Anger: it’s better out than in!

For many, anger wasn’t tolerated in their family of origin. When, as children we felt the wounding effects of this “psychic constriction”, we had no other option but to channel these unacceptable emotional responses into acting out, or repression.

Many of us have an underlying experience of anger in our lives. Since the honest expression of it was unacceptable within our family of origin, we therefore end up carrying these split off parts of ourselves unconsciously. These parts can remain repressed, and be experienced as a sense of underlying depression, which we are often unable to clearly name; sometimes these parts can remain less hidden, closer to the surface and erupt in aggressive outbursts or violence, resulting in damaging effects on oneself and others. Sometimes the wounding experienced in our developmental years has been so painful, that our lives have become dominated by anger, as this seems like the only adequate means of protecting ourselves.

As a result of this wounding, we often misread messages from the world around us; sometimes believing we are under attack from others, when maybe there is no clear threat, or through the fear of being rejected, not having clear boundaries in our interactions and subsequently finding ourselves feeling mistreated. These responses are often attempts to manage intolerable anxiety or fear. Although these “coping strategies” are the only means we learnt in order to survive, they also had the effect of constricting our natural spontaneous selves. This constriction can often be traced to our own subsequent collusion in this dynamic, where we learnt to mistrust voicing our own inherent sense of self-worth and loosing the capacity to have a conscious “yes” and “no”, in our relations with others.

The anger experienced through this self betrayal is often then turned inward. Where we attack the only person we feel we have permission to, which is ourselves. Many of us, subsequently create a persona, in the hope that this inner conflict will remain hidden. We therefore, become the “good boy” or the “nice girl”; often taking this into our adult lives and seeing this as our real self. The split off anger then has no other means of communicating with us, except maybe through somatic difficulties, such as migraines and ulcers.

Within psychotherapy, a safe space is created, whereby what has become lost within this internal split is given a voice. Where our anger is understood as often having been a legitimate response to our wounding and the environment we grew up in. It is not about condoning anger which is unconsciously acted out as a form of aggression or violence, as this ends up being another reactive response to our wounding. It is more about recognising that our anger can be the source of energy required to make the necessary changes needed in our lives and begin healing ourselves. Anger, in this sense can be seen as the means by which we can begin to reclaim our true selves.

The Anxiety of being alive:

Early on in our lives, we begin to loose the sense of unconditional connection with the world, which we bring with us at birth. Being in the world, subsequently becomes a means of managing this separation, which in turn creates an underlying sense of anxiety. We therefore, try to re-create this  unconditional safety and connection, often through seeking certainty in our relationship to people and things. In this sense, we might describe this as the underpinnings of materialism - We have things in the hope of feeling less alone, less fearful and more safe.

However, this pursuit often leads to an increasing sense of inner isolation and fragmentation. As the greater the emphasis on accumulation of things sought externally, the greater the movement from our own inner selves and subsequent capacity to provide this sense of unconditional love and acceptance within our own lives.

This sense of isolation and fragmentation and the feelings of anxiety associated with it, can become displaced into addictions, or obsessive/compulsive thinking and behaviours. In this sense, we might say that what obsesses us provides its own means of managing anxiety and loss, as, despite the cost, it offers a sense of control. For example, someone suffering from anorexia or bulimia focuses on body image as a means of exerting control in a life that feels uncontrollable. What gets worried about then; becomes its own defence against what is perceived as being potentially annihilating to our sense of self and therefore unbearable.

The work within psychotherapy is to be given the support to face what feels unbearable in ourselves. Anxiety is a normal and natural part of life. It is part of the process of moving into the unknown. This place of unknownness is an integral part of coming to understand who we really are, rather than who we have come to believe ourselves to be.

Courage is needed for this journey. However, courage here, isn’t the absence of fear, but the acknowledgement that we are at the end of the day, greater than our respective fears.

Addiction: the opposition to opposites

Psychotherapy is a means of coming to terms with the opposites of many of the things we want in our life. For example, we meet our one true love and discover she or he isn’t the god or goddess we had dreamed of and are inevitably fallible in their humanness. Or, we get the job we always wanted, only to  find ourselves being line managed by someone we take an instant dislike to.

We play out these stories, in the hope that maybe, this new relationship, new job, or situation, will offer us a sense of the completeness or wholeness we have always sought. However, the reality of our experience often shows us something very different from the fantasy we carried.

Addictive patterns of behaviour often amplify this disconnection from reality. Nobody becomes an addict to become addicted, ruin their life and become profoundly miserable. People fall into addictive patterns; as they are often looking for some kind of certainty and meaning in their lives. However, the adoption of these patterns come at a cost, as a life that is lived without the inclusion of these opposites (e.g. the annoying line manager), undermines our ability and capacity to tolerate difference. We therefore, seek anything that provides some kind of distraction from a reality, unwilling to confirm to our desires or wishes.

Addiction can also be a means of managing underlying trauma in our experience. Here, getting drunk every night, habitually using drugs, or finding ourselves in controlling relationships, maybe become the only means available of managing these areas that feel intolerable and maintaining some semblance of control in our lives. However, the consequences of this denial can be that the internal split, between what can be allowed to be conscious and the trauma of what remains unconscious - though maybe only experienced symptomatically, becomes ever more pronounced.

Our addictions, then become our jailers. On the one, hand offering us a sense of safety, through shielding us from these places of trauma, whilst also keeping us disconnected from the healing that can only come from facing the truth of our own histories.

My experience of working with clients with addiction issues, has been in supporting them to break this cycle of addiction, through facing these places of trauma. In consciously exploring these areas, a space can be created for the unassimilated parts of themselves that have remained buried for so long.

It is then, through this process that these parts, which maybe have brought such chaos and destruction to our lives, become the means by which we find healing. It is only then that we can find a reconciliation of opposites in our life and a real sense of wholeness.

Depression: to medicate or not to medicate

Our relationship with depression in many ways has become part of a deeper issue within society. We often look for an immediate means of fixing ourselves, which in many ways reflects our consumeristic culture, where we believe that any dis-ease can be resolved through continuing to consume more.

We therefore, see depression as some kind of anomaly, and something to be treated and gotten rid of. However, depression can also be the psyche’s own form of communication, telling us that something in our lives is out of balance or needs to be attended to. Rushing towards a treatment and the subsequent use of medication, can therefore leave us disconnected from this important communication and invitation to heal.

It is also worth defining depression, which can be seen as having several different facets. The Jungian analyst, James Hollis, writes about these being “reactive or environmental” and “inherited” and “historical”. He states that we might experience one, or all of them simultaneously and are often undifferentiated, though have different root causes, as well as asking differing questions of us. He describes the following:

- Reactive or Environmental Depression:

A reactive depression is a normal response to a loss or disappointment. It is understandable to feel a period of depression, following a bereavement or ending of a marriage. The extent to which we are emotionally invested in the world we live in; will determine the pain we experience. With the right support reactive depression will resolve itself. It only becomes a longer-term difficulty if it begins to profoundly affect the normal day to day functioning of the individual.

- Inherited Depression:

Inherited depression derives from biological causes. This kind of depression can be carried genetically through the family. Individuals experiencing this, find a real difficulty in performing the day to day tasks that many of us take for granted. As though they are constantly walking up a steep hill, carrying a heavy weight. This kind of depression can respond particularly well to medication, as this helps to re-balance the chemical make-up of the brain.

- Historical Depression:    

Depression can sometimes feel like a well, with no bottom. However, from a therapeutic perspective, historical depression is a well with a bottom; even if we may need to dive deeply to find it!  We might see this form of depression as a kind of collusion against ourselves. Where we have suffered an early trauma in our lives, such as an emotional abandonment by a care giver. We come to see ourselves as not being worthy of love and care from others in later life. Therapeutically, the task here is to attempt to become conscious of the difference between what happened to us in the past and who we are in the present.   

(Hollis, J., 1996. Swamplands of the Soul. Toronto: Inner City Books)

These symptomatic messages from our psyche, often show up as some form of  crisis. Depression here, might instead be pointing us towards a discrepancy within our lives. Who we can to be believe ourselves to be, as seen through the lens of our early childhood conditioning and the call of our true self. That, which we are and have always been.

Unfortunately, at these times, what can be lost is the capacity to stay with what feels dissonant and ask ourselves the question “what might be the meaning of this”, or “what is being asked of me here?” The therapeutic process is one whereby we are invited to take a space for ourselves and sit with some of these questions. Questions which maybe, we have never allowed ourselves to consider previously.

So, the use of medication can be beneficial in the treatment of some forms of depression; especially if there has been a chemical imbalance in the functioning of the brain. However, depression might also be asking us to consider deeper questions related to identity and who we believed we had to become in the world.

Is happiness all its cracked up to be?

The search for happiness seems to be the perennial search we are engaged in. Society tells us repeatedly that happiness is transactional. We can buy it, achieve it, work towards it. From this perspective, happiness often feels commodified. Where we are told that we are just one click away from obtaining it!

However, this process of "buying" happiness bypasses an existential dichotomy; which is that our longings for happiness are continually in opposition to the limitations of what it means to be human. In this sense, we all have to come to terms with the inherent instability of being alive. That what we hold onto, will eventually be taken from us.

Psychotherapy, in this sense doesn’t promote the goal as being one of gaining happiness, but rather to embrace meaning instead. It is true, that we will experience moments of happiness. However, they are only moments and cannot be willed into existence or purchased.

So, what does it mean to embrace meaning in our lives? As a therapist, I have seen in working with clients, how the pursuit of happiness is often in reaction to, as well a denial of these existential truth’s. In this sense, part of us already knows and understands what is already true in ourselves. We can see the instability and uncertainty of life. The issue then becomes, how to live a meaningful life from this truth. However, this is something that many of us are ill equipped for. The subsequent pursuit of happiness, then becomes its own form of purgatory, as the anxiety and pressure to find an escape, through this continued seeking, creates its own unhappiness and disconnection.

As such, living a life that gives a place to meaning, invites us to give a place to suffering. Recognising that part of being alive is to suffer - We get what we don’t want and don’t get what we do want. Or, in finally getting what we do want, it’s then taken from us. Suffering invites us to begin asking deeper questions of ourselves. As it is often the case, that we don’t begin to make this enquiry of ourselves until we are in pain. Suffering, in this sense, can therefore be seen as an important gateway towards our own healing.

The purpose of psychotherapy is then, not to remove suffering, but to move through it, towards an experience of ourselves that is capable of holding these polarities of truth. It is often seen then, that the places, which we have spent so long avoiding bring a deeper, more meaningful experience of the world and subsequently, a place of healing that allows a more authentic experience of ourselves.

Understanding shame

The etymological meaning of the word shame is “to hide” or “cover up”. The experience of shame isn’t often tied to one single event, but often experienced instead as a pervasive sense of not being good enough in some shape or form.

Shame often shows up as other emotions, which are maybe seen as being more acceptable. For example, men may feel more able to access anger, than disclose underlying feelings of shame, which might be connected. Or, the experience of guilt can often be confused with shame. However, a clear difference in this respect, is that feelings of guilt can often be resolved through some form of practical intervention, which may include confession and making amends. However, the experience of shame is in large part tied to our experience of identity and how we see ourselves. In this respect shame can exert a powerful influence on our self esteem, leading to feelings of depression and anxiety.

Shame can show up in differing ways for men and women. Men have often been taught that it its unacceptable to show their vulnerability or capacity for care. In this respect, many men often confuse being humble, in terms of being open about their limitations and asking for help; with feelings of humiliation. This often leaves many men, waiting until there is a crisis in their lives, before feeling they have the permission to ask for help and support.

For many women, the experience of shame shows itself through the objectification of themselves within the constructs of a patriarchal system. Women in this sense, learn to view themselves and their idea of the female form, through the male lens. This loss of autonomy and compliance can in turn, lead to feelings of shame. In that the experience of being a women, as defined by oneself, is then experienced in some way as inferior.

5 sources of shame, including:

1. Genetic and biochemical

2. Family of origin

3. Self-shaming thoughts and feelings orchestrated by one’s own narrative

4. Current humiliating relationships

5. Contemporary culture

(GOLDBERG, C., 1991. Understanding Shame. London: Jason Aronson.)

From a developmental perspective, shame becomes an inevitable consequence of being alive. As children we are wholly dependant on our primary care givers. Part of the process of developing into our own sense of self is being able, by degrees to tolerate the inevitable discrepancy between the child’s needs of dependancy and the capacity of the parents.

However, where this mis-attunement has been too great, the child’s experience of those needs, becomes associated with abandonment or rejection and subsequently, feelings of shame. This in turn, can then become a narrative taken into adulthood, in needing others, then becomes too risky and has to be defended against.

The experience of beginning therapy can also bring feelings of shame. In this respect, this may be the first time in our lives, where we have been confronted with the recognition that we are not in control of our ourselves and our relationships in the way we believed.

The therapeutic process can offer a space to bring all these feelings and understand the underlying places of wounding that shame became associated with.

Can grief help us to live our lives more fully?

“Grief dares us to love once more.”

Terry Tempest Williams

What do we mean by grief or to grieve? Are we talking about the loss of something that we once had or maybe something that we never had, but always longed for?

We feel the intense feelings of loss, associated with the bereavement of a loved one. They are no longer there, our whole environment and way of being in the world can feel fundamentally different. In this sense, grief is often viewed as the absence of something or someone.

However, grief can also offer us the invitation to explore our relationship to what has been lost or never had. In this sense grief asks us to explore what it means to be alive, in that the loss of a loved one may be the first time we have considered that birth, death and the inevitability of loss are inextricably linked to being human. It reminds us that despite all our future plans, we will have to let all of it go in the end.

In this respect, grief challenges us to dig deep and engage with that which is most authentic in us and to ask ourselves the most difficult questions, in terms of who we are, how we have lived our lives and what is most important to us. As my own therapist would often say “grief brings us back to who we really are!”

In this sense, grief asks us to be shaped by a larger existential truth, one which can often be experienced as uncompromising, as it requires us to face  patterns of avoidance and the heroic striving of the ego.

This opening to a larger truth, can allow us to connect to a deeper humility in what it means to be alive. That we come to face that we are only here a finite time and how do we then want to use this precious life?

I am not suggesting here, that our lives should be lived with being preoccupied with grief or sorrow, but rather to allow ourselves the means of facing these moments consciously. This then, offers us a quality of presence with ourselves, and the ground available to face what challenges us. It is through this movement, which then becomes its own freedom and one might say, the secret of being fully alive.

(Weller, F., 2015. The Wild Edge of Sorrow. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.)