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Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Criminal Violence

1980; Northwestern University School of Law; Volume: 71; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1142830

2160-0325

Hans Toch,

Mental Health and Psychiatry

In explaining the title of this paper, I must qualify its ecumenical theme by noting that my perspective is conditioned by membership in the Subculture of the Clinician, though I am not a core member.I agree with Sholom Aleichem, who compared the mission of psychology to that of parsley."To look at it's not bad," he said, "it smells nice, tastes good when you flavor food with it.But you try chewing parsley by itselfl ' In Aleichem's terms, the goal of this paper is to discuss violence menus that are flavored with parsley; to discuss the impact of clinical thinking on the study of violence.The assets of this approach, and its liabilities, are relative (just as some spices can make unusual chicken soup).Problems arise where disciplines are stretched to apply to the domains of other disciplines.We must start by recognizing that disciplinary parochialism in our perspectives on crime and violence is inevitable.Linkages between our perspectives are made more difficult by a tendency to gravitate toward core assumptions in our own fields, as opposed to areas of potential interface between fields.This point was well put by Robert Merton in a conference on delinquency in 1955. Merton said:In this bridge-building game... it is important to keep in mind that the work of the sociologist tends to concentrate on observing repetitive behaviors involving large numbers of people.Consequently, he is apt to be less sensitive to the highly individualized, idiosyncratic aspects of what he has observed.Correlatively, the occupational task of most clinicians is to be extremely concerned with the idiosyncratic.In consequence, by virtue of their occupations and