Written by a multidisciplinary team of experienced clinicians, this chapter provides the reader with an initial outline of some of the complex psychological mechanisms which underlie or can give rise to violence, such as trauma, problems with attachment and failure to develop a capacity to mentalise, as well as pointers for a wider review of the literature. This is followed by an overview of the range of current evidence-based psychological interventions and therapies available for the prevention and management of violence. Importantly, whilst their approach may differ, they all make use of the therapeutic relationship as an agent for change. The interventions include anger management, positive behavioural support, mentalisation-based techniques, application of a psychoanalytic perspective, family or systemic therapy, help with work experience, education and addressing substance misuse. This chapter will be of interest to professionals in a variety of settings who would like to find out more about how they can make sense of and try to prevent and reduce violence, as well as to patients, carers and the wider public.

The chapter evaluates theories of anxiety and coping to consider models that may be appropriate for shedding light on the essence of anxiety and the nature of coping in the adult dyslexic student. Therefore, broad categories of anxiety, including psychoanalytic (Freud, 1941; Sullivan, 1953); learning/behavioural (Dollard & Miller, 1950; Mowrer, 1963); physiological (Gray, 1982, 1987; Panksepp,1982); cognitive (Eysenk, 1990; Ohman, 1993) and uncertainty (Mandler, 1984), are discussed as ways of understanding anxiety, before drilling down to look more specifically at models of academic anxiety that may be of relevance to dyslexic university student anxiety. This includes evaluating general academic anxiety, broken down into models of test anxiety (Chapell et al., 2005), performance anxiety (Nicholson, Cody & Beck, 2015) and social anxiety (Topham, Moller & Davis, 2014). In terms of understanding theories of coping, Folkman and Lazarus’s (1984) transactional model of stress and coping is critiqued as having limitations for specifying the complex relationship between negative emotion and types of coping used by adult students with dyslexia. A more useful framework for understanding dyslexic students’ coping responses is proposed by looking at Skinner, Edge, Altman and Sherwood’s (2003) formulation of thirteen higher-order categories of coping.

In this commentary, the author highlights the contributions from Fonagy and colleagues in their chapter on contemporary psychodynamic treatments. Chief among these contributions are balance between a rich and nuanced historical presentation of the major traditions within the psychodynamic perspective and a focus on contemporary psychodynamic treatments such as Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT) and Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP). Additionally, building on recent findings regarding the equivalence of outcomes for various treatments irrespective of theoretical orientation, Fonagy and colleagues articulate an interesting, timely, and integrative model of personality disorder that is consistent with and integrative of a psychodynamic approach. In an effort to highlight and elaborate the work of Fonagy and colleagues, the author of this commentary focuses on the unique contributions and utility of a psychodynamic approach.