James Gilligan is an American psychiatrist and author, husband of Carol Gilligan and best known for his series of books entitled Violence, where he draws on 25 years of work in the American prison system to describe the motivation and causes behind violent behavior.

During his career, Gilligan has served as director for the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane, director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system and as president of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy.

[4] Previously, Gilligan was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, where he worked from 1966 to 2000.

[4] Gilligan was brought in as the medical director of the Massachusetts prison mental hospital in Bridgewater, Massachusetts because of the high suicide and murder rates within their prisons.

[5] Gilligan served as the psychiatric adviser to Martin Scorsese for the film, Shutter Island.