Obsessional anger

 


OBSESSIONAL ANGER

Some people have a tendency to be so angry that it keeps them awake at night. It frightens other people and may ruin relationships, and even land one in jail if the anger leads to violence. Many assault cases and murders are fuelled by it.

Can something be done about this? Yes, psychoanalysis can be very effective in relieving you of your obsession. More effective even than group anger management sessions. But it takes work. It is of course true that we are born with an agressive instinct or drive – sometimes referred to as a part of our shadow-side, or of our death instinct – but knowing that will not really ease your toxic anger.

Obsesional people are like powder kegs waiting to explode. It may also, but not necessarily always, lead to depression when your anger is suppressed and directed inward.

Let me repeat, can something be done about this?

Most definitely it can. To guide you in the right direction I'll quote from an essay by Freud:

"A careful analysis shows that the emotional state, as such, is always justified. The emotional state persists indefinitely, but the associated idea is no longer the appropriate original one related to the aetiology of the obsession [which has been repressed and is therefore unconscious], but now is a different one which replaces it, and therefore is a substitute for the original one. The proof thereof is the fact that we can always find the real cause in the history of the sufferer, i.e. at the beginning of the obsession, which is the original idea that was later replaced." SE III: 75.

A few words have been added by me to make Strachey's translation of Freud's German somewhat easier to grasp. At that stage in his career Freud incidentally still thought that the original event may have been of a sexual nature, as it sometimes still is when a girl has been molested, but both Freud and modern analysts later on realised that there may also have been other events during which the victim was wronged and felt helpless. It usually occurs in a family environment, but in some instances it might for example have been caused by a school bully.

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