About Anger: Adequate And Inappropriate Situations

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

Anger (like joy) is a warming, expanding emotion that creates a movement of energy from the center to the periphery of the body. Anger gives strength, prepares the body for action. Unlike, for example, sadness, in which there is no place for activity.

Anger can be adequate to the situation, i.e. fulfilling its natural function to solve the problem, but sometimes it is inadequate, i.e. not contributing to the solution of the problem or even making it difficult to solve it. There is also anger as resistance in therapy.

Adequate anger

Anger as a response to border violations. Mobilizes forces to defend borders.

Anger as a response to the inability to satisfy a need. Mobilizes forces to overcome obstacles and achieve goals.

However, in the modern world, both the violation of boundaries and the obstacles encountered less often require an active physical response than was the case in the animal kingdom. For example, if the computer "freezes", to overcome this obstacle it will not be enough to jump high, run quickly, or hit forcefully (except with a tambourine).

And the task of a person in the modern world is to learn how to direct the energy of anger towards solving a problem in a new way, not only physically, but also intellectually. Something does not work out - we "arm ourselves" with the strength and energy that anger gives, and we go to solve the issue in a "modern way" - to carefully investigate the situation and come up with our own solution, look for answers on the Internet, read the instructions, call friends for help, etc. …

It happens, of course, when you just need to use physical strength, for example, went to the nearest store, and it is closed, you need to make an effort and walk to the next store.

If there was no anger, but there was, for example, sadness, then one could have died of melancholy near a frozen computer or a closed store.

Likewise with border protection. In the modern world, it is not customary to bite, throw stones and hit right in the jaw (unless this is a meeting with hooligans in a dark alley). But on the energy of anger with the use of intelligence, a decent verbal response can be found to stop the actions of a boundary violator.

And in this case, it is also important that the anger be reflected in the body - under the influence of anger, the body seems to expand, and the person looks "more frightening", that is, more confident, decisive, his words sound more impressive.

Again, if sadness came in response to border violations, there would be an increased risk of being trampled alive or exhausted by verbal attacks from immediate family members.

Anger as one of the stages of separation or ending a relationship, living a loss. Mobilizes forces to end relationships or their transition to another quality.

At certain age periods, the child becomes qualitatively more mature, after which his connection with his parents must move to another level, transform. Breaking free from parenting is not easy. And because the parents do not want to accept the growing up of the child, his increasing independence and the change in connection with him. And because a child can be good in tenderness and care. But the tasks of growing up and transition to another stage of development still face a person. Anger helps to weaken the connection, make a leap and take a new place in the family - according to your age and level of development.

Also, anger is one of the phases of experiencing loss. As in the case of the death of someone close, and in the case of the end of a relationship, for example, with a lover. Anger again helps to weaken the connection, make a leap and end the relationship, "let go" of the person.

Inappropriate anger

Substitute feeling. This happens not only with anger, but also with other feelings. If some feeling is "forbidden" or repressed, then another "comes" in its place. For example, if sadness is prohibited, then the person may experience anger instead of sadness. Let's say a close friend leaves, it's sad, but a person feels anger instead of sadness.

Learned reaction. This also happens not only with anger, but also with other feelings. The person adopts a non-functional response pattern from the family system. For example, the father in some situation was angry, and the son is angry simply "by inheritance", although he himself does not know what he is angry about.

Feeling taken over. The person feels for someone from the family system. Often - a child for a parent. For example, a mother is angry with her husband or mother-in-law, but suppresses this feeling in herself, and the child realizes it.

Feeling from a different situation. Sometimes anger is inadequate to the situation. By quantity, i.e. much stronger, out of proportion to what happened. For example, someone pushed in the subway, and already wants to kill this person. Or in terms of quality, i.e. in general, the reaction is not relevant to the situation. For example, the wife asked - "How are you?" and the husband is furious.

Perhaps the person was already angry, but he held it back, and then reacted to an insignificant event with all the accumulated wave of anger.

And it is possible that the feeling rises from some other situation, an early childhood traumatic, and it is directed at another person, at a person "from the past." The husband reacts to an innocent question from his wife with anger, because he sees in her a mother or grandmother, who pestered her with hyper-care.

Incomplete separation. Permanent anger at the parents can be, if the separation has not been completed. Those. here the child got angry at the age of 3, so that he was given the opportunity to tie his shoelaces, but he was not given, let alone 30, or even 50. He has been angry since then. And his mother ties all the laces and ties him.

Anger was activated in accordance with the situation, but could not fulfill its function, external circumstances turned out to be stronger. The function request is still pending. Anger is activated again. And again, unsuccessful. And so on until the end of time. Or until a successful separation.

This type of anger can be attributed to adequate. But the situation itself is unhealthy, unfortunately. And anger, turning into chronic, already overlaps the very task that he was called upon to solve.

Anger as a reaction to the behavior of another person in the style of the Victim. The victim attracts the Aggressors and Rescuers to himself and evokes anger or pity as an emotional reaction. One could consider such anger to be adequate, but the emotional reaction to the Victim (both anger and pity) is the entrance to Karpman's dramatic triangle (Victim-Aggressor-Rescuer) and the development of manipulative games.

Anger as resistance in therapy

When it comes to something important and painful in therapy, the person (client) begins to get irritated, angry, protecting himself from touching this painful one. Also, a person can, through anger, aggression, resist changes that are already on the way.

This anger can be handled in many ways. You can dig in it. And it can be used as a mobilization of forces for a breakthrough.

But the client may also be angry with the therapist and on the case - for violating the client's boundaries by the therapist.

A frame from the movie "Puzzle" (2015) was used as an image.