After beginning to relate to her anger as to a child*, Anna** at some point almost physically felt both that it was part of her and that, at the same time, it was something separate, autonomous.
It was difficult for her to understand what this meant. Sometimes it seemed to her that this “separateness” was a consequence of the fact that she would have preferred not to have this part at all. But the fact that the anger was still part of her began to evoke curiosity, which Anna experienced as a kind of attraction.
Her work with anger had begun with meditation*. Now, in psychotherapy, the same anger was beginning to reveal a recurring pattern.
The Same Anger Pattern in Different Situations
At first, during sessions, she simply retold what was happening in her life, and these situations seemed unrelated in form.
For example, she complained about a senior manager who did not reply to her emails about an important issue. Anna reminded him, and he still did not reply for weeks.
Or her husband forgot about an agreement. They were planning to go to the cinema in the evening, but when they called each other, it turned out that he was not on his way to the cinema but at a hardware store.
Or the children had once again not cleaned their rooms.
What all these situations had in common was that, at the end of each of them, Anna felt anger.
What Happened Before an Anger Outburst
Later, during sessions, there were a number of dialogues like this one:
— What happened at the moment when you saw that it had not been cleaned again?
— I had the thought that they had not listened to me again.
— Specifically, that they had not listened?
— Well, in the sense that they did not care what I had asked. They did not pay attention, they let what I said go in one ear and out the other.
— What does that feel like?
— That I can ask as much as I want. Nobody cares. They don’t give a damn about me or my problems.
“I Speak — They Don’t Hear Me”
It turned out that this feeling, like the anger, was common to all three situations and to many others. The situations were different, but inside Anna they gradually acquired the same meaning:
“I speak — they don’t hear me.”
And almost automatically the same reaction followed:
“Then I’ll make you hear me.”
How the Same Scenario Unfolded: From Helplessness to Rage
All these situations could be described through the same structure.
The situation itself: the other person does not do what Anna asked and what matters to her.
Image of the other: someone who is indifferent to her needs.
Her own image of herself: “I” am a person who can be disregarded.
Expectation: if she does nothing, she will be ignored again and left with nothing.
Affect: first wounded helplessness, then anger and rage.
Impulse and aim of the anger: to make the other person acknowledge her existence and her significance. At the same time, to restore her own significance — to receive confirmation that she is being taken into account. Even if only in the form of fear of her outbursts.
Logic: “if I don’t make them take me into account, I am nobody.”
Guilt After an Anger Outburst
But after the outburst, this configuration began to weaken. The children became children again, with many things on their minds; her husband became a tired and caring husband again; and the senior manager became a specific person who might have had his own reasons for not replying. And then guilt came.
Anna could now see not only that she had not been heard, but also what she herself had done while trying to make herself heard.
Sometimes after this it was especially difficult for her to understand herself. During the outburst, her reaction had seemed almost obvious and necessary. Afterwards, she looked at her words and actions differently.
Why the Anger Felt Separate
When Anna was able to describe this scenario, she understood that the feeling that the anger was “separate” and somehow not hers was influenced not only by her wish not to have this part within herself. The automatic nature of what was happening also mattered greatly. She did not make a decision to go through this entire sequence. At some point, she simply found herself already inside it.
And Anna understood that her anger seemed already to “know” what was happening. It had its own version of what was happening and its own logic of response.
Behind the Anger — an Experience That Felt Closer
Helplessness, although it was also very unpleasant, felt different. There was something more alive in it and, at the same time, something closer to Anna herself.
Perhaps this was why the metaphor of the “anger-child”* could work at all. Behind the rage, the experience of someone who cannot get a response and feels insignificant began to emerge.
Across different episodes, two especially noticeable elements appeared again and again: the experience of helplessness and the feeling of one’s own insignificance. But they were not the only things that repeated. The whole configuration repeated — the image of the other and of oneself, the expectation, the affect, the impulse, and the logic of the response.
Such an affectively charged psychic configuration is called a complex in analytical psychology.
How the Complex Changes the Image of the Other
The complex also influenced how Anna saw the other person. This did not mean that what was happening was imaginary. The senior manager really did not reply, her husband really did forget about the agreement, and the children really did not clean their rooms. But within the activated complex, the differences between these situations quickly lost their significance.
The other was given the same role — a person who was indifferent to Anna, her requests, and her needs. What in reality could have had completely different causes was experienced in the same way within the complex:
“I speak — they don’t hear me.” And then: “Then I’ll make you hear me.”
The emotional roots of the complex still remained somewhere deeper. But now Anna already knew where to look.
* — the article with the metaphor of the child is here: Anger, Hugs, and Meditation. Etude 3. “Making Anger One’s Own”
** — the name is fictional, permission was obtained, and any similarities are coincidental.