Healthy aggression

Published 09.01.2024 | By Йосиф

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it

Aggression is a concept that is interpreted unambiguously in our culture: destructive behavior that causes physical and moral damage to people. Aggressive — angry, inadequate, stupid, dangerous to others. Is it so? Is it possible to reduce aggression to only one value? From the point of view of psychology, no. And aggression is not evil. Or rather, not always evil.

Aggression as a property of the psyche has been well studied in Gestalt therapy. This is a direction in psychological counseling created by the German psychotherapist Fritz Perls in the middle of the XX century in the USA. The focus of the Gestalt therapist is on the person, his contact with himself and the world around him to meet his needs.

The task of a gestalt therapist is to help the client recognize his true desires, protective mechanisms that interfere with healthy contact with the world. Aggression is understood as a key resource for improving the client’s life. This is an impulse from within a person to the outside world, and it includes not only behavior in a conflict situation, but also sex, eating food, scientific discoveries, and so on.

An unusual look. In today’s conformist society, aggression is suppressed in most cases. This leads to passive-aggressive behavior and misunderstandings in human relationships. There is another extreme — an inadequate, unlimited expression of aggression, when a person constantly enters into conflicts and is generally unable to hear others.

Discourse talked with Evgeny Veritov, a practicing gestalt therapist, founder of the popular science publication on psychology MANGO Project, about psychological problems associated with aggression and how to learn how to use this valuable resource.

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it

— What is aggression from the point of view of the Gestalt approach?

In general, aggression in gestalt refers to our energy, an impulse that is directed to the outside world so that we can satisfy our needs.

We mobilize the resources of aggression in order to defend our borders from the influences of the outside world or, conversely, to violate someone else’s. The concept of aggression is often confused with various feelings, such as anger. But do not put an equal sign between them. Anger is a particular example of the content of aggression, and far from the only one.

Imagine a mother who forcibly wraps her child in warm clothes at a very positive temperature. He’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t want to and he doesn’t need it. But mom does it anyway, being sure that she cares. Although in fact it violates someone else’s border.

Therefore, if we summarize, aggression is just an impulse to the outside, with which we defend our space or change someone else’s. There is no negative meaning in this concept initially. Moreover, there may be even more positive meaning in it. A person who does not know how to show aggression will be significantly less satisfied in life than one who does. At least because the first one does not know how to defend his interests and needs, and the second one does.

— What kind of problems in the field of aggression do people mostly come to you with? Is it an inability to express oneself, to defend boundaries, or vice versa — inappropriate behavior?

I will speak only for my practice: I meet people much more often whose problem is precisely lack of aggressiveness.

These are people who find it difficult to get into a confrontation with someone – with relatives, superiors, acquaintances. For those who find it difficult to evaluate themselves positively, for example. Adequate self-esteem also requires aggression. If I think I’m cool and I’m not shy about admitting it, then I may find myself in a conflict situation. There is always a risk that someone may try to challenge my attitude towards myself, and it will have to be defended. And this also requires the ability to show aggression.

People often come who are afraid of being uncomfortable and make some decisions to their detriment. There were significantly fewer people who were overly aggressive in my experience.

— Tell me how to help a person manage aggression? What do you help clients realize, how do you guide them through the changes?

It all depends on the specific situation. But in general, I help the client notice his own feelings: resentment, anger, annoyance, irritation. Because if a person is forbidden to have any feelings from childhood, then he will still experience them, but it will be difficult to notice it in himself, only on peaks.

My task is to help the client see and admit to himself that these feelings exist, and that they need to be managed somehow. So as not to suppress, but at the same time so that all his loved ones do not run away from him.

— Stories from practice. How has the client changed his life by learning to express aggression?

There are a lot of stories, but there are no “stories” in them, actually — everything is as everyday as possible.

Someone has finally begun to build boundaries in their relationship with their parents and stopped letting them do what they don’t like. Someone started charging more money for their work. Someone stopped constantly criticizing themselves. Someone has changed the format of their relationship with friends or even changed their social circle to one that suits them.

I repeat, there are no particularly interesting stories, they are all ordinary, vital.

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it

— Which of the historical figures and fictional characters, in your opinion, possessed healthy aggression?

I’m definitely not ready to talk about the health of historical figures. Ostap Bender is one of the fictional ones, but here controversial arguments begin on the topic of his antisociality.

In general, healthy characters are boring, they are not particularly written about and nothing is filmed about them. Remember any character who said “no” to what he didn’t like, wasn’t afraid of being thought badly of, and wasn’t shy about acting in his best interests. Here’s an example of healthy aggression. Yes, the same Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story.

— How do you learn to express aggression in general? What can you do yourself, without a specialist?

You can do everything without a specialist. It just might take longer. It’s a good habit to pay attention to your own feelings. Including some small reactions: What is happening to me now? Is it discomfort? What is he like? Am I angry? For what? Am I annoyed? Etc.

You can also “audit” your own prohibitions on aggression. There are a lot of different classical formulations: “aggression is bad”, “aggressive people are bad and stupid”, “if you are aggressive, you will be like a gopnik Vasya from the next door”, “people do not like aggressive, you must always be good” and so on. It is worth working with these prohibitions.

— What about self-flagellation? This is essentially self-directed aggression. Is he learning to fight back too?

Yes, that’s right. [Founder of Gestalt therapy Frederick] Perls believed that we do things to ourselves that we don’t allow ourselves to do to others. And in many situations, this is an accurate statement.

— Sometimes it seems to me that if I treated others like myself sometimes, then everything would end in constant conflicts.

If a person does not know how to direct aggression outward, then he will direct it at himself: criticize, compare with others, set himself draconian demands… If a lot of domestic aggression was directed at a child in childhood, then he will unknowingly take the form of attitude that his parents offered him. That is, they used to criticize him, but now he is an adult and can criticize himself.

You also need to work with autoaggression, and also engage in confrontation. Just not with someone outside, but with the figure that presses. Roughly speaking, it is necessary to enter into a confrontation with the image of mom or dad, who sits in his head and says: “look at Kolya, Kolya is well done at his age, but you are not well done”

— The last question is about the skill of confrontation. Passive aggression is the inability to declare oneself, an attempt to shift responsibility to another person for their boundaries and comfort. What is the danger of such a habit and how to get rid of it?

Danger is probably a very big word. But there really is harm in this. First of all, passive aggression creates a lot of hidden tension in contact, which is difficult to resolve. This is such a cold war in which it is impossible to discuss the terms of an armistice, because formally there is no war.

Passive aggression is often either manipulation (of varying degrees of awareness), or simply the only available way to express aggression for the person who forbids himself to express it openly. And how to get rid of it is to learn to express your dissatisfaction openly. To voice out if you don’t like something, and listen to what the other person will answer you.

* * *

We are often told to manage anger, be accepting, become a conscious Buddha. But how can you accept an insult? Or violence, emotional and physical? There are things you can’t take — it’s like taking HIV and not treating it. Therefore, aggression is the “dark side of the Force”, it allows us to defend ourselves and get what we want. But learning to express aggression in a socially appropriate context is a difficult job.
Artyom Zelenov

https://discours.io/articles/theory/zdorovaya-agressiya-kak-perestat-ee-podavlyat-i-nachat-ispolzovat

Healthy aggression

Healthy aggression

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it

Discourse talked with Evgeny Veritov, a practicing gestalt therapist, founder of the popular science publication on psychology MANGO Project, about psychological problems associated with aggression and how to learn how to use this valuable resource.

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it — What is aggression from the point of view of the Gestalt approach?

In general, aggression in gestalt refers to our energy, an impulse that is directed to the outside world so that we can satisfy our needs.

Imagine a mother who forcibly wraps her child in warm clothes at a very positive temperature. He’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t want to and he doesn’t need it. But mom does it anyway, being sure that she cares. Although in fact it violates someone else’s border.

— What kind of problems in the field of aggression do people mostly come to you with? Is it an inability to express oneself, to defend boundaries, or vice versa — inappropriate behavior?

I will speak only for my practice: I meet people much more often whose problem is precisely lack of aggressiveness.

People often come who are afraid of being uncomfortable and make some decisions to their detriment. There were significantly fewer people who were overly aggressive in my experience.

— Tell me how to help a person manage aggression? What do you help clients realize, how do you guide them through the changes?

My task is to help the client see and admit to himself that these feelings exist, and that they need to be managed somehow. So as not to suppress, but at the same time so that all his loved ones do not run away from him.

— Stories from practice. How has the client changed his life by learning to express aggression?

There are a lot of stories, but there are no “stories” in them, actually — everything is as everyday as possible.

I repeat, there are no particularly interesting stories, they are all ordinary, vital.

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it — Which of the historical figures and fictional characters, in your opinion, possessed healthy aggression?

I’m definitely not ready to talk about the health of historical figures. Ostap Bender is one of the fictional ones, but here controversial arguments begin on the topic of his antisociality.

— How do you learn to express aggression in general? What can you do yourself, without a specialist?

You can do everything without a specialist. It just might take longer. It’s a good habit to pay attention to your own feelings. Including some small reactions: What is happening to me now? Is it discomfort? What is he like? Am I angry? For what? Am I annoyed? Etc.

— What about self-flagellation? This is essentially self-directed aggression. Is he learning to fight back too?

Yes, that’s right. [Founder of Gestalt therapy Frederick] Perls believed that we do things to ourselves that we don’t allow ourselves to do to others. And in many situations, this is an accurate statement.

— Sometimes it seems to me that if I treated others like myself sometimes, then everything would end in constant conflicts.

— The last question is about the skill of confrontation. Passive aggression is the inability to declare oneself, an attempt to shift responsibility to another person for their boundaries and comfort. What is the danger of such a habit and how to get rid of it?

Danger is probably a very big word. But there really is harm in this. First of all, passive aggression creates a lot of hidden tension in contact, which is difficult to resolve. This is such a cold war in which it is impossible to discuss the terms of an armistice, because formally there is no war.

* * *

https://discours.io/articles/theory/zdorovaya-agressiya-kak-perestat-ee-podavlyat-i-nachat-ispolzovat

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it

— What is aggression from the point of view of the Gestalt approach?

Healthy aggression: how to stop suppressing it and start using it

— Which of the historical figures and fictional characters, in your opinion, possessed healthy aggression?