A racket feeling is a substitute feeling, it replaces a real, authentic feeling, emotion, or need.
Racketeering feeling is defined as a feeling fixed and encouraged in childhood, experienced in various stressful situations and not conducive to adult problem solving.
For example, a woman, as a girl, learned in her family to deal with anger by getting sick. Being already an adult and having adult resources, she still uses the energy of anger to suppress it, to contain it, to switch to other feelings — sadness, resentment, envy, grief or bodily pain. For example, she fell ill, received care from close people, once again reinforced with strokes the correctness of the chosen method of response. But it didn’t solve the problem of anger. The source has remained, and it will again provoke anger.
Each time, requiring more strength and energy to contain anger. Psychosomatic illness is a diagnosis that will be given to a woman and the body will be treated. There is no shame in being sick. It is shameful to admit one’s incompetence, failure or defeat in any area of life. The image of a doctor is familiar and socially encouraged. The image of a psychologist, psychotherapist is unusual. Psychosomatic illnesses need to be treated, but the doctor will only treat the body. If the “soul” is not treated, then a paradox arises. Curing the body without curing the soul strengthens the racket system and makes the disease «incurable». The patient receives strokes from the doctor in the form of attention to the disease, care, medicines, procedures, recommendations to stay in bed. Sometimes the doctor becomes the only person who is interested in the patient. The physician may nurture the symptom for years, entering into a symbiotic parent-child relationship and punishing the patient for attempting to express authentic feelings. For example, joy at feeling better or anger at the futility of treatment. “I won’t love you if you get better,” the doctor’s hidden message. The psychological strategy is different. The task of psychotherapeutic work is the mature personality of the client, capable of independently coping with emerging problems. A person with a dominant Adult ego state who makes his own choice to be healthy or sick.
Racketeering is the playing of outdated strategies of behavior, often adopted in childhood and helped in those distant times. But in the present, they are no longer successful strategies.
In childhood, the child, demonstrating racket feelings, received a long-awaited stroke from the parental figures. “Here and now”, surrounded by an adult person, there will always be someone who will give these strokes, since we ourselves choose our environment. Each time in a stressful situation, these childhood patterns will be repeated unconsciously. However, true feelings and needs will remain unsatisfied. Driven inside, they will manifest themselves in the form of psychosomatic reactions, phobias, panic attacks.
Children learn to experience the feelings of a racket as a means of satisfying their family needs, as a way of getting strokes. Boys are taught to suppress fear, sadness, pain, but you can get angry, show aggression. «Don’t cry, you’re a man. My little soldier! So in a man they develop racket anger, aggression to replace fear and pain. Girls, on the other hand, are taught to replace anger with crying or sadness, even if they feel like hitting back. «You’re a girl, how can you fight!»
Culture, religion, ideology of society also use the racket system. What is striking is that the justifications for racketeering feelings are good, righteous, and just.
Here is an example from a member of our therapy group. Elena, 38 years old, doctor. “I was ten years old. My father then worked on a combine. He took me to the field. It was autumn. We got up very early, before dawn. When they approached the field, it was dawn. Huge fields of golden wheat, as if alive, moved from the slightest breeze and shimmered. It seemed to me that they were alive and talking to me. Joy, delight. An acute sense of unity with the world, nature. Suddenly, fear — it’s indecent to rejoice like that, because all around people are busy with hard work, harvesting day and night. Am I having fun?! Guilt, sadness replaced joy. I didn’t want to stay in the field.» This is a vivid example of replacing authentic joy with racket fear, guilt. And the rationale is filled with righteous anger: «You rejoice, but people suffer.» Why can’t we work with joy?
National stereotypes of replacing authentic emotions with racket feelings are well traced in folk tales and folklore. Ivanushki, Emelya usually replace fear with passive stupid behavior. «Vanka is being rolled.» Many proverbs and sayings indicate a way of substitution or are a warning for the manifestation of authentic feelings and emotions. For example: “Early the little bird sang — no matter how the cat ate”, “Laughter for no reason is a sign of a fool”, “You laugh a lot — you will cry bitterly.”
It is important for therapeutic work to distinguish between racket feelings and the authentic, true feelings that lie beneath them. In transactional analysis, it is accepted that there are only four authentic feelings as primary emotions: anger, sadness, fear, joy. This is the first sign of difference.
Racket feelings are endless, such as embarrassment, jealousy, depression, guilt, resentment, feelings of confusion, frustration, helplessness, despair, misunderstanding, etc.
The question may arise, in connection with which racket feelings sometimes bear the same name as authentic ones? Sadness, fear, joy, anger can be racket. For example, a common female manipulative strategy. Anger cannot be openly expressed, because a woman must be tender, fragile and defenseless. But you can cry, grieve that you are not understood. Get offended, pout. The woman replaced the authentic anger with the emotion of sadness, but already a racket. To facilitate the task of recognizing racket feelings, there is a second sign of difference.
Authentic feelings lead to the solution of the problem «here and now», the resolution and completion of the situation. Racket feelings — do not give completion.
The third feature was proposed by John Thompson. He explained the connection of authentic feelings with the solution of problems in time. Authentic anger helps solve the problem in the present. Fear is in the future. Sadness — helps to say goodbye to the past, end the situation and say goodbye to her. Authentic joy — has no time limits and signals «No change needed!»
Consider an example. Viktor, a 45-year-old doctor, was riding in a train car. Stepping out into the vestibule, I smelled burning and smoke. The authentic feeling of fear was suppressed by him for calmness. “I am a man that I will, like a woman, give in to panic.” He sat decorously and waited when someone else jerked the stopcock. Victor helped to take out the belongings of other passengers from the smoky car. When the fire broke out and the car started to burn, he got ready and was the last one to leave the car. He grabbed whatever came to hand as he jumped out of the burning car. He burned his face and hands, the scars remained. On that trip, Victor was carrying an important cargo that was completely burned down.
So, the fear that was authentic in Victor at the beginning of the fire would help him solve problems «in the future» — his cargo would remain unharmed, not burnt, his face and hands would not be burned. Victor preferred to replace fear with indifference and calmness. After the fire, he had to quit his job and move to another city. The death of the cargo was not forgiven him. The wife did not want to move to another city, they broke up.
The well-known modern transactional analyst Fanita English (“Racket and Real Feelings”, TA, 1971. No. 4) analyzed in detail the stages of the emergence of racketeering. In her opinion, there are three aspects of the perception of feelings in a mature person: awareness, expression and action.
Awareness is knowledge about oneself, external and internal. Using the five senses, a person receives information from the sensations of his body. He filters out experiences and comes to a confident awareness of what is happening to him, the world and the body at the present moment. For example, a person sees, hears and realizes that he is now experiencing a sharp pain in the little toe of his left foot, which was stepped on by his beloved dog.
Expression of feelings is their demonstration with the help of the body or words. “Go away, stupid dog,” says the man, and pulls his leg out from under the paw of the animal. Actions are usually directed at someone or something, such as a dog. Before taking action, we make a choice between active action and passive inaction. Slap the dog or not? Adults have the opportunity to make conscious choices, take actions, and express their feelings. A small child does not have the opportunity to make such a choice consciously, since the listed three aspects of the perception of feelings are not formed in him at the same time. The child begins to master actions (the third aspect) simultaneously with the spontaneous manifestation of emotional reactions (the second aspect) and this occurs before self-awareness appears (the first aspect). Therefore, adults make awareness for the child. The child expresses the feeling, and the parent names it, voicing both cause and effect. For example, “Are you flinching now? You’re scared. Come to my arms, mom will protect you, you are so defenseless, and the world is harsh. The child will use his Adult ego state for awareness, but later. Usually, the Nurtured, adaptive Child accepts and agrees with the parent’s interpretation of what is happening. When the child grows up, his Adult ego state, possibly contaminated by the child’s ego state, will copy the parent’s conclusions. He will evaluate «startle» as a response of fear, not excitement or coldness, for example.
Let’s get back to racket feelings. There are two daughters in our family — Katya and Ksenia. Both of them subtly feel their boundaries and perceive the violation of boundaries very aggressively. Suppose that Ksenya took Katya’s favorite thing without asking. Seeing this, Katya got angry and hit her sister. Ksenya burst into tears and ran to her grandmother. Our grandmother is not a psychotherapist, so she acts in a standard, “humanly” way. “You’re a girl, you can’t fight,” says the grandmother. Thus, it ignores and prohibits the feeling of anger in the granddaughter. Grandmother gives a reaction only to actions. “All disputes must be resolved peacefully,” the grandmother continues and gives a strategy. “You’re a smart girl, Katya,” she fixes with a stroke.
What to do and how to raise children? There are two strategies that we actively use both as parents with their children and as therapists in psychotherapeutic work. The first strategy is to teach you to separate feelings from actions. The second strategy is to teach how to choose the best means of expressing feelings and the most effective actions.
Let’s get back to our daughters. The parent says: “I see how you, Katya, are angry with Ksenya. But you are not allowed to hit her.» The parent does not ignore, but accepts the feeling of anger, but does not allow the sister to be hurt. “You can scream, yell, be indignant, hit a punching bag (we have boxing gloves and a punching bag), express your anger in any way, but don’t beat your sister.” Girls learn to choose between expressing feelings and acting. Separating feelings and actions allows you to take time to be aware of your feelings and motivations for action. And in the future — to realize their desire to build other relationships with each other, more clear, transparent. “I don’t mind giving you my thing. I ask you not to take my things without permission in the future,” Katya says to her sister. In such a situation, girls have no prohibition on the manifestation of anger, there is no replacement for racket feelings. They are looking for, experimenting and finding new civilized ways to interact and express emotions without physical assault.
Racket feelings, as well as authentic ones, can be manifested immediately — “here and now”, or they can be accumulated in order to use them later. There is an expression — the last drop in the cup of patience, which allows you to overturn the whole cup on the offender. Drop by drop of racket feeling is called stamp collecting. How children collect stamps, coupons, labels, corks, in order to receive a prize later. Or they collect coins in a piggy bank to make themselves a gift, a welcome purchase. So we put it off for later, we accumulate racket feelings. What for? Then to receive a reward or retribution.
For example, a man tolerates his wife who is actively pursuing a career. His authentic feeling of fear of loneliness, abandonment, is replaced by racket resentment. He does not openly show his authentic feelings. He does not tell his wife the truth:
«Honey, I’m so afraid of losing you. You are the light in the window for me, the meaning of my life, happiness and tranquility. It is very likely that a woman after such words will not remain indifferent and will do everything to be more close to this man. However, in reality, the husband demonstrates racket indifference and accumulates marks of resentment for retribution. When the «cup of patience» overflows, he expresses everything about his grievances. The wife leaves. He remains alone. His payback is the loneliness he feared so much.
A coupon, or stamp, is a racket feeling that a person collects for the purpose of subsequent exchange for a negative payback. See →
Do you have a piggy bank? If there is, imagine that you are hitting it with a huge hammer and smashing it to smithereens. Or drown in the blue sea, tying a decent cobblestone to your favorite “kitty” or “pig”.
Let go of the heaviness of accumulated emotions. Say goodbye to them. Shout louder «Goodbye!».
The next stage of therapeutic work is teaching the client to express his feelings without accumulating them. To do this, we use behavioral psychotherapy techniques based on the development and consolidation of new behavioral skills. At this stage, we actively give the client homework. This work is to adapt the client’s new experience in his micro- and macro-society. He learns to build new relationships and at the same time analyze his feelings, actions and thoughts that arise in this. He builds a new stroke exchange system and rewards himself for success. See →
So, a racket is a system of scenario patterns of behavior that are used outside of awareness, as a means of experiencing the feelings of a racket. A racket is a process whose goal is to get strokes for racket feelings. We unconsciously distort the perception of the reality around us, ignore our needs, play psychological games and receive fake strokes. See →