As part of the ‘Nghidu Kelma’ series, a workshop was held on ‘Għax niġi u nifqak – Working with Violence’. In 1992, Tosh stated that all humans have reservoirs of destructiveness, but for the large majority, society and civilisation equips them with discharging their anger and aggression in socially acceptable ways. Tosh elaborated that in a minority society fails with their aggression turning into consistent violence upon the slight whim of provocation – these aggressive children develop into aggressive adults and have aggressive offspring.
This workshop reflected on how much this citation is relevant to the Maltese society. Furthermore, during the workshop it was explored the issue of violence and aggression by delving into the aetiology and the psychological explanations of this behaviour and its links with anger. It also focused on the best practice in terms of assessing this problem behaviour and suggested psychological interventions. The main speaker during this workshop was Dr. Kevin Sammut Henwood who in his studies specialized in forensic psychology and in the psychological treatment of violence and anger dysfunction amongst offender population.