Various researchers indicate violence is not uncontrollable or inevitable. Rather, violence is learned and can also be unlearned. Conditions and causes that lead to violent behavior, however, are multifaceted and interactive and should be confronted at multidimensional levels. The authors discuss characteristics of violent youth that encompass internalizations, internal identities, violent world views, emotional characteristics (anger, sadness, depression, emotional frustrations, lack of empathy, and callousness), social characteristics (loners, belonging to an oppositional culture, honor and dignity, and power seeking), moral and spiritual characteristics (lack of moral conscience and spiritual emptiness), cognitive characteristics (cognitive development, paranoid thinking, negative thinking, low frustration tolerance, and irrational rationality), and behavioral characteristics (alcohol and substance abuse, involvement in risky behaviors, defiance, delinquency, destruction, and death). The authors then describe therapeutic intervention strategies in terms of counseling or therapeutic goals, emotional healing through catharsis, anger management, and the use of counseling and psychotherapy for empowerment. The counselor's role in violence prevention and in the establishment of therapeutic relationships is examined, and counseling techniques are noted that include reality therapy, emotive behavioral therapy, and gestalt therapy. 88 references