Contents
Women tend to throw out negative emotions, but this is not very reassuring.
download video
If the therapist is convinced that the release of aggression frees the person from it, the clients believe it too.
download video
Life is better with love, but healthy aggressiveness is sometimes needed. Anyone who is afraid of their own aggressiveness sooner or later explodes anyway: when they have already sat on their necks and got them “to the fullest”. Aggressiveness is not always bad, in the hands of a reasonable person, controlled aggression is a useful thing. The ability to explode with aggressiveness at any second and the next second to smile serenely is an indicator of a high level of self-control and one’s own emotions. If you learn to freely provoke aggression, it will soon become easier for you to turn it off, and others will begin to treat you with more respect.
However, things happen in life. We are all alive, sometimes we get angry and offended, after which we want to somehow defuse internal tension. How?
Not only from friends and neighbors, but also in popular psychological literature, you can often find a recommendation: “If you are angry and you are overwhelmed with aggression, do not suppress it in yourself, find a way to defuse it. Throw it out in words, throw it out in actions, and you will feel better. If you suppress your emotions, it will be bad for your health↑.
Admirers of this recommendation often use the metaphor of a pot of steam that will explode if it is not released.
Treat this recommendation with caution: this is a very popular but harmful myth, where half-truths are mixed with ignorance. The saucepan metaphor is beautiful, but wrong. Anger is more like a forest fire that will take over large areas with catastrophic destruction if the first small fire or fire is not controlled in time.
This question has attracted the attention of scientific psychology many times, the results are clear. Experiments by R. Walters and M. Brown (1959), S. Mallik and B. McCandliss (1966), C. Turner and D. Goldsmith (1976), R. Green ↑ (1981), M. Zuzula (1989) , D. Glass, D. and E. Jones ↑, as well as B. Bushman ↑ (2002) convincingly showed that neither imaginary aggression nor outbursts of anger not only reduce the likelihood of promoting real aggression, but, on the contrary, increase it.
Let’s see why the outburst of aggression is considered an effective method?
Firstly, people do not always understand what makes them feel better. It should be borne in mind that a surge of emotions introduces a person into an altered state, and against this background, any suggestions are much stronger. If the psychotherapist authoritatively states that in order to free from aggression, the client needs to throw out his emotions, introduce the client into an altered state of consciousness and give suggestions “You are left with resentment and anger”, with a high probability the client will feel improvement. At the same time, you need to understand that the result was given by the suggestions of a specialist, and not by the procedure for discharging aggression and splashing out feelings.
Secondly, the discharge of aggression and the outburst of negative emotions are popularized, apparently due to confusion: the outburst of emotions is confused with the ability to express one’s emotions. Or — to defuse the internal tension by physical pumping. And these are all different things.
Let’s figure it out? For example, a daughter became angry with both her parents and herself, everything inside her boiled, anger boiled inside her. What should she do now? The first, quite reasonable option is to express your feelings: “I am very angry with myself and with you, it seems that I will explode now.” The second, also quite acceptable option: go to your room, stomp your inner tension with your feet, or dance to the music so that after that you just want to lie down and relax. The third option: shout out your feelings, throw out in the most energetic terms your anger at yourself, a fool, and at such and such (even more energetically) parents. This is unacceptable, even if it does not sound in the face of parents.
In addition, you need to understand very well the limitations and pitfalls associated with the intention to splash out your aggression.
First, the desire to relieve tension through the venting of aggression is very similar to trying to relax with alcohol. It is known that a glass of vodka also makes men feel better. Is it necessary to make the intake of two hundred grams a daily habit, taking into account the fact that soon two hundred grams will no longer be enough?
The second thing to consider is that this method often helps women and does not help men well. Moreover, he brings them more trouble. If in women’s cries only internal tension spills out without a specific content, then the words of men mean exactly what they say, the cry of a man is meaningful and specific, a distinct desire to carry out certain threats is embedded in it. Spilling out his anger, a man does not discharge himself, but winds up and charges, and the matter may end not in relief, but in a fight↑.
And the third and most important thing that everyone should know: this method quickly stops working. Even experts do not know that the outburst of emotions and the discharge of aggression seriously alleviates the internal state only at first, while such a discharge is something new for a person, while this event distracts his attention↑. The more the discharge of aggression becomes a habit, the less screams and even blows help to discharge. The discharge method stops working, but the habit of yelling remains.
turning into psychopathic behavior.
“When my little brother was angry about something, he started kicking the furniture with his feet. Our mother said that in this way he «lets off steam.» Now he is 32 years old, and if something annoys him, he still takes out his anger on the furniture. But in addition, he began to beat his wife, his children, his cat and destroy everything that comes in his way, ”one reader answered the psychologist’s recommendation to give the child a special“ whipping bag ”to help him cope with outbursts of irritation.
In summary: as a method of reducing aggressiveness, the discharge of aggression and the outburst of negative emotions are not effective. Moreover, imaginary aggression rather increases the likelihood of unleashing real aggression↑. It is useful and normal to speak out your resentment (anger, discontent), it is useful to defuse tension with physical activity (sports, wash dishes, scrub floors), and splashing out your negative emotions while living an imaginary aggression is not worth it. The discharge of aggression, repeated, ceases to work as an emotional reaction, turning only into psychopathic behavior. And we don’t need it!
What to do with your own aggressiveness
Developed, mentally healthy and mentally mature people solve this issue without any problems, see →. A realistically thinking person, who is accustomed primarily to thinking, and not to experiencing, violent negative emotions do not often appear. In a well-mannered person, the negative emotions that have arisen do not turn into a storm, it is easy to cope with them, they are quite manageable. There is no need to throw out anything to someone who does not inflame himself: what happened can be understood, and what worries or infuriates you can be said. Restraint in behavior, the ability to restrain one’s negative feelings is an indicator of internal culture and good breeding, an indispensable attribute of a business and simply successful person. If you do not wind up emotions inside yourself, then restraint in behavior and expression of your feelings is not at all harmful↑.
How to deal with the outburst of emotions in children
The outburst of emotions by children should be treated in the same way as in the outburst of emotions by adults. Children still do not know how to manage themselves well, and children know how to manage their emotions better than adults, and future hysterical behavior should not be encouraged. See →