The stages of developmental violence of a usually non-violent individual:

1) Quiescence: The person feels in harmony with other people prior to a painful intrusion in his life.

2) Intrusion: An outrage is done to him or to someone important to him.

3) Injustice: He experiences the act/event as unfair/unjust.

4) Anomie: He experiences a startling upheaval in his sense of trust and confidence in the social order.

5) Shame: He feels considerable shame and humiliation for having been a victim, or a helpless observer.

6) Inarticulateness: He is unable to express his feelings of hurt and unfairness/injustice.

7) Self-contempt: He feels self-contempt for how he dealt with the outrage.

8) Panic: His feelings of self-contempt are intolerable; he undergoes strong autonomous nervous system reactions of panic, fear, confusion, and intense anger.

9) Contemptuousness: Feelings of rage are directed at those who are held responsible for the outrage and/or those who did nothing to stop it.

10) Rationalization: Because acting contemptuously is not a customary way of behaving, he needs to justify his angry impulses.

11) Dehumanization: Justifying his contempt makes it possible to dehumanize temporarily those he holds responsible or unhelpful.

12) Numbing: Dehumanizing the victim (s) allows him to become indifferent about his actions toward the victim (s); the transformation of consciousness he incurs is similar to that which a butcher might assume in cutting up the carcass of an animal.

13) Attack: Violence is directed at the victim (s).

14) Agitation: Following the attack, the perpetrator feels shame, regret, and remorse.

The stages of developmental violence of a usually violent individual:

1) Shame: Chronic feelings of shame and humiliation have been turned into self-contempt.

2) Inarticulateness: The person who will commit the violent act has difficulty expressing his shameful hurt verbally.

3) Agitation: The self-contempt has been turned into intense contemptuousness, and he is restless and excitable.

4) Excitement: He feels energized as he searches for opportunities to express his contempt.

5) Frenzy: He experiences a heightened excitement in finding a vulnerable victim. This is often a person who reminds him of his own shame and hurt.

6) Attack: He violates his victim with minimal deliberation.

7) Quiescence: The perpetrator feels serene and superior to his victim (s).

Goldberg, Carl. Speaking With the Devil: Exploring Senseless Acts of Evil. New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc., 1996.