Research in nonviolent approaches also has a role to play. Today’s research journals in general have been based on the behavioral research model. This adherence to antecedents, behaviors, and consequences has prevailed for over half a century. Libraries are filled with this type of research and the effects have been slight and short-lived.

We need to evolve a new research thrust based on successful stories related to nonviolent approaches, the key role of the caregiver and the caring community, the role of motivation instead of consequences, and, most importantly, the nature of the inner world of human beings and moral development. Research also needs to re-orient itself in the area of mental illness recognizing the value of appropriate diagnoses and analyzing them from the perspective of how psychiatric symptoms make it harder to teach a person to feel safe and loved, but also how this makes it more important. Research should also focus on the positive role of medications if based on actual symptoms and utilized as an entrée for teaching a person to feel safe and loved rather than the current non-diagnostic approach and the attitude of just drug them until whatever behavior disappears in the dark and heavy cloud of drugs. This is not an anti-drug statement; it is an anti-snow-them statement. It also points out the dire need for psychiatry to base medications on real diagnoses as opposed to behavioral control.