Hidden Aggression In Relationships

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Human life is impossible without aggression. Another thing is that some of the forms of aggressive behavior (for example, shouting, assault, etc.) can be frightening, and therefore they are suppressed from childhood, called bad and unacceptable. But few of the parents tell the child: to experience anger and express it in words, intonation, gestures - you can, but take a knife from the table and wave it - absolutely not. Usually, aggression is suppressed in full, even at the level of experience and awareness. "Calm down! Why screamed ?! Are you crazy?". And there is nothing to do but restrain yourself all the time so as not to feel ashamed of experiencing anger and irritation in front of a significant adult.

Then the adult person has no choice but to look for other ways for the manifestation of separation feelings - those that mark the autonomy, the separateness of the organism from all others, the presence of their own needs.

As a rule, the psyche is looking for these other ways unconsciously. It is unlikely that a person sits and thinks: “soooo, you can’t get angry, you can’t do anything like that, you need to be calm (otherwise everyone around will be unhappy), so I’ll try, for example, to promise something and not do it. And thus show them that I am a human being here too! " This is usually done automatically. No choice. For example, such a covertly aggressive person often likes to be late for meetings. Or tell one story about another, knowing that these stories will be unpleasant for him (or her). Or - as I already wrote - to promise something and not do it (and explain everything by the circumstances and your own helplessness). Such a person is unlikely to offer any compensation for the damage caused; rather, he will try to blame someone or something else for the situation, but not himself. "Well, you know, it happened …". After all, his sense of internal responsibility for his life is not regulated, just as the healthy ability to express aggression is not regulated - in clear forms, refusals, setting his own boundaries and respect for the boundaries of another. This function is poorly understood and practically does not work.

Messages that mark hidden aggression:

"I was late, it happened …"

"I promised, but other things appeared, Vanya called and said … and I had to …"

"If not for them, then I …"

"You understand, I can't …"

"You must understand that I am a bonded person …"

"Next time will be as you want"

"Okay already, stop being angry with me"

Closeness with a hidden-aggressive person

In a relationship with such a person, there is a great temptation to start controlling him, scolding him, teaching him how to deal with people, what is bad and what is good.”Well, look what you have done! How is it possible! That is, take a parental role in relation to him. Such a strategy, of course, can help for a while - a person who is afraid of disapproval, a hiddenly aggressive person will try to “calm down” another who is nervous and will temporarily be a “goody”. But as soon as everything calms down, latent-aggressive manipulations will begin again. And so - in a circle.

If you resist and do not take the parental role, you can act out the reciprocal anger in a mirror-like way - make “reciprocal bases”, be late for a longer time, promise and not fulfill something, and so on. To compete in every possible way, who will "make" whom more. The crown of such a relationship is “now on horseback, now under horseback”, “now you, now you”. Fatigue, exhaustion, constant hunger for closeness, calmness, trusting contact.

If you remain in an equal position in relation to such a person, you will have to withstand his hidden aggressive messages and all the time insist on compensation for illegal forms of breaking the borders. Perhaps it will become a tedious activity that will sooner or later get bored (after all, you will have to work hard to get at least something "edible" in a relationship) and want to increase the distance. Interest in interaction will decline.

Psychotherapy of the latent-aggressive client

In the process of psychotherapy of a latent-aggressive client, if one has applied, the main task is to restore a healthy function of manifestation of dental aggression, that is, one that helps to take something or achieve something (“gnaw”) in a relationship. The transition from manipulative forms of achieving the desired, to direct, legal forms. “I want this, but I don’t want this. I have the right to do so and do not experience toxic shame or guilt for my own uniqueness. Such a client needs the skill to reject and endure rejection, not overwhelmed with feelings of resentment or guilt, but experiencing confidence and, perhaps, some sadness or regret.

I am me and you are you.

I did not come into this world to live up to your expectations.

You did not come into this world to match mine.

If we meet, that's great.

If not, it cannot be helped.

F. Perls