More Anger

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

Recently I watched a nephew, an intelligent and talented boy, chopping wood. It seems that he had more feelings for wood than was needed to divide the tree into parts. What caught my eye was that the longer he chopped, the more heated it became. Although, it would seem, should be tired and exhausted.

In gestalt therapy, two types of aggression are distinguished: the first is to take, the second is to reject. When we want something, we need to make a conditionally aggressive action with respect to the environment. At least, reach out and take it. To lean out, to take a step forward, to say loudly “I want” is also aggression.

Also, when the boundary of personality is violated, it is worth showing that this cannot be done and there is no need to go further. Say "Stop" and be heard. The latter is important, not all people hear equally well.

In children, “take” and “refuse” actions occur naturally. And if you haven’t noticed that he or she no longer wants this healthy soup, then the next thing you collect it all over the kitchen is your personal problem. Yes, they do not know how to choose a shape, but they will soon learn. It will fit your needs.

Aggression itself is neither good nor bad, although it is customarily referred to as "negative" emotions. I am opposed to defining emotions in terms of positive and negative. Each has its own functions and appropriate placement.

You can hit the wall painfully, shout into the pillow, listen to cool music and feel like a kind of fashionable pepper, but the next morning, tighten your tie again and go to listen to nasty things from the chef. The free flow of aggression is confused with diffuse discharge. The latter does not help to achieve the goal pursued by aggression, i.e. change the environment in accordance with internal needs. This is how they release tension and support the myth.

I noticed this effect: when a person did not respond to aggression in time, such a guilty fantasy unfolds inside him, he comes up with dozens of answer options and himself does not notice how he is building a dizzying plan of revenge. Although, take the risk and answer equivalently, later, these thoughts would not bother him. In such situations, people are often faced with the fact that they did not orientate themselves, missed and did not find a worthy answer in time. Not all eloquence stars. They wrap the aggression inward and twist it there to the point of exhaustion.

This action is called the general concept of "retroflection". We assume that the feeling is targeted, i.e. arises in connection with someone and belongs to a specific interaction. In the case of retroflection, this feeling is not placed in the interaction. A person leaves it in himself and it lives there, like a fly in a closed jar. Those who believe in psychosomatics take it out, including from here. I am attentive to people's faces. I note how a certain emotion turns into a mask that is constantly on the face. Whatever it is, at a moment in time, it does not express. There is resentment, sadness, anger, disgust. This fly is very tenacious.

I have met not many people whose aggression is harmoniously woven into the structure of the personality. Approaching them, it is instinctively clear what is possible and what exactly is not. Usually, they look holistic and respectful.

Yes, there are those who naturally learned to manage this feeling. Practice shows that not everyone is able to do this. But this can be learned. It is worth learning.

Most have a bend to one side or the other. In my experience, it is more often to skip aside and have difficulty in manifesting. It turns out that people don't know how to shout. At all. So that for all and from the heart.

I think many of my colleagues and myself have done such a psychological experiment: the therapist slowly approaches the client, the client's task is to say "Stop" when it gets too much. In extreme cases, the therapist literally takes the client by the throat and he or she remains silent. Such a radical absence of a border causes horror and, oddly enough, a desire to harm.

Like many others, I am mastering this feeling. To me it looks like such a switch. Here I notice an aggressive attack, note my own dissatisfaction, then I take it and press ON.

It is not always pleasant, it is often difficult. But as a result, it brings a sense of satisfaction. It is important for others to broadcast their own ability to respond.

Two thoughts may be helpful here.

The first one is "back up". Yes, I missed it, didn't get my bearings and got hurt. You can return to this place and identify yourself. Anyone can take a step back and restore the border. It actually makes it easier. But here you have to be ready to defend it.

If you can't respond spontaneously, it's worth trying to take a step back. It helps to establish contact with this feeling, i.e. to understand how it looks like for you. As a result, there will be more spontaneity.

And the second thought is that you don't have to answer right away. You can take as much time as necessary to weigh and answer according to yourself and the circumstances. Better visible from a distance. This opportunity is almost always there.

I think aggression is an emotion that is not useful to express completely spontaneously. She has a tendency to aggravate from irritation, through anger and to rage. It flares up very quickly. As an experiment or in a special, reasonably safe environment, yes. In everyday life, it is more useful to choose a shape. Those. weigh the strength of the feelings and circumstances that have arisen. For this, it would be nice to distinguish it even in the phase of irritation. In a rage, opportunities to assess circumstances tend to zero.

Although the main names for aggression are listed above, it is also clearly expressed in other experiences: competition, excitement, jealousy, envy, sarcasm. Here aggression is an important component, but supplemented by other basic emotions. It’s sad to deprive yourself of such a range of experiences, just on the basis that “being angry is bad”.

Often times, anger is the feeling that helps you get out of a dead end, destructive relationship, or desperate circumstances. I'm not about spitting and screaming. It helps you feel your own strength and stability. As a last resort, it helps to keep floundering. And even if sometimes these flounders are unsystematic and multidirectional. The likelihood that they will give a result is higher than in the case of inactivity or freezing. It helps make decisions that are more frightening the more important. It is important for the world to see our striving, and if it is persistent, it responds. However, often in unexpected ways.

And yes, aggression is combined with good breeding. For some reason, we are used to thinking that a well-mannered person is not angry, steadfastly, and most importantly quietly, takes the blows of fate. More precisely, it is clear why - we have been sold this for generations. But I think that even standing in line for ballet and being in an airy mood, it is useful to respond to insolence. With experience, it will be easier to return to the airy mood.

When in 1966, while reading out a 7-year prison sentence for anti-Soviet propaganda, Andrei Sinyavsky was asked what his disagreements with the Soviet regime were, he replied: "Purely aesthetic."

Aggression helps to preserve self-esteem, and not to pull your head into your shoulders, guiltily glancing at one another in the crowd, against the background of a boor who is playing.