Interview by Gila Hayes
Self defense aims to stop victimization before an attack can start. Although widely endorsed, little training is given in verbal deflection, de-escalation and deterrence. Mental health clinician and self-defense instructor William Aprill of New Orleans, LA, has contributed much to our understanding of avoiding and interrupting violence and he provides a bridge between armed citizens and mental health professionals, two communities that often fail to recognize the value of the other.
Aprill describes himself as having a foot in both worlds, commenting, “Both think that their side of the fence is terribly important, and they both overestimate their ability to opt out of the effects of the other. I can’t tell you how many times I have worked with mental health professionals, even those who work with violent offenders, who don’t really think anything bad, particularly violence, is ever going to happen to them. That just strikes me as bizarre. At the same time, I run into armed citizens who don’t really think that mental health is ever going to really impact their world one way or another. They think that they’re squared away on the gun and on the self defense side of things and that is all they really need to think about,” he told me recently.
Psychology-of-deterring-attackers-part-1 an Interview with William Aprill
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