, tacking. Violence was an intrinsic; part of man's biological makeup but it was also caused by frustration or learned by imitation, they said. In spite of man's present technological ability to produce adaptive change almost at will, he persisted in seeking to bring about change through destructive acts. Mass Media One reason for this, they, said, was the romanticised treatment of violence by tele- 1 vision, films and newspapers., The media’s “repetitive..

staccato beat of violence and the evidence of its impact upon the most impressionable members of our society show that violence is valued, wanted and enjoyed," the two psychiatrists said.

“Where violent aggressive behaviour once served to maintain the human species in times of danger, it note threatens our continued existence," they said.