Is Violence Normal?

In her 2024 Reith Lectures, Dr Gwen Adshead, addresses four questions that she has most commonly faced in her work as a therapist with violent perpetrators in secure psychiatric units and prisons:

Is Violence normal? What is the relationship between trauma and violence? Is there such a thing as Evil? Can we change violent minds?

In this first lecture, using data and real-life stories from nearly 40 years’ experience as a forensic Psychiatrist working inside institutions such as Broadmoor, she asks if violence is normal.

Is violence unnatural? Or is it normal because, deep down, we are all capable of cruelty and can experience, even briefly, the urge to hurt others? What then are the tipping points, what are the factors that drive some to kill?

The programme was recorded at Broadcasting House in London in front of an audience and is presented and chaired by Anita Anand.

Producer; Jim Frank Editor: Clare Fordham