Dirk Richter, PhD, nurse (with working experience in mental health) and sociologist, currently researcher and quality manager at Westphalian Hospital in Muenster, Germany, and associate professor ('Privatdozent') at the Institute of Sociology, University of Muenster. In German, Dirk Richter has authored and edited three books on violence in health care. He has co-authored a widely spread booklet on conflict management in psychiatric settings and has written several research papers and book chapters on the topic. Dirk Richter has also published in fields such as social psychiatry, evaluation and quality management, medical philosophy, nursing science, social theory and nationalism research. His last book on the sociology of mental disorders in the era of life sciences has been published in 2003(in German).