Murray Stein interviews Allan Guggenbühl

Murray Stein: I'm sure you are aware, Allan, of the recent tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenage boys entered a high school with weapons and killed 12 classmates and 1 teacher and wounded 23 other classmates. In the States, we are looking for causes. Who or what is responsible for this kind of violence among today's youth? Fingers are being pointed at parents, at TV shows and video games, at gun stores. Do you have an opinion? What is your diagnosis?

Allan Guggenbühl: As an outsider to American culture, it is of course presumptuous to give a diagnosis on that terrible tragedy in Littleton. What I can give you are my impressions on how the problem of teenage violence is being discussed in academia, the media, and in the discussion groups I attended in the U.S. as a European child and juvenile psychologist, psychotherapist and expert in violence in schools.

The TV shows and Video games are certainly not to blame for that incident. To put the blame on the media is the easy way out; the media serves as a scapegoat. The juveniles, who are attracted to TV shows and video games, react in various different ways: many are revolted by what they see and actually become morally more sensitive, the majority clearly are able to place these games in the realm of the imaginal, and only a tiny fraction might imitate what they see. These juveniles are prone to be influenced by other images of violence as well. In one class I worked with, two children abducted a classmate, locked her up in a barn, and told her she was going to be hanged. They told me later they had learned to do this in Sunday school; bad persons should be hanged! As they thought their classmate was one....

The parents of course have an influence on the behavior of their children. But here again their influence is grossly overestimated. Juveniles are a lot more led by the images and myths that are dominant in their youth culture. This culture follows an antagonistic pattern: values and behaviors are attractive that enable a differentiation from the culture of the grown ups. Youth seeks things which the old people abhor. The vast majority of the juveniles don't act out their need to be different from the grown up in reality, but achieve this gain in the realm of the imaginal.

Here comes my first diagnosis: my impression is that in the U.S. this antagonistic quality is not respected. One still believes in "teaching the good values and right behavior and the power of the good example by the grown ups." From the psychological point of view this is naive. In order to prevent violent incidents like Littleton, one needs to introduce violence into schools on the level of the imaginal and by encouraging aggressive rituals. It is not enough that students are being taught to be nice with each other and to love each other; they have also to learn how to be in contact and do something with feelings of hate, with their fascination with violence and their longing for violence. They have to be conscious of their shadow. As Paracelsus taught us: the symptom carries the cure.

Pointing the finger at the parents sounds to me as the ritualistic evocation of one of the great American myths: In order to get rid of the abysmal, one seeks shelter in a positive mythic image. It has nothing to do with the psychological reality of the juveniles. It's a mythic defense mechanism.

In Littleton and other similar incidents, the repressed fascination with the image of the abysmal manifests itself and explodes into the Upperworld. It needs this extreme violent quality, because otherwise one would not look at the image. Littleton is a psychological counter-reaction to the - in my view - naïve psychological view of the juveniles.

Murray Stein: Americans are generally convinced that violent images in film and on TV encourage, or even induce, violent behavior in children. The newspapers are full of reports that "studies show" this to be the case. I have not examined those studies, and I am sure they do not "prove" this to be so, but people are generally convinced that images of violence are bad for kids and for society. Yet you advocate introducing violence as a possible behavior pattern into schools, on the theory that like can cure like. What do you have in mind? And are you sure this will work? What is your evidence? Do you have "studies that show" this to be the case?

Allan Guggenbühl: Various empirical studies I looked at do show in scientific terms a relation between the violent images in film and TV and the behavior of children or adolescents. Children who watch movies with violence become more agitated, fight more and are more aggressive, but -and this is the decisive argument — there is not one study that proves that children or adolescents actually become more violent, that their moral structure breaks down, and that they are prone to vicious acts. In other words, their aggression increases, but that does not necessarily lead to violence. In the right setting, the effect can be even the contrary. They become conscious of their innate violence and start reflecting on themselves. But of course not all juveniles react that way.

That the introduction of aggression into schools as possible behavior can be effective in curbing violence is not just an academic theory. It is based on my own and my colleague's experience working with violent adolescent individuals and groups. As director of the Institute for Conflict Management and Mythodrama and the department for group psychotherapy of the State of Bern (Switzerland), I have been conducting crisis interventions and violence prevention programs throughout the German speaking part of Switzerland, southern Germany, and Austria. We have also organized many more prevention programs in Holland and Sweden. The last four years we have done more than 70 interventions in school settings where violence was the problem and have set the frame for many more violence prevention programs. Our crisis intervention teams are called up after severe incidents, like rape, murder (of other juveniles or teachers), shootings and when teachers are beaten up or blackmailed and classes cannot be conducted any more.

Unfortunately, violence does also occur in our country. One reason might be that Switzerland is a very heterogeneous society. It has the highest percentage of foreign born inhabitants (with the exception of Luxembourg, but a higher percentage than the U.S.) More than 30% of the population comes from a non-Swiss ethnic background. People have immigrated to our country coming from Albania, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Zaire and of course from the ethnically closer countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc. Many schools have more then 80% foreign students, many from countries at war, like Kosova-Albania, "Kurdistan," or Sri Lanka. When working with these often very agitated youths, it is absolutely unthinkable to present ourselves as goody-goodies or role models. Having to find a way to appease these juveniles and motivate them to work with us and with the teachers in order to create a non-violent environment, we had to pursue some unconventional paths. This was when we developed this basically Jungian approach and found out that it worked. After interventions or the initiation of a violence prevention program, there is less violence, and the adolescents are willing to do their share to tackle the problem. The idea to work with images of violence developed out of these experiences.

The Department of Education of the University of Bern investigated our approach and conducted an empirical study in order to test the effectiveness of our approach (Kohli/Lauener 1995). They found out, that according to the parents, school boards, and students, violence decreased significantly.

Murray Stein: What you say about your work is fascinating, Allan. I am intrigued by your phrase, "this basically Jungian approach." Can you say some more about the approach, and also give a concrete example of what you have done? I'd like to know what one of your interventions has actually looked like. Can you share that without violating confidentiality?

Allan Guggenbühl: A basic idea in Jungian psychology is that we have to confront and integrate our shadow. We have to develop images to represent our unconscious desires and repressed complexes. If we can symbolize what might lie behind emotional problems, disorientation, aggression or depression, there is a fair chance that the shadow will not dominate us. In order to find the right image, we have to concentrate on the creative function of psyche and use our ability to fantasize and imagine.

In our crisis interventions, we follow a similar approach. Instead of pathologizing or moralizing about the behavior of the aggressors, we try to find out what their behavior is telling us. Why are these adolescents behaving the way they do, what is the psychological significance of their behavior and their fascination with aggression? Violence, as we well know, always happens in specific psychic contexts. It can be the expression of a myth or a complex that is not culturally integrated. We try to concentrate on the myths that the adolescents unconsciously act out. We want to detect the suppressed elements of their psyche. Instead of re-educating them and forcing them into violence prevention programs, we try to read the 'soul message' behind their behavior. We approach them with the idea that their behavior also contains the answers to the problems they are trying to solve with their aggression.

Let me be more concrete by describing an intervention. Our crisis interventions consist of seven steps. We differentiate between these steps because in moments of turmoil the involved people need a basic orientation for what to do. When there is a lot of confusion and emotion around, a clear program of action is necessary.

This particular intervention started with a call from the head of a school in a small town. He was desperate and angry because beatings had occurred on the premises of his school. One student was severely wounded. The interrogation of the police and teachers led nowhere. Of course none of the other students saw anything or knew anything about the perpetrators. Nobody was willing to talk. The parents of these 14 and 15 year old students were enraged! They demanded that strict measures be taken and wanted their children placed in other schools. Rumors spread. Supposedly the beaten student had been attacked by an Albanian gang. Others reported that he had actually stolen bottles of champagne and was trying to sell them. The teachers were afraid and immobilized. In this situation the headmaster decided to call for a crisis intervention by our Institute.

Our seven steps were explained to the head of the school:1) talk with the teachers; 2) a meeting with parents; 3) a visit to the school; 4) group work with the class and use of the mythodrama; 5) evaluation of the teaching methods; 6) a follow up after three months; and 7) a final meeting with parents and other people involved. This is how it went at this intervention.

1. Talk with the teachers

   First we had to persuade the teachers to cooperate. We explained our approach and conditions. We wanted them to do their share to alleviate the problem. In this first intervention, two of the teachers were willing to cooperate and were glad that someone from the outside had been called to deal with the problem. One teacher was ambivalent. His attitude towards psychology was hostile, and he felt that "chains and curfew" should be the answer. And besides, "it was the parents' responsibility" to look after their juveniles.

2. Parents evening

   Now the parents were invited to a meeting. At the beginning of the evening the teachers made it clear to the parents that their work and teaching would also be scrutinized. It's not only the students who have to participate in the program. We explained to the parents that when working with the class, we concentrate on the group and not the individual. We don't pick out individual perpetuators, but ask the class to solve the problem of violence. This was important because otherwise many parents would not agree to back the program.

   We then talked with the parents in sub-groups and wanted to know their perception of the dynamics in the class and of the problem of violence. Also we wanted to know what they thought the teachers' role was. We needed to hear the opinions of the parents in order to be able to work with the class and the teachers. We then briefly explained our approach and said, that we would make an intervention on the condition that everyone would cooperate.

   The evening with the parents was very chaotic. They shouted and insulted each other. They said that their sons and daughters were being bullied in class, that weapons had appeared, and that teachers were completely ignorant of these facts. The parents felt that not enough was being done. The atmosphere was very tense. Finally, after a lot of talking we set out the goals of the intervention: pacification of the class, elimination of possible weapons, and re-establishment of a good learning atmosphere in class.

3. Visit to the school

   The teachers of that particular school were a very heterogeneous group. They had set out certain rules in their school, but they were unwilling to enforce them. Many teachers thought that as long as they were getting along with their class, everything was fine. They did not care about what happened outside their classrooms. The level of cooperation among the teachers was very low.

4. Work with the class: Mythodrama

   This was the key element of our intervention. We assembled the class in a large gym and worked with the whole class during the next three hours. We approached the class according to the dynamics of the group. We presented ourselves as super-gang-leaders, and we had to show off our toughness in order to irritate them. After some warm-up exercises we did a mythodrama. We related a story that to our perception reflected the basic challenges and problems of that particular class. We wanted our story to reflect the myth that they were unconsciously following. We did not tell the whole story but only part of it. They had to imagine the end of it. Later they expressed their endings through paintings. We then made a connection between what they had produced and the problems of the class. We talked about their problems and demanded from the class that they decide on a concrete method of change to improve the situation in the school.

   In this class most of the students acted cool at first. We addressed them in a very impersonal way and told them the story of Stalingrad. We described the situation and feelings of the trapped German soldiers —their hunger, their desperation, the deaths, mutilations and the violence they experienced. We chose that story because these students felt to us like street fighters in a hostile environment. They identified with the myth of the ghetto kids, felt like loners in a strange and cold world. We told the story of Stalingrad in order to give them metaphors that symbolized the psychological state they were in.

   The class listened to the story attentively. They were surprised that we told them such a horror story. Some of their fantasized endings contained a lot of violence, some manifested a group spirit. Their endings gave us hints as to the resources the class might have. The endings were drawn, looked at, and interpreted. The class felt under siege, communication with the outside world was difficult because of emotional and ideological barriers. Their endings gave us ideas for steps that could be taken to find solutions, so they could come into closer contact with the "other side," with the teachers, parents, and maybe hostile gang members. They decided that they would set up some lines of communication with the teachers, that a letter box would be placed in front of the teachers' staff room so students could pass information to them without having to give their names.

   We also found out during the mythodrama that members of an outside gang were terrorizing the school premises. Before the beating incident had occurred, a fight had taken place on the grounds of the school. Some students resisted the outsiders, blamed them because of thefts, and called them "Yugo-Scheisse" (Yugoslavian scum) and "your mother" (a very bad insult).The nature of the insults left the Yugoslavians and Albanians no other choice than to react violently. Their ethnic code called for revenge. They attacked the students of the school, who felt abandoned by the teachers in their struggle to maintain order. None of these feelings were verbalized to the teachers. The students did not find a way to divulge their fears because their group code forbade passing on information of what was happening within their peer group. In the mythodrama session, their worries became apparent. The beaten student was a gang member who had blackmailed and threatened other students repeatedly.

   We concluded from this information that more had to be done by the teachers to provide security. We gave them that feed-back, so they could start organizing efficient controls. The students had to prove that they were capable of doing something against further incidents, and they had to prove this to the teachers and parents.

   The class participated in two further mythodrama sessions during the next four weeks. Altogether we worked with the class three times without teachers present. The class presented a solution to tackle their problem, and we discussed whether the measures were effective.

5. Evaluation of teaching methods

   Parallel to the work with the class, we worked with the teachers and evaluated their teaching methods and the way they approached the class. The teachers organized patrols on the school premises and decided they would have a closer look at the juveniles they detected on the grounds of school. When they saw someone who was not familiar, they decided to react and ask him or her where he or she was from.

6. Final intervention

   After a break of three months, another mythodrama session was organized with the class. We found out that the measures which the class and the teachers had decided on were effective and the situation was calm.

7. Parents evening

   A parents evening concluded the intervention program. The teachers, the School Board, and the psychologist who worked with the class gave their impressions of how everything had worked out. This particular intervention was considered successful by the people involved.

This is a concrete example of an intervention. I describe others in my book, The Incredible Fascination of Violence. We start two to three interventions every week following these procedures. The reasons we are called of course vary.

Murray Stein: Thank you, Allan, for this ample and detailed example of a Jungian approach and concrete intervention. I have one final question. Your book has been translated into English. Has this led to interest in your work in the United States or other English speaking countries? Have you extended your interventions across the great waters?

Allan Guggenbühl: The reactions to my book and my work in the U.S. and Canada were mostly favorable. I gave a seminar five years ago in Freeport, CT on my approach and was invited to the APA congress in Toronto in summer '96. Traditional psychologists liked the no-nonsense approach to the school classes and the fact that we work with a clear set of goals. Some mainstream psychologists were a bit puzzled by the mythodrama and the idea of relating horror stories in order to stop violence. In non-Jungian circles, the idea that we need to integrate the shadow and develop acceptable rituals of aggression is foreign. The reactions among Jungian psychotherapists varied. Many Jungians, who typically work in consulting rooms with one patient at the time, liked the idea of applying Jungian ideas to a field outside the consultation room. Some felt they were not in a position to start a program like ours and lacked some basic practical knowledge. We got requests from American and Canadian psychologists and psychotherapists to organize a basic training program in crisis intervention. Our institute (The Institute for Conflict Management and Mythodrama in Zürich) will therefore offer a special training for psychologists and psychotherapists from overseas next summer (2000). The program is called, "Challenge the Alps," and will include an ethnological excursion into primordial aspects of the Swiss alps (ghosts, rites, and the means to overcome fear in the alps).

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