Chapter 5: Violence and anger

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HealthWiki > Promoting Community Mental Health > Chapter 5: Violence and anger

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In this chapter:

 

In this chapter:

• Chapter 5: Violence and anger
• Gun violence
• Gender-based violence
• Violence in families
• Structural violence: Violence built in to our social systems
• Restorative justice to repair harm
• Anger

Promoting community mental health often includes dealing with violence, both violence happening now and historical violence. Whether experienced directly or indirectly, individually or as a community, violence not only causes physical harm but can cause fear, anxiety, and trauma as well as affect the social and political conditions that influence health, including housing, education, and work. This has led many community groups to make violence prevention and undoing the effects of violence central to their organizing for social change.

Anger is a strong emotion we all have. Anger can be triggered by violence or lead to violence. Anger can also be a response to social injustice and lead to social change. When anger is not channeled into an effective response, it can be expressed in ways that harm ourselves and other people. Learning how to pay attention to and transform anger can help all of us, especially children, to develop ways to understand, talk about, and respond to strong feelings without becoming violent. That ability is a central part of mental health and well-being, both for individuals and for communities.

This chapter describes strategies developed by groups to deal with and respond to different kinds of violence and important examples of community efforts to address violence prevention.

This page was updated:18 Apr 2025