PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Forensic Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1690508
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Complex Interplay between Mental Health and Extreme Forms of Violence- A Critical PerspectiveView all articles
A#ective and Predatory Violence: From Evolutionary Adaptation to Psychiatric Morbidity
Provisionally accepted
- San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, San Diego, United States
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Nearly a century of mammalian research has supported the bimodal nature of violence. Predatory (instrumental) violence finds its evolutionary origins in hunting, while aDective (reactive, impulsive) violence originates in the need to defend against an imminent threat. Both modes of violence serve survival, and none of us would be here if our ancestors did not excel at both. The capacity for both aDective and predatory violence is neurobiologically atavistic, but contemporary society controls its expression through social learning, cultural guardrails and legal sanctions. Psychiatry and other mental health professions, however, often confront both aDective and predatory violence in the context of psychiatric and personality disorders; and specifically, in their roles as threat assessors or forensic evaluators. This perspective underscores the importance of discerning extremely violent events as either aDective or predatory, and details the criteria for doing so.
Keywords: Violence, affective violence, Predatory violence, Threat Assessment, Forensic examination
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 10 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Meloy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: J. Reid Meloy, San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, San Diego, United States
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