“What is the fundamental question one must ask of the world? I would think and posit many things, but the answer was always the same: Why is the child crying?”
Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy.

Annotated Bibliography

Anda, R.F., Felitti, V.J., Bremner, D.J., Walker,J.D., Whitefield, C., Perry, B.D., Dube, S.R., &  Giles, W. (2006). The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood: A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 256, pp.174-186.

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) epidemiological study assessed the childhood histories of 17,337 adult HMO members for 8 ACEs. In a graded fashion, the more ACEs a person had, the greater the risk for dysfunction in the "affective, somatic, substance abuse, sexual, and aggression-related domains." This graded relationship "theoretically parallels the cumulative exposure of the developing brain to the stress response with resulting impairment in multiple brain structures and functions."
See also the ACEs study website: http://acestudy.org/

Barry III, H. (2007). Corporal punishment and other formative experiences associated with violent crimes. The Journal of Psychohistory, 35(1), pp. 71-82.

Barry, a professor of psychology, analyzed data related to five formative experiences from a worldwide sample of 48 diverse societies. Using three statistical procedures—correlation coefficient, partial correlation, and multiple regression—he found that “frequent violent crimes are most highly correlated with a formative experience during late childhood, frequent corporal punishment of boys” (p. 80). Furthermore, he concluded that, “absence of corporal punishment is especially associated with infrequent violent crimes. A beneficial evolution of civilization is indicated by recent abolition of corporal punishment and of other abusive treatment of children in many contemporary nations” (p. 81). 

Beaglehole, R. (1999). Mama, listen! Raising a child without violence: A handbook for teen parents. Los Angeles: Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting.

Ruth Beaglehole is a nonviolent parenting educator, peace activist, and the director of the CNVEP. Her engaging book is written in the voice of a toddler. It is available through www.nonviolentparenting.org.

Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment I (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1969).
This is the foundational volume upon which subsequent work in attachment theory has been built.

Cassidy, J & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.). (1999). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. New York & London: The Guilford Press.
At the time of publication, this 925-page anthology was the most comprehensive and up-to-date compilation on attachment theory and research.

Council of Europe. (n.d.). Raise your hand against smacking. Retrieved July 16, 2010 from
http://www.coe.int/t/dg3/corporalpunishment/default_en.asp

The Council of Europe has a vigorous campaign to promote children's rights, including abolishing the physical punishment of children. They have produced many cogent, highly readable, well-illustrated materials that can be accessed from the website.

deMause, L. (2002). The emotional life of nations. New York & London: Karnac.

The founder and leading scholar of psychohistory documents his contentions that early personal experiences determine political behavior, that changes in cultural child rearing patterns are a primary force for historical change, and that child rearing has been slowly evolving from more violent modes to more helpful and nonviolent ones.

deMause, L. (2007a). Why males are more violent. The Journal of Psychohistory, 35(1), pp. 22-33.

Drawing on up-to-date research from many disciplines, including neurobiology, deMause explores how adults, especially mothers, socialize boys differently from girls, how higher levels of neglect, abuse, emotional distancing, corporal punishment, and shaming directed against boys, lead to insecurity and the desperate bravado of self-destructive and other-destructive violence.

deMause, L. (2007b). The psychology and neurobiology of violence. The Journal of Psychohistory, 35(2), pp. 114-141.

deMause updates his thesis with references to the most recent research that demonstrates that “violence is the result of insecure/disorganized early attachments” and that “major advances in neurobiological techniques have revealed how these early disordered attachments are embedded in the brain and are reenacted in later life in personal and social violence” (p. 114).

Demeo, J. (1998). Saharasia: the 4000 BCE origins of child abuse, sex-repression, warfare, and social violence in the deserts of the old world. Greensprings, OR: Orgone Biophysical Research Lab.

In a highly original, potentially controversial study, Demeo, a cultural geographer, conducted meta-analyses of Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas, involving 50 variables and 1,170 cultures, and of Textor’s A Cross-Cultural  Summary, involving 63 variables and 400 cultures. Demeo found 95% correlations that “antisocial violence and destructive aggression were rooted in specific, culturally determined infant and childhood traumas, adolescent sex repressions, and socioeconomic processes and institutions which worked to significantly subordinate children to adults, females to males, and ordinary people to class- or caste-structured hierarchies (p. 389).”

Fleiss, P. M. (1997). Where is my foreskin? The case against circumcision. Mothering:The magazine of natural family living. Winter, pp. 36-45.

Fleiss, a pediatrician, cites the scientific evidence to support his contention that routine male circumcision is gratuitous, traumatic, violent, and harmful.

Gerhardt, S. (2004). Why love matters: How affection shapes a baby’s brain. Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge.

Gerhardt, a British psychotherapist, synthesizes findings from recent research in neurobiology, attachment theory, biochemistry, and psychology to show how a well nurtured infant is likely to develop into a physically and emotionally healthy and pro-social adult. She also shows, by contrast, the harmful effects of traumatic neglect and/or abuse at the earliest stages of life.

Gershoff, E. T. (2008). Report on physical punishment in the United States: What research tells us about its effects on children. Columbus, OH: Center for Effective Discipline.

A synthesis of a century of social science research and several hundred published     studies, this report finds the following. “There is little research evidence that physical punishment improves children’s behavior in the long term. There is substantial research evidence that physical punishment makes it more, not less, likely that children will be defiant and aggressive in the future. There is clear research evidence that physical punishment puts children at risk for negative outcomes, including mental health problems. There is consistent evidence that children who are physically punished are at greater risk of serious injury and physical abuse.”

Gershoff, E. T. & Bitensky, S. H. (2007). The case against corporal punishment of children: Converging evidence from social science research and international human rights law and implications for U. S. public policy. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 13(4), 231-272.

Gillath, O., Shaver, P. R., & Mikulincer, M. An attachment-theoretical approach to compassion and altruism (2005),  in P. Gilbert (ed.) Compassion: Conceptualizations, research, and use in psychotherapy. Hove & New York: Routledge, 121-147.

The authors, three psychologists, review the basic concepts of attachment theory and present their findings that “being secure with respect to attachment—either dispositionally secure or momentarily secure because of experimental interventions—is associated with empathy and willingness to help others.”

Gilligan, J. (1996). Violence: Reflections on a national epidemic. NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Gilligan, a forensic psychiatrist, Harvard professor, and former director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system discusses his observations about, among other things, how perpetrators of violence had been severely traumatized abused, humiliated, and shamed as children, how they lack a normal range of affect and empathy, and how they see their violence as justified enactments of justice. Gilligan writes of violence as a tragedy. He also shows the connections of direct violence to structural violence, which refers to the harmful and extreme inequalities of wealth, power, and opportunity in a stratified society.

Gilligan, J. (2001). Preventing violence. NY & London: Thames & Hudson.

This sequel to the preceding book offers the author’s views on how to do just what the title indicates. He approaches violence as the number one public health issue and proposes approaches to primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. He addresses the social causes of violence and violence as a male gender issue.

Goleman, D. Early violence leaves its mark on the brain, The New York Times, October 3, 1993, pp. C1 & C10. 

Goleman, a psychologist and science journalist, reports on the destructive impact of early violence, during infancy and childhood, on the developing social brain.

Grille, R. (2005). Parenting for a peaceful world. Sydney: Longueville Media.

Grille, a psychotherapist, based in Sydney, Australia, elegantly integrates research in the fields of neurobiology, attachment theory, psychohistory, democratic education, and more. He presents a model of nonviolent parenting based on connection, rather than control, and demonstrates the harmful effects of corporal punishment, shaming, and manipulation. I wrote the foreword to this book, which is available for purchase in the U. S. through the Natural Child web site,  www.naturalchild.org.

Grille, R. (2008). Heart to heart parenting: Nurturing your child’s emotional intelligence from conception to school age. Sydney: ABC Books.

Building upon his previous book and integrating the latest research with heartfelt,  accessible language, Grille guides parents practically to find their inner wisdom, connect with their children in the prenatal, toddler, and childhood periods, listen and talk with children in ways that promote connection, and nurture themselves.
   
Grossman, D. & DeGaetano, G. (1999). Stop teaching our children to kill: A call to action against tv, movie & video game violence. NY: Crown Publishers.

This book seeks to inspire action to reduce the role played by the media in     promoting cultural violence, especially in view of the impact on vulnerable, impressionable children.

Hall, M. (2002). The plague of violence: A preventable epidemic. Vergennes, VT: Checkmate Press.

This booklet, which is currently out of print, posits four primary, interrelated causes of direct violence: child abuse, gender abuse, structural violence, and cultural violence.

Hall, M. (2004). Peace quest: Cultivating peace in a violence culture. Sausalito, CA: Peacequest.

Nonviolent child rearing is presented as a pivotal factor in building a more peaceful culture. This booklet, which was endorsed by the progressive historian Howard Zinn, can be ordered, at present, only through me.

Hall, M. & Gomez, M. (2004). The power of peace. Evanston: PsycHealth, Ltd.

This brief, illustrated booklet presents principles of nonviolent child rearing, from womb to world, in clear and simple terms.

Hesse, E., Main, M. Yost Abrams, K., & Rifkin, A., Unresolved
state regarding loss or abuse can have “second generation” effects:
Disorganization, role inversion, and frightening ideation in the
offspring of traumatized, non-maltreating parents, pp. 57-106,  in
Solomon, M. F. & Siegel, D. J (2003). Healing trauma:
Attachment, mind, body, and brain. New York & London, W. W.
Norton & Company.
 
Karr-Morse, R. & Wiley, M. S. (1997). Ghosts from the nursery: Tracing the roots of violence. NY: The Atlantic Monthly Press.

This book draws on neurobiological research, along with other data, to show how early interpersonal maltreatment and deprivations lead to a predisposition to act violently later in life.

Lansford  J.E., Chang, L., Dodge, K.A., Malone, P.S., Oburu, P., Palmacrus, K., Bacchini, D., Pastorelli, C., Bombi, A.S., Zelli, A., Tapanya, S., Chaudhary, N., Deater-Deckard, K., Manke, B., & Quinn, N. (2005). Physical discipline and children's adjustment: Cultural normativeness as a moderator. Child Development, 76 (6), pp. 1234-1246.

This international study, conducted in China, India, Italy, Kenya, the Philippines, and Thailand, found that children who were subjected to maternal corporal punishment demonstrated more aggression and anxiety than peers who were not physically punished.

Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence. The effect of childhood trauma on brain development. Retrieved May 14, 2008 from http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/brain.html.

This is an excellent, extensive research bibliography, and several of the entries are annotated with abstracts.

Lewis, T., Amini, F., & Lannon, R. (2000/2001). A general theory of love. New York: Random House/Vintage.

The authors, three psychiatrists, integrate attachment theory and neurobiological research to describe, in elegant prose, the ways and whys of love.

Massachusetts Advocates for Children. (2005). Helping traumatized children learn. A report and policy agenda. Retrieved May 30, 2008 from
http://www.massadvocates.org/purchase_or_download_htcl2

McLean Hospital. (2000). McLean researchers document brain damage linked to child abuse and neglect. News Release, December 14, 2000.

This news release notes findings, based on the research of Teicher and associates, about “four types of brain abnormalities linked to child abuse and neglect.”

Miedzian, M. (1991). Boys will be boys: Breaking the link between masculinity and violence. NY: Doubleday.

Miedzian interviewed 130 people and did an extensive literature review in     developing her analysis of the causes of youthful male violence in this culture and her recommendations for how to reduce this violence. She reveals the roots of the violent masculine mystique and of the tragedy of the hyper-masculinity of boys who are insecure in their gender identity and who assert their masculinity through toughness and violence.


Mikulincer, M. & Shaver, P. R. (2005). Attachment security, compassion, and altruism. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14 (1), pp. 34-38.

The authors report on their recent psychological research in which they found that “compassionate feelings and values, as well as responsive, altruistic behaviors, are promoted by both dispositional and experimentally induced attachment security.” They propose that, “these studies and the theoretical ideas that generated them provide guidelines for enhancing compassion and altruism in the real world.”

Milburn, M. A. & Conrad, S. D. (1996). The politics of denial. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

The authors, both social psychologists, present evidence to support their contention that “many of our political attitudes, particularly those we feel strongly about, have their source in childhood” (p. 69). Punitive political attitudes, including a tendency to favor war as an instrument of national policy and capital punishment, are viewed as sequels to punitive upbringings and as venues through which people, who have not benefited from psychotherapy, displace their childhood anger onto political issues.

Miller, A. (1983). For your own good: Hidden cruelty in childrearing and the roots of violence. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

Miller, a Swiss psychologist, presents case studies of adults, including Adolf Hitler, whose violent acts were, according to her interpretation, a compulsive repetition of the “soul murder” enacted against them in childhood. She reviews the childrearing practices that prepared a generation of Germans and Austrians to take part, as perpetrators and bystanders, in genocide.

National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (2003). Complex trauma in children and adolescents: White paper from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Retrieved May 30, 2008 from http://www.nctsn.org/nctsn_assets/pdfs/edu_materials
ComplexTrauma_All.pdf

Oliner, S. P. & Oliner, P. (1988). The altruistic personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: The Free Press.

Forty years after the end of the Nazi holocaust, the Oliners, two sociologists, conducted and interpreted, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in-depth interviews of 700 persons who had lived in Nazi-occupied Europe. The subjects of the research included 406 rescuers of Jews, 126 non-rescuers, and 150 survivors. Rescuers had been raised nonviolently, with rare to no physical punishment, and with “close family relationships in which parents model caring behavior and communicate caring values” (p. 249).

Perry, B. D. (1997). “Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental factors in the ‘cycle of violence.’ In Osofsky, J. (Ed.). Children, youth and violence: The search for solutions. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 124-148.

Perry, a neurobiological researcher and psychiatrist who treats violently traumatized children, presents the evidence that children are malleable and adaptable, rather than resilient, and that violence affects the structure and functioning of the human brain. “The adolescents and adults responsible for community violence likely developed their emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physiological characteristics mediating these violent behaviors as a result of intrafamilial violence during childhood.”

Perry, B.D. (2001). Violence and childhood: How persistent fear can alter the developing    child’s brain. Retrieved June 22, 2008 from www.ChildTrauma.org.
   
Perry, B.D. (2002). The vortex of violence: How children adapt and survive in a violent world. Retrieved June 6, 2008 from www.ChildTrauma.org.

Perry examines the incubation of violence in the home and how that affects children’s neurodevelopment and behavior and gets reinforced socially and culturally.

Perry, B. D. & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook: What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love and healing. NY: Basic Books.

Written in Bruce Perry’s humane, insightful voice, this book narrates haunting, revealing case studies from the lead author’s clinical career. Accounts of mistakes he made, lessons he learned along the way, and advances in neurobiological understanding and therapeutic practice are interwoven with the unforgettable stories of the children with whom he worked.

Pilisuk, M. (1996). Caring as Social Inoculation. Presented at the plenary session on "Our System of Social Welfare Viewed Through the Prism of Human Rights," Aliki Coudreglou, Chair, American Orthopsychiatric Association, Annual Meeting, May, 1996, Boston, Mass.

The author, a social psychologist and peace psychologist, examines how structural violence in the era of corporate globalization can undermine individual intentions to provide nonviolently for the well-being of children. He affirms that “we know that mothering, parenting, healing, teaching, and housing people, and conserving clean environments are the real work that must be done.” Therefore, he calls for “a coalition of the caring.”

Prescott, J. W. (1975). Body pleasure and the origins of violence. The Futurist, April, 1975.

Prescott is a neuro-psychologist whose research indicated that deprivation of developmentally appropriate physical affection predisposes individuals and cultures to violence.

Schore, A. N. (2003). Affect regulation and the repair of the self. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company.

Drawing on numerous research studies, Schore develops a neurobiological model for how people who were wounded through early neglect and/or abuse can heal in a therapeutic relationship with an emotionally attuned and healthy therapist.

Schore, A. N. Early relational trauma, disorganized attachment, and the development of a predisposition to violence, pp. 107-167, in Solomon, M. F. & Siegel, D. J. (2003). Healing trauma: Attachment, mind, body, and brain. New York & London, W. W. Norton & Company.

Schore, one of the leading integral theorists of neurobiological
research, demonstrates how early traumatic abuse and neglect can
lead to disorganized attachment, and either the impulsive violence
associated with borderline personality disorders or the cold,
predatory violence associated with antisocial personality disorders.

Siegel, D. J. & Hartzell, M. (2004). Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive. New York: Tarcher/Penguin.

In addition to giving a basic orientation to attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology, this book, written collaboratively by a psychiatrist and an early childhood educator, provides parents with experiential exercises intended to help them to get in touch with and to regulate their own levels of emotional arousal in order to reduce the likelihood of their inflicting the pain of unresolved issues from their own childhoods onto their children.

Stephenson, J. (1998). Poisonous power: Childhood roots of tyranny. Diemer, Smith Publishing Co., Inc.

Stephenson, a psychologist, reviewed the literature about the lives of 14 modern tyrants. In each case, she found they had suffered repeated childhood humiliations from more than one source, that they were shame-based and insecure, that they grew up in violent, authoritarian families, that they had severe personality disorders and that their insatiable craving for power and ruthless violence were rooted in their unhealed childhood traumas and humiliations.

Sunderland, M. (2006). The science of parenting. London, NY, Munich, Melbourne, Delhi: DK Publishing, Inc.

In this beautifully illustrated, lucidly written, and highly accessible volume, Sunderland, a child psychotherapist in London, guides parents to a warm, nurturing, nonviolent approach to parenting, while supporting her recommendations with the latest information from neurobiological and attachment research.

Szalavitz, M. & Perry, B.D. (2010). Born for love: Why empathy is essential--and endangered. New York: William Morrow.

Building upon their first brilliant collaboration (see Perry & Szalavitz, 2006), the authors present more riveting case studies along with scientific findings that illuminate the parenting, socioeconomic, and cultural practices that support, or not, the development of the quintessential human capacities for empathy and love.

Teicher, M. H. (2002). Scars that won’t heal: The neurobiology of child abuse. Scientific American, March, 2002, pp. 68-75.

This neurobiological researcher demonstrates how “maltreatment at an early age can have enduring negative effects on a child’s brain development and function.”

van der Kolk, B. A. (2005). Developmental trauma disorder. Psychiatric Annals 35(5), May 2005, 401-408.

The author, a pediatric psychiatrist and trauma researcher, explains the importance of creating a safe relational context in which terrified children can learn new ways of responding to life’s challenges other than repeating their traumas unconsciously.

Wilkinson, S. L. (2003). A recipe for violence: Potent mix of brain chemistry, brain damage, genetics, and environment leads to aggression. Chemical & Engineering News 81 (22), June 2, 2003.

This article summarizes some research on four risk factors for violence, namely child abuse, lead toxicity, alcohol abuse, and accidental damage from trauma to specific areas of the brain.