When Anger is Healthy and When it is Not
Human beings possess the capacity to feel the emotions of joy, sadness, anger, fear, guilt, disgust, and shame (the belief that we are deficient, not liked or loved, or that we are a burden or harmful to others). Anger, as with the other emotions, is the “umbrella” emotion and its many forms including frustration, irritation, resentment, contempt, exasperation and rage are subsumed under. For the purposes of this article, I will use the umbrella “Anger.”
Anger is a unique emotion in that there is never an instance of this emotion that is not derivative of and driven by a primary emotion(s). The most common primary emotions that drive anger are shame, fear, and guilt (both healthy and unhealthy– see below). However, any feeling (i.e., sadness) that we are unaware of, is too painful to feel, or have learned in our development is not acceptable to feel and express can drive anger.
I refer to healthy anger as Protective Anger. Protective Anger is an adaptive and necessary part of our existence that is needed to respond to an environmental threat. The primary emotion that drives Protective Anger is fear. Protective Anger will range in intensity from assertiveness to rage. The following are examples of external threats: (harmful) neglect or marginalization, verbal abuse, manipulation, intrusion, libel or slander, betrayal, bullying, and physically harm. Past harm or trauma will also leave us vulnerable to Protective Anger ( i.e., Post-traumatic stress disorder). Without the integration of healthy anger as part of our emotional range we are completely vulnerable to the environmental threats delineated above.
The expression of Protective Anger can become forbidden or dangerous, most commonly early in our development, in a number of ways. Its expression can be bound by the belief that we are being selfish for prioritizing the need to protect ourselves. Anger suppression can result from parental conditional love, “I will lose my attachment to my parent (later others) if I do not behave as they want me to.” Very often this requirement involves the elimination of Protective Anger. The expression of healthy anger can also be bound by fear of arousing escalated retaliatory (defensive) anger often on the part of a parent. Finally, Protective Anger can be suppressed by the belief that its expression, at any level, will harm or shatter others, resulting in our experiencing guilt.
When the danger of expressing Protective Anger occurs early in life unconscious repression and a dislocation of the feeling itself can result to the point that we unaware that it exists within us.
The ongoing suppression or repression of Protective Anger will lead to a stock piling of injustices and injuries throughout our life. This can leave us vulnerable to a “last straw” anger explosion. Unfortunately, the disproportionate nature of this anger explosion is followed by guilt and shame and serves only to affirm the unacceptability of anger at any level. This experience results in the further suppression of healthy anger expression and the toxic cycle becomes more entrenched.
I refer to unhealthy anger as Defensive Anger as it is based on an internal threat as opposed to an environmental threat. In the case of Defensive Anger, the threat are also painful primary feelings (i.e., shame, guilt, sadness, and fear) that have been suppressed or are unconsciously impacting us. The fear that drives Defensive Anger is the fear of feeling painful and immobilizing feelings and unwanted thoughts (i.e., a longing for intimacy or sexual needs and impulses). These primary emotions and corresponding thoughts are dangerous when they leave us feeling vulnerable and powerless. As a result they are automatically skipped over and we move reflexively into Defensive Anger to reconstitute a sense of personal power.
Defensive Anger has no constructive value. This type of anger usually has its beginnings early in life when, as a result of unmet psychological needs and emotional injury, our self-cohesion does not adequately solidify. An unstable self-cohesion leads to the need for defensive maneuvers including Defensive Anger. The modeling of Defensive Anger (i.e., by a parent) can also reinforce the use of this defensive maneuver.
Unfortunately, for some people Defensive Anger is alluring in the form of sarcasm, rage or grandiosity. These expressions are more attractive because they are safer than feeling the vulnerability of shame, guilt, fear, or sadness. Grandiosity (pretentiousness, pompousness, and a bigger than life stance), in particular, can also be alluring and attractive to those who witness it. Dramatic examples of grandiose power and Defensive Anger are seen in cult leaders or demagogues (Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini) and countless gripping villains in film and television. As human beings evolve, however, we are beginning to see through the brittle nature of Defensive Anger. We are understanding that true strength resides in our recognizing and embracing our vulnerability and, when appropriate, expressing it.
Driving in traffic offers a good example of the presence of both Protective and/or Defensive Anger. If another driver’s behavior poses the threat of an accident that could result in damage to our car, bodily harm, or death, the anger that springs forward will naturally be intense Protective Anger stemming from the feared external consequences.
If the other driver’s behavior does not pose a threat of physical harm, damage to our car or true psychological harm, such as a discourteous or rude driver who tailgates, comes into our lane without adequate distance or does not signal, most people will feel some level of Defensive Anger ranging from irritation to intense anger. The level of emotional response or reactivity will be connected to the internal threat, namely the tenuousness of our self-cohesion, associated painful primary feelings and/or what has been modeled for us. The primary feeling driving the anger in this example is diminishment (shame) as our physical presence and space on the road is being ignored by someone who seemingly has little consideration for us.
The first step in the treatment of anger problems is to parse out Protective and Defensive Anger. This can be complicated as what may qualify as Defensive Anger as an adult was often Protective Anger as a child. When we are very young there is no separation between internally and externally generated feelings. Also, at very early stages in life, intense feelings will be experienced as a global threat to our self-cohesion and even our psychological existence.
In the case of suppressed Protective Anger, that has or can lead to a last straw explosion, treatment needs to provide a safe relationship where the backlog of injustices can be illuminated and emotionally expressed in a paced and safe manner allowing for successful emotional integration. When we are in a state of healthy integration there is less chance of emotions coming forth in a an overly reactive, unpredictable and rogue like fashion. Thus, emotions that are integrated, by nature, will be expressed in a way that is proportional to the context and level of the threat.
The psychotherapeutic work with Defensive Anger is altogether different. Treatment needs to provide a safe environment for individuals to recognize, feel, tolerate, and integrate the experience of shame and diminishment, fear, or any primary emotion that feels threatening, has been forbidden, and may be out of our awareness. We learn within the therapy relationship that we can tolerate these feelings and that they will not fragment us as they may have at one point in time. As a result, our self-cohesion becomes stronger.
As stated above, vulnerable feelings are not only inescapable in human existence but they are also, paradoxically our source of self-support and strength. When we embrace these feelings we are fully congruent and most grounded within ourselves. One of my mentors captured this when he authored the simple and elegant theory of personal growth entitled the Paradoxical Theory of Change: “We grow not by trying to be something we are not but through accepting who we are,” including our feeling states at each moment, however painful they may be.
Copyright © 2022 Bruce A. Howard, Ph.D. All rights reserved.