Tuesday, January 18, 2011

THE ANGER DYNAMIC

Emotional health is based on emotional awareness. Emotion that is denied or suppressed causes people to act out their emotions or store them in their body. Emotions that are recognized tell us vital information about our connections to others, especially whether the relationship is in or out of balance.

Anger is universally the most difficult emotion to feel. Aristotle was the first to bring this to people's attention many years ago. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he issued Aristotle's Challenge: "Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not easy". Aristotle implies that anger is universally hidden from ourselves, and that people can easily flood with anger, resulting in hurt feelings and ruined relationships. Even worse, the person who explodes ends up feeling guilt and shame about their behavior and becomes even more determined to deny their anger. In short, all people are scared of their anger.

This makes perfect sense when you think about the dependency of the small child on their parent. Anger threatens the bond and is accompanied by a fear of rejection and abandonment if the parent disapproves. We all learn to suppress our anger to please our parents.

Some children do not have the option to please the parent. In some cases, due to personality clashes with a parent and/or life circumstances, a child who has no way to fit in with the family becomes the voice of anger in the family, and experiences much rejection as a result. The child becomes the scapegoat to hide the parent's weaknesses or the unresolved problems in the marriage. I call these children, "prophet children". They give voice to the truth in the family. Their anger exists because the parental problem, whether it be favoritism, denial, or marital issues, continues to exist throughout the life of the family.

This is not just past experience. It is very present in the continued relationships as adults. As grown adult children with spouses and children of their own, life experiences provide opportunities to face their own anger. Those realizations create pressure to bond with the truth expressed by the adult prophet child, or attempt to silence the sibling in order to continue the protection of the parent.

I call this process, the Anger Dynamic. Adult children break into factions based on those who protect the parents and those who challenge the parents. Those who protect are required to suppress their own anger at the truth about the damage caused to all by the parent's emotional limitations. The need to suppress their anger makes them carry that denial into all their relationships, leading to emotional issues in their marriages and own families. The prophet children suffer in a different way. They feel like outcasts in their own family, and may live a life of isolation and depression.

Emotionally healthy people join in the Anger Dynamic and face the truth about the good and bad in their parents and family in an open and honest way. Emotionally unhealthy families break into factions that separate relatives for generations to come.


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