The Core Boundary: A Conceptual Analysis of Interspousal Violence from a Construct-Systems Perspective

A conceptual analysis is presented of anger and violence from the perspective of personal construct theory and systems theory. A beginning integration is made between concepts derived from both personal construct theory and systems theory. This leads to the recognition that anger can be defined as both a positive and negative emotion and violence is defined as the attempt to ward off or replace constructional emptiness with hostility constructs, leading to an inability or unwillingness to reconstrue core structure. The relationship between psychological distance (in terms of social control, social understanding) and violence is the major theoretical construct of the model.