The Angry Book

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those who are obvious despots (however benevolent). T h e former uses martrydom and guilt to bully and manipulate; the latter uses superior strength, cunning, and experience and sometimes blatant blasting (overt verbal sadism). Blatant blasting and martyred mothers are described a little later on. Bullies derive most of the energy necessary for their enterprise from their slush fund. At times they will manage to appear genuinely angry at a genuine hurt, indiscretion, or the like, but careful observation will demonstrate that their anger is synthetic and actually used as a vehicle for the main enterprise, which is to subjugate and to harass their victims. Bullies are particularly fearful people and as such have a long history of reluctance to feel or to express healthy anger. They are, therefore, guaranteed to have an almost inexhaustible slush fund to use for their bullying needs. Auto poison is not carbon monoxide. Auto poison is the very special but deadly stuff found throughout the world which chronic car-accident makers use to kill and maim other people and themselves. I feel very strongly that many automobile accidents are not accidental at all. T h e chronic auto killer may not be aware of any hostile intent, but his chronicity in this matter is evidence of unconscious intent. Slush is the fuel, the automobile is the weapon, and the results are only too obvious. Of course people who cause accidents may also suffer from a multiplicity of emotional difficulties, but the principal stuff of auto poison is perverted anger. How often we see a so-called nice, easy-going guy become omnipotently maniacal on the road. He is full of auto poison, and he is spewing it out all over the highway. On the road he is A free newsletter from Choosing Therapy for those interested in mental health issues and fighting the stigma. Get helpful tips and the latest information. Sign Up Freezing it is the total perversion. It combines the perversions I've already described with its own peculiar refinements. We can say that if there was an accurate w a y (and there isn't) to measure the degree of perverting anger, we would then know the degree of freezing it. T h e various preversions are not mutually exclusive. W e — a l l of us—combine putting it off, and putting it down, and so on. Some of us use one perversion more than another. Those of us with great angry problems will undoubtedly make much use of all the perversions. Our healthier confreres will pervert anger to a lesser degree. The particular combination of perversions (or the particular perversion we use most) will depend on our total personal histories and character structures. Of course, consciousness and unconsciousness regarding our difficulties with anger and our perverting of anger will also be on—and at best it had gross limitations. She ostensibly came to see me because of trouble with a daughter. Eventually she realized that her real trouble was with herself and her attitude toward all people. In time she became a much '"realer" person. As her slush saving account diminished, she became more self-assertive—with both her husband and her daughter. Relationships in the family improved all around because they were no longer dealing with mirror images and superficially sweet, pleasing shadows. Thus this patient began to deal with real people as the frustration of living incommunicado began to dissipate.

Mindfulness.com – Change your life by practicing mindfulness. In a few minutes a day, you can start developing mindfulness and meditation skills. Free TrialWhen your love life is boring, maybe you don't fight enough? When sex leaves a person cold, is frozen anger the problem? If you work too much, eat too much, drink too much, is it because you are afraid to get mad? Did you ever think of your anger as something constructive? that dam it up. Victims of these exaggerations or accumulations may transfer a lifelong rage at their mothers to their wives or husbands. Others may become terribly bitter and cynical and spend a lifetime splattering everyone and everything with a loosened fund of old slush. Still others turn their anger from its actual and appropriate direction to themselves and become full of selfhate and suffer serious depression. Some with extraordinary irrational belief splash the slush bank onto others to the point of delusion, fear, and paranoid ideas ("Others want to kill m e " ) . Of course, there are different degrees of putting it on as well as different degrees of inappropriateness. At times the victim will direct his selfhate to other people. At other times he will swear that other people hate him, here again projecting his self-hate. If the degree of selfhate and distortion is great enough, he may suffer from paranoid delusions—feeling that other people want to hurt or kill him. Most cases are not this severe but are still very destructive. In any case, the main intent, conscious or unconscious, is to shift anger to the least threatening person, thing, event, or situation. (Thus a man dissatisfied with his job may chronically find fault with the w a y his wife keeps their home.) This is an attempt to maintain his working ability. Of course failure always stalks on- Shakespeare is famous for coining the phrase: "all the world's a stage," and readers and audiences since his time who've read or watched his plays performed have taken that thinking into account. But for Shakespeare the phrase had more literal implications. While he was growing up, Shakespeare participated in a troupe of traveling performers: for them the world was literally a stage and their livelihoods depended on their performance. But they had them, and they denied having them. When sexual impulses and fantasies made ordinary denial impossible, they diverted these feelings to physiological areas that served as outlets as well as a form of anesthesia or denial. Thus some Victorian ladies suffered from paralysis of both legs for no physiological reason whatsoever. It was as if a self-imposed, unconscious hypnosis took place that saved them from sexual feelings or conflict. How could a lady who is paralyzed from the waist down have sexual feelings or worries? We don't see many of these "conversion hysterias" anymore. But people still occasionally develop conversion symptoms to avoid confrontation with anger. Of course they also develop all kinds of other symptoms, too, some of which we have already spoken about, such as anxiety and depression. I remember one woman with a paralysis of the right arm who constantly dreamed of stabbing her husband—with her right arm. She was completely unaware of feeling any anger toward him. She likewise denied any recognition of meaning in her dream even though the meaning was quite obvious. As a matter of fact, only months after treatment started did she remember having this repetitive dream. But not all escapes or denials of angry feelings are this obvious. I had a patient in treatment who was

Cornwall, towards the end of the 18th century. Ross Poldark sits for the borough of Truro as Member of Parliament – his time divided between London and Cornwall, his heart divided about his wife, Demelza. Dreams can be a form of poison. This is true for individuals whose sole angry outlet is dreams and who continually have dreams that are slushladen. Dreams are exceedingly complicated psychological manifestations, and their interpretation is a complex business. Many volumes have been written on the subject, and the last word is far from said. All psychoanalysts agree, however, that a dream can be meaningful only in the terms of the dreamer himself. This means that it is necessary to know the history of the dreamer and the particular and individual meaning of his particular symbols (the words and pictures that appear in his dreams). We must approach any kind of generalization or general symbol-meaning with great care. Every analyst, however, is aware that certain kinds of dreams appear again and again in people with

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bage that one hardly feels the knife as it slips between the ribs. I remember one woman who talked and talked and talked about all manner of things. In the middle of each verbal barrage, however, she always stealthily managed to twist the talk to the subject of husbands' deaths, widowhood, and insurance. She simply could not understand why her husband got irritated— even though he was still very much alive. Another kind of sneak speaker who may be relatively quiet most of the time is the individual who always manages to find the one flaw in a plan, painting, party, situation, ambition, and so on. He does this as a sneak expression of poison, but when confronted with his wetblanket effect, he will invariably tell you that he speaks as he does only for the sake of constructive truth. He will never admit his angry intent. How can he when he has a neurotic interest in not ever being angry, let alone sadistic? I call these sneaks the "but people." Here are some of their typical statements: "That dress is nice, but it would be nicer if you lost weight." "I love your apartment, but isn't it a little dark?" "That's a great idea you have, but do you think you are really up to it?" Of course they feel that others' anger at them Hedwig's manager, Phyllis Stein, as seen in the movie, is mentioned in the script, though she's since been dropped in the Broadway version. To four of my friends and colleagues: Jerome Fass, M.D. Bella Van Bark, M.D. Harvey Kaye, M.D. Bernard Spector, M.D, S. Dave Babbitt Speaking of Books If his observations are correct, the screamers among us are doing all right. But watch out for those cold and quiet cats.

complete turnabouts. I knew two grossly obese women who not only lost weight but eventually starved themselves to a severe underweight state of malnutrition. It took much treatment before they regained a semblance of "normal appetite." This is not really surprising when we realize that although upbringing and environment may be different in these people, the underlying causes of symptoms are often similar and even identical. The Angry Tide is the seventh novel in Winston Graham's hugely popular Poldark series, which has become a television phenomenon starring Aidan Turner. Psychiatrists call this poison "identification with the aggressor." In effect, people poisoned in this way tell themselves—unconsciously—that " I f you seem to be aggressive then I'm with you and I try to feel some satiation of my own aggressive needs vicariously through you." Here is another way of putting it: "I can't do it, so you do it for me. Neither you nor I will know that you are doing it for me. Your doing it will not involve the right people, the right time, or the right incidents, but maybe I'll derive some benefit anyway." Aggression identifiers are almost always people who five vicariously in other ways, too. T h e y usually steer clear of involvements, big interests, important decisions, and certainly anything that will produce emotional conflicts. These are strictly sideline people. They watch the game being played and they identify isn't he letting his listeners in on confidential, secret, and potentially destructive information? He is not only sharing great treasures with them but is also providing them with entertainment through stimulation and excitement. Isn't he giving them material to pique the imagination? For this he expects to be liked and admired. This puts him ( h e thinks) in a position of power and prestige. So he feels that he can have his cake and eat it, too. He has discovered the perfect comprehensive stratagem: just quietly slip into loose, easy talk and he can give vent to slush, be liked, and achieve social power. All these effects exist only in his own imagination. Gossip, much like envy and jealousy, exacts its corrosive toll on the easy talker and his relationships. People, especially healthy ones, do not exactly become endeared to gossips. Indeed, relationships with mature people are inevitably destroyed by easy talk. Children do in fact "receive" and "record" what goes on around them, and they learn. They learn by doing over and over again -- by repetition -- and this doing is often initiated by imitation. They also learn by identification with a parent or relative. They learn by experimenting and testing, that is, by doing and then observing parental response to their actions. Of course all this applies to emotions and how the parents emote and respond to the child's feelings, especially the feeling -- and expression -- of anger.Twisting It: The Assorted Poisons 133 and to reassure herself that I still liked her. This was a projection of her own self-rejection as an "angry person." It took many months before she could accept her anger—let alone its expression through other than multiple devious routes. Ross is one of literature's great heroes . . . [with] elements of Darcy, Heathcliff, Rhett Butler and Robin Hood

Response to a seemingly passive parent's unconscious aggressive needs can be subtle or blatant, minor or major. We have all seen mothers who visit someone's house—perhaps yours—and let a small child slowly but surely destroy whatever is in his reach with no effort to control him or with an effort so puny as to effect an endorsement of what he is doing. Unfortunately, not all cases are this trivial (however annoying). There are boys who will commit multiple antisocial aggressive acts (who have the most "peace-loving parents in the world"). As the chief psychiatrist of the Women's House of Detention, Department of Correction of New York City, I saw a considerable number of "sexual acter-outers " Occasionally a girl would come from a home where sex couldn't have been handled on a more Victorian level. Of course parents with enormous sexual repressions often also have strong unconscious needs to break out and to act out something, which children sometimes "do for them." For some people sexual acting-out or promiscuity and prostitution are intimately linked to aggressive needs and are a way of fighting authority. The authority in such cases may seem to be law or society or the Establishment, but the aggression may actually be displaced from the tyrannical, repressive, overrestrictive, constrictive, over-In this section I want to describe some general considerations as well as some of the beginnings or origins of angry troubles. One of the ways people cope with unpleasant confrontations is to avoid them. Sometimes when they can't avoid them, they simply deny their existence. This is also true of unwanted feelings and conflicts. Of course, this applies to anger and especially anger that will result in difficult conflict. Sometimes blatant confrontations with obvious truth makes denial very difficult. Denial is sometimes made possible by a variety of complicated psychological devices. Some of these psychological devices have a peculiar way of going in and out of style. When one considers that a particular time and a particular place produce cultural pressures characteristic of the time and place in question, one sees that this is not so peculiar after all. F o r example, in Victorian times ladies were not supposed to have "indecent" sexual feelings. In her various works, Karen Horney has brilliantly described the complicated role of selfhate. Its most important function is to keep its victim striving for impossible and "ideal" goals in quest of neurotic glory. E a c h failure to be gloriously ideal is met with self-hate, which in effect provides the whip to push the victim up the impossible trail again and again. In any case, the slush fund provides ample fuel to turn on oneself in the service of self-hate. Poisonous vehicles in the service of self-hate come in an almost endless variety of forms. Indeed, nearly all the poisons contain some element of selfhate. At this point, however, I want to mention a few miscellaneous poisons I've run into in practice which were obviously self-destructive. I say obviously only because it was obvious to me. More often than not, the patient had no denying. Since she herself uses guilt as a weapon, she is not about to use it on herself. Besides, the idea of hostility would destroy her image of perfect and ever-devoted motherhood. But even in her protest she is still consistently manipulative and hostile and still attempting to engender guilt. "Your mother who only lives for you" is an extremely hostile statement. In effect it says, "I give my life for you, therefore you owe me yours. Nothing you do for me is enough. You are in debt to me and can never pay off that debt. Remember, your own life is not your sole responsibility. You have to worry about mine also."