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Community

Confluence
Wndottg. tiie
Guincho}
Oppression

Philip trentenberg
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023 with funding from
No Sponsor

https://archive.org/details/communityconflue000Olich
Undoing the Clinch of Oppression
American University Studies

Series VIII
Psychology
Vol. 21

A
OF CLEVELAND

Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press


1588 Hazel Drive Cleveland OH 44106
COMMUNITY & CONFLUENCE

Undoing the Clinch of Oppression

Philip Lichtenberg

&
A GestaltPress Book
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Copyright © 1990 by Philip Lichtenberg

A GestaltPress Book
66 Orchard Street, Cambridge MA 02140
[email protected]

Distributed by: THE ANALYTIC PRESS


101 West Street
Hillsdale, NJ 07642

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.

Excerpts from John L. Lewis: An Unauthorized Biography by Saul D. Alinsky. Copyright


© 1949/1970 by Saul D. Alinsky. Reprinted with permission of Vintage Books, a
Division of Random House, Inc.

Excerpts from Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality by
Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, Paul Goodman. Reprinted by permission of The
Julian Press, Inc.

Excerpts from The Selected Papers of Sandor Ferenczi: Problems and Methods of
Psychoanalysis, Volume III by Sandor Ferenczi. Reprinted with permission ofBasic
Books, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publishing Data

Lichtenberg, Philip.
Community & Confluence: Undoing the Clinch of Oppression / Philip Lictenberg.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88163-251-1

Cover design by Diana Puppin.


Contents

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Identification With the Aggressor:
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Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other:
PR MEMBICIY POTN AIO oorpte oases hoes cencdscneccaVeevesttosestics 19
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally............. 33
Some Qualities When People Fusce.................csscsssssesesees 51
Self as Agent, Self as Agency: A General Statement... 61
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ICI ARACUIOND FLED Arect csctec cr seertae ete cSocarsnsoesoeaeseoentoeonene 65
The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful..................... 69
Intense Social Emotions are Key aic......cisc-ceiseseosesstocesesets 79
The Quick-Circuiting Process and the
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Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion.............. cease 113
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications................ P21
Discovering and Undoing Projections..................ssesseee 141
Recovering and Reorganizing ANnget..............sssssssssssesee 157
On Anxiously Acting Assertively...............ccsscscssssssessseees 181
Who Wants Social Change, Who Starts It,
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dedication

For Elinor, Nicholas, Drew, Jenny, and Emily

And a future in which they can more readily be agents.


Acknowledgments

This work has been supported in many ways during its


development. Without that support it would surely not have been
completed, so I am happy to acknowledge my gratitude.
Early on, Evelyn Harzinski provided research assistance in
locating literature on identification with the aggressor — a
remarkably broad literature spilling into many streams of
knowledge. Also in the early days, Susan Levine was a research
assistant who helped articulate the main themes, co-authored a
paper on the material, and shared another paper that was
. presented to a professional audience. The Reverend David Gracie
read an early version of the first half of the book and offered
important critical suggestions. His enthusiastic understanding of
the work and positive requests for a different emphasis were very
helpful to me. Charles Menzel, also, read the first half and had
many useful comments to make. Mary Martin, who taught a course
with me in which we used the material, was both very challenging
and encouraging.
Two groups of doctoral students at the Bryn Mawr College
Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research responded to
the ideas and offered examples, interest, criticism, and support. I
am very indebted to Risa C. Atterman, Betsy C. Blades, Nancy S.
Buck, Christine M. Carducci, Nikki K. Castle, Betty Lee Davis,
Susan E. Dawson, Kai Heng Fong, Catherine Hertzel, Joseph A.
Mason, Carolyn M. Morell, and Donald D. Tomlinson for their
contribution early on, and importantly to Beth Barol, Nancy Bauer-
Manley, Isabel Cox-Johnson, Jill Jones, and Lynn Long in the later
stages of the work.
Two sets of colleagues, also, have been personally bolstering in
the days of decision about continuing with the project. From the
Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia I’ve received help and
Acknowledgments

support from David Henrich, Joyce Lewis, Mary Lou Schack, as


well as from Jacqueline Cohen and Virginia McIntosh Scranton.
From a consultation group, I've received important support, and
my appreciation to Daniel H. Gottlieb, Sylvia Elias, Myrna Kahn
Marcus, Joyce Lewis, and Linda Welch is deep.
Three critical readers of the completed manuscript, each of
whom gave significant advice and ideas, were David G. Gil,
Grendon Haines, and Harold Lewis. They have influenced the
development of the work importantly and I am thankful for their
assistance.
Isadore From offered rich reassurance and inspiration at several
critical times for me. Carol Roman has been a collaborator, source
of examples and ideas, co-author, and shepherding friend
throughout the enterprise. Without her contribution the work
would have been stillborn.
My wife, Elsa Russell Lichtenberg, has been patient and
fortifying, as ever she has been, and I once more thank her for it
all.
Finally, Hunt Cole spent many months working with me on the
editing of the manuscript. He was everything I could want in an
editor. He was demanding, attended to detail, checked for
consistency, kept it clear, sought punch when it was needed,
extracted illustrations and instances when they were required,
encouraged me when that was necessary, understood the project
and sympathized with its purpose, and made the manuscript his as
well as kept it mine. In short, he was a wonderful editor, and I am
pleased to acknowledge his contribution.
I am grateful to Random House, Inc. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for
permission to quote from Gestalt Therapy, by Fredcrick Perlis,
Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman. Copyright © 1951, 1979
by Frederick Perls, Ralph Hefferline, and Paul Goodman.
Reprinted by permission of The Julian Press, Inc. I am also
indebted to them for permission to quote from John L. Lewis: An
Unauthorized Biography, by Saul D. Alinsky. Copyright 1940 by
Saul D. Alinsky. Copyright © 1970 by Saul D. Alinsky. Reprinted
by permission of Random House, Inc.
Acknowledgments

Basic Books, Inc. has permitted me to quote from The Selected


Papers of Sandor Ferenczi: Problems And Methods Of
Psychoanalysis, Volume III, by Sandor Ferenczi, Michacl Balint,
Editor. Copyright © 1955 by Basic Books, Inc.
Introduction

As social historians have long noted, at least in


American political life periods of reform seem to come
around generationally, about once every thirty years or
so. Thus the turn of the century gave us trust-busting,
the rise of unionism, the beginnings of labor and
environmental jaw, and in general the first restraints
on robber baron capitalism, which as always was
threatening to destroy the social fabric on which it
depends. The 1930’s gave us a new surge of union
rights and civil liberties, and the beginnings of the
“social safety net,” recognizing a limited claim by
every citizen for some minimal standard of social
support. Then came the 60’s with the burgeoning of
the civil rights and peace movements, a new
awakening of the movement for women’s rights, and a
new concern for social support on a wide variety of
issues.
Philip Lichtenberg believes we may be in for another
such period of social action and community progress
in the last decade of this century -- and none too soon,
given the desperate state of community life in the
wealthiest nations of the world. Only this time,
Lichtenberg argues, there is a significant difference in
the social field, which is that over the past generation
the insights and methods of psychology and psycho-
therapy have begun for the first time to percolate
through the professional and popular culture. When
you stop to think too that psychologists and other
Introduction il

change agents now in their forties, fifties, and sixties


came to their various professions in large numbers out
of the various social action movements of a generation
ago (including importantly the feminist movement),
than you begin to see the outlines of an intriguing,
even exciting line of thought. Haven’t we learned
some things, professionally, about individual and
social dynamics in general -- and the dynamics of
power and oppression in particular -- that would stand
all of us in good stead when the day comes again, as
come it must, for social activism and political change?
Lichtenberg answers this question with an emphatic
yes, and provides us with this beautiful book-length
essay to back up his answer.
Central to his argument is Lichtenberg’s analysis of
the dynamics of oppressor-oppressed relations. Why is
it, Lichtenberg asks, that the oppressed so often support
the regimes of their abusers? Plainly the dispossessed
are far more numerous than the dominant; why then
do they not rise up more often, and more effectively?
Even in nations with a fairly safe and stable democratic
process, a minimum standard of social justice is
seldom met. Why? This is a question pondered by
social analysts of the left and right alike at least since
the time of Marx, and the answer is by no means
obvious. Certainly fear plays a part, at least in many
cases; but Lichtenberg argues that fear -- or at any rate
real, present external fear -- cannot explain the
phenomenon. Rather, as in the case of abusive
families, a part of the loyalty of the victims to their
abusers must lie in the dynamics we generally lump
together under the general heading “identification
with the aggressor.” That is, the weak, to contain and
manage unsupported feelings of their own (rage,
Introduction iii

shame, anxiety), identify with the strong, and in the


process project or “give” even such strength as they do
have to those who are stronger already. Likewise the
oppressors themselves project broadly onto the
oppressed, and thereby disown their own feelings of
weakness, anxiety, and oftentimes “dark” passions of a
variety of sorts.
Undoing projective dynamics of this kind is a tricky
business, as Lichtenberg explains, because the undoing
involves the resurfacing of all the painful and even
overwhelming feelings that the projection itself was
created to manage and contain. In other words -- and
here the special clarifying power of the Gestalt model
shows to good effect -- the projection/identification
itself was a creative adjustment , to a challenge which
the person or community involved did not have
enough support at the time to resolve in a different
way. Thus the support available in general -- and the
support for bearing difficult feelings in community in
particular -- become crucial for breaking the projective
fusion between victim and oppressor, which in turn is
critical for serious change.
Identification with the aggressor is a term which has
been around for a long time; but -- as is often the case
with powerful insights from psychoanalysis -- even the
few brief strokes given above show how illuminating
the Gestalt model can be, in clarifying the process
dynamics at the intra/interpersonal boundary, and in
designing and supporting experiments and other
interventions for change. To continue with
Lichtenberg’s insightful analysis, what about the social
and internal dynamics of oppressors? To put it bluntly,
are oppressors happy? Are they satisfied? Are they
even “autonomous,” in any meaningful sense of the
Introduction 10

term? And if not, why not? -- don’t they “have it all?”


Lichtenberg answers no, to all of these questions -- and
here we turn to the most controversial part of his
argument: namely, his insistence that oppressors too
are caught up in unhealthy and unsatisfying projective
dynamics, outside their own awareness. And thus they
too need support , if these dynamics are to be de-
structured and allowed to reconfigure in some
healthier way, for them and their victims alike.
Support for oppressors? for Reagan-era fat cats,
slurping (as my old father used to say) at the public
trough? for wife-batterers? child-abusers? even (why
not pitch the argument at its most extreme) Nazis? To-
gether with Cynthia O. Harris of the Gestalt Institute of
Cleveland, I recently completed translation of a book of
German essays on psychotherapy with children of the
Nazi era (The Collective Silence , Jossey-Bass Inc.,
1993). And even before publication we grew
accustomed to the response we sometimes have gotten
to this project, which is the quite understandable one
which goes, “Why try to understand such people, why
dignify monsters by treating them as if they deserved
understanding?” And these were just the children of
the actual oppressors! (significantly, we have not
gotten this reaction from children of victims, who
seem to understand instinctively the importance of the
bridge in the second and third generations). Behind
this lurks the fear, “to understand all is to forgive all.”
Lichtenberg himself well understands this fear, and
well knows how to make the discrimination between
support for the abuse , on the one hand, and support
for the abuser’s experience , on the other -- without
which meaningful change may well be impossible. I
cannot reproduce the centered and deeply sagacious
Introduction v

voice with which he kindly and firmly refuses --


without patronizing the rest of us mortals -- to
demonize anybody. For that experience, I can only
refer you to the book ahead.
There are many other riches in the books as well --
and many of them further examples of how the Gestalt
model serves to clarify dynamics, internal and social
and (most crucially) at the boundary of these two
domains, that remain obscure in other models (and
thus remain impossible, or nearly so, to correct). To
give one more case in point, what is it that happens
when you resist a projection? Under the Gestalt
model, Lichtenberg points out, we understand how
and why itis that resisting the projections of others
only strengthens those projections. What to do? --
move to the phenomenology of the field, the
projector/abuser’s own experience, to uncover the
unsupported and (thus) unbearable feelings that led to
the creative projective resolution in the first place.
This brilliantly simple reminder serves to clarify
political dynamics everywhere -- escalations and de-
escalations alike. Take the example of satyagraha -- the
practice of non-violent resistance used so effectively by
Gandhi in India, and Martin Luther King in the
American South. Why does it work? Surely the
answer lies at least in part in the way it
supports/enables the oppressors to begin undoing
projections about the oppressed (commonly that they
are weak, inferior, irrational, childish, perhaps bestial
and uncontrollable). I am reminded here of a business
colleague of my father’s in the 1960’s, an
unreconstructed American Southern racist of the old
school (the colleague, certainly not my father, who was
a classic exemplar of the tradition of Southern liberal
Introduction v1

dissent, with all the virtues and contradictions of that


school of thought). This particular projector sent a
thousand dollars -- quite a hefty sum in those days -- to
the fund for the great Black March on Washington in
1963, in the Machiavellian conviction that as soon as
you put thousands of African Americans together like
that, they would surely run riot, and then the Civil
Rights movement, which he of course feared and
opposed, would be over.
In the event, as we know, the March was charac-
terized by enormous dignity, restraint, and emotional
intensity (which is not to imply that the oppressed are
obliged to be saintly, but merely to remark on the
transformational power of nonviolence, under certain
circumstances). The importance of that signal event in
the undoing of longstanding White cultural
projections, examined and unexamined, has not been
completely appreciated and understood -- partly for
lack of a well-articulated model for making sense of
process phenomena at this level, ranging fluidly from
the intrapsychic to the mass social and back again.
Until the Gestalt model, or some other model capable
of the same range, is put out more fully in writing, in
works like this one addressed to the wider community
of clinical and organizational (and political) agents for
change, then all of our efforts for social reform -- and
Lichtenberg’s dream of a new kind of social reform
process -- will remain to a degree handicapped for lack
of the practical conceptual tools necessary to frame and
direct the work.
Confluence and Community is a model contribution
to that larger project, which is the articulation of a
model for addressing the interface between politics and
psychology, the experience of the individual and the
Introduction Vil

dynamics of the group. That he cannot possibly


complete the project he begins here is not a flaw in the
book, which is as nearly flawless as a work of this kind
can be. A generation and more ago Paul Goodman
wrote, in Little Prayers and Finite Experience, that just
as there is psychotherapy, which addresses rigid and
archaic disturbances of creative adjustment in the
individual, so there is a therapy for abnormal and
oppressive social institutions: “itis politics.” For most
of the past century these two domains have tended to
be sundered into separate terms, “public” and
“private,” in a telling example of those splits which
Goodman taught us to see as characteristic of neurotic
process. Now Lichtenberg redirects us on a path of
wholeness. This is an essential text for the 90’s and the
opening of the century to come, a book that will renew
your commitment to your professional identity, to
social action, and to the Gestalt model. May many
more follow from this example.

Gordon Wheeler
Cambridge MA, 1994
Preface to the Second Edition

This essay is meant to be a contribution to liberation


psychology, a psychology whose purpose is more than
the description of oppression and more than an
explanation of how oppressive institutions are created
and maintained by all members of any system that is
based on domination and submission. While it is
indeed intended to be a description of some of the
psychological mechanisms of oppression, and it carries
an analysis of the means by which members of an
exploitative community establish and support
devastating forms of domination and submission, it is
clearly meant to be more than a thoughtful appraisal.
The central goal I have had in pursuing this essay is
that of offering support that is useful to all members of
such communities in their efforts to undo oppression.
I want that persons shall have available to them at
those times when they are acting with a commitment
to the fundamental alteration of oppressive systems,
the wisdom that has come from clinical work in
psychotherapy. Thoughtful and informed struggle
needs not only the contributions from history of
political and social thought; it needs, desperately I
believe, everything that we have learned in the clinical
setting working with people who are trying to deal
with the inevitable effects of living in competitive and
abusive social institutions. Any effort devoted to
fundamental social change that does not incorporate
this psychological wisdom will self-destruct in its un-
Preface 1x

folding, as so many revolutions have done in the past.


Liberation psychology is a necessity for the next steps in
world social advancement.
Basic to the liberation psychology that I am endorsing
is the notion that all members of a society are
determined by the oppressiveness of a given system,
and equally that all members of a society are
determiners of the nature of that society. I reject the
postion that the oppressed are determined (powerless,
nothing but victims), while the oppressors are free to
implement whatever they wish (are simply powerful,
freely acting, able to choose in an uninhibited way).
We are all both influenced and influential. Of course
there are social classes, and members of these classes
are differently placed within exploitative systems. But
the simplistic view that the upper classes are free and
the lower classes powerless does not hold up under
scrutiny; and it is one of the purposes of this essay to
demonstrate the ways in which this view misses the
psychological underpinnings for the installation and
maintenance of oppression.
Similarly, it is a central belief underlying this work
that all members of a society at some times, in some
ways, are acting to change the system that is oppressive.
Revolutionaries are not privileged as the only citizens
aiming to change our social order. At most they give
voice or expression to tendencies which we all act out
and express in our daily lives. Some of us are more of
the time engaged in actions aimed at changing the
system, and some of us are more effective at it, but we
are all doing it. Similarly, every one of us is
conservative: we are each acting to keep the status quo
in place. We have painstakingly found a way to
manage our lives, and we are adjusted to, and sad to
Preface a

say, committed to the oppressive systems in which we


live. When we polarize individuals and groups into
those who are only agents of change and those who
solely resist change, we are disguising to ourselves and
to each other what we give to one another. Thus if we
adopt the conservative position and rail against
radicals, we nonetheless carry radical ideas and
interests, but place them in the personage of those we
are attacking. We know this reality only too well in
the therapy groups we run (in which polarization
around a scapegoat appears, for example), but we have
not insisted that the larger world come to terms with
our insight.
The liberation psychology contained here bears a
kinship to liberation theology, while at the same time
it is importantly different from that theology. Both
liberation psychology and liberation theology identify
the major social issue of our time as the struggle to
change in a fundamental way the exploitation that
characterizes the social and exonomic systems
throughout the world. What is innocuously called the
“market economy” has spread to nearly every corner of
the globe, and it is basic to that way of organizing the
production, distribution, and consumption of the
necessities and luxuries of life that human relations
too readily involve domination and subordination.
Similarly, both the psychology and the theology that
ally themselves with the goal of “liberation”
emphasize that ideas must be in the service of action,
that informed effort is more central than knowledge
for its own sake. Indeed, psychological theory, like
religious dogma, that merely tries to explain what is,
invariably promotes powerlessness rather than the
liveliness that inheres in liberation endeavors.
Preface x1

But liberation psychology, at least in the variant


proposed in this work, differs from liberation theology
in two very fundamental dimensions: it does not call
for sacrifice on the part of any activist engaged in the
liberation struggle, and it does not privilege the poor.
Sacrifice is, after all, the subduing of self, the limiting
of one’s full engagement, the putting away of essential
desires and ambitions that motivate daily existence.
Sacrifice also places one in a lesser position with
respect to others who are to benefit from the self-
negation. What has been learned in psychology over
the past century, especially in the psychology of Freud
and Adler, and after them the psychology of Gestalt
Therapy, is that sacrifice is inevitably paired with
aggrandizement: she who sacrifices now, will aggran-
dize later; he who sacrifices for the other places the
other in a posture of aggrandizement. To meet as
equals in the contact of dialogue is the essence of a
liberation psychology. It is the movement away from
the call for sacrifice on the part of anyone in the
exploitative system that differentiates a liberation
psychology from a liberation theology, that animates
the secular version of the commitment and actions
that are aimed at transforming systems of exploitation
into systems of cooperation among equals.
Because each of us is oriented both to change and
resistance to change, we are all available at one time or
another for efforts to alter exploitative systems. Rather
than privileging the poor as change agents, as in
liberation theology, a liberation psychology privileges
whoever is acting to change the system at the time they
are now promoting that change. The focus of attention
is upon actions that facilitate the dialogue of equals,
whatever the source. Thus, revolutions are often led
Preface xu

or supported by persons coming from the presumably


“well-off” classes or groupings. Change depends upon
support of all who embrace it in whatever degree that
is embraced.
I am pleased and grateful that this work now appears
in a new edition, and one more accessible to many
people. We live in turbulent times, with the
rumblings of more trouble to come, much more than
was obvious when this essay was first written. I hope
that the thoughts herein contribute in some small way
to actions aimed at creating a better human
community.

Philip Lichtenberg, 1994


Chapter 1

A Beginning

This is an essay on becoming a subject of the realm in contempo-


rary society. In the same way that the realm is no longer a kingdom
in most places in the world today, so becoming a subject is no
longer to be conceived as binding oneself to a superior by obliging
oneself to pay allegiance, as putting oneself under the dominion of
another or in the control of the other. To be a subject, in modern
terms, is to be an aware agent, an architect of one's individual life
and a conscious maker of social life. To be a subject is to be a citi-
zen, one who impressively lives in his or her time. Becoming a
subject of the realm in the most developed sense is becoming a par-
ticipant in shaping strong democratic practices in all the groups and
social systems in which one's life is played out. I shall be discussing
what is involved in fostering conditions in which many people can
and will become subjects in the contemporary sense.
That I plan to address the notion of becoming a subject of the
realm means I have the idea that by and large most of us do not yet
function as fully aware and confident citizens, that we are more like
the old notion of subject of the realm, ready to hand over our re-
sponsibilities and choices to others. While I would not go so far as
to describe most of us operating in modern society as serfs or ser-
vants, my work as a psychotherapist, a teacher, and a consultant to
schools and social service agencies leads me to believe that we are
most of us far from aware and effective citizens.
Our readiness to live as diminished individuals derives from a
universal conflict: we all want things to stay the same while we also
want things to change for the better. If things stay the same, they
are at least predictable, and we have learned how to manage from
2 A Beginning

what has gone on before. We generally find it easier to live from


memory, to follow established habits or programs, than to create
new ways in the here and now, to take our assessments of the pre-
sent, Our current perceptions, and set out to make more of what is
presently before us. Yet the universal conflict is alive and well; al-
though we seem to prefer to repeat the past, we find ourselves do-
ing the novel despite ourselves.
Alice Miller! has presented the idea that we are not fully aware
citizens in another form. She has argued, quite persuasively I be-
lieve, that child abuse is the norm of experience in the modern
world and that we have all been victims of it. At the center of child
rearing has been the enterprise of breaking the will of the child so
that he or she will become socialized. Children are commonly
viewed as egocentric and willful, and the force of parental teaching,
sometimes violent, sometimes merely controlling, is seen as neces-
sary so that children can be tamed and brought into the community
of civilized human beings. Politicians are wont to pontificate that
we must instill values in children, as if they were not naturally in-
clined toward cooperative bonding with their parents. This will-
breaking activity is purely and simply child abuse when looked at
closely and with a clinician's eye. Such tyrannical behavior is ac-
cepted by the community because parents, having themselves been
victims, have in that very event been prepared to be victimizers and
see nothing abnormal in it. Parents, who have loved their own par-
ents and identified with them, have learned how to be dominant as
well as submissive in victimizing relationships and, sometimes to
their own surprise, find themselves acting like their mothers and fa-
thers did.
Because we were all to some degree abused as children — think
back to the discipline in your own life, remember the punishments,
the threats, the fear — we have all experienced oppression.
Whether we were forcibly toilet trained, kept from playing outside
in the evening, punished for being lively in school, forced to do our
homework when we didn't want to, ignored when we felt helpless,
unexpectedly screamed at by our favorite aunt, or isolated by our
parents’ marital problems, we have all been hurt by oppression. As
A Beginning Ee

a consequence, we have accustomed ourselves to relationships of


unequal power and have become oppressors in some circumstances
and oppressed in others. The obedient worker is the dominating
parent, the dutiful teacher takes fluff from the administration and
passes it along to students in the classroom. The kid in the neigh-
borhood who resentfully submits to very controlling adults is the
same youngster who lords it over his peers. Both in growing up and
within the institutions where we now work and play, we have
learned the lessons of domination and have made our individual
accommodations to the facts of oppression.
If this judgment seems unduly harsh, it is because we. are
numbed to our own pain and seldom acknowledge it. We are pro-
tective of our parents who abused us, which itself is a mark of the
abused, as I will show in the pages that follow. We want to be loved
by our parents, all the more when they have mistreated us, an irony
of the human species, so we overlook our anger with them and pro-
tect them from our hatred of them as abusers. So too with the
institutional leaders we encounter. We do not identify ourselves as
oppressed and our leaders as oppressors, because to do so would
cause us to become aware of our pain and would also motivate us
more clearly to change the systems in which we live, a scary propo-
sition at best. Over the years we have frequently become disap-
pointed with our leaders, as Lloyd deMause” has shown, but we
find it difficult to hold on to our awareness of their indifference
and cruelty toward us.
I will refer to child abuse often in the following discussion for
the simple reason that it is a marvelous exemplar of the general
problem of oppression. There is clear disparity of power between
adult abuser and child abused, the psychological processes of both
victim and victimizer parallel what is seen in general social oppres-
sion, and much of child abuse, as much of oppression at large, has a
sexual component to it. The dynamics of the abused and the
abuser will be key to the argument of this essay.
If the bad news is that we have all been victimized and have
adapted to that experience and made believe that it is the normal
human condition, the good news is that the great majority of us live
4 A Beginning

our daily lives in a relatively adequate manner. Many of us may be


drug-addicted, others depressed, others bewildered, and some may
be lying and cheating in many domains of their lives, yet we carry
on as best we can and we appear to do all right while carrying on.
It is the rare mother who murders her young child, though if we
allow ourselves, we can remember our temptations to do compara-
ble deeds. We are friendly with our neighbors most of the time,
and we work in a rather adjusted fashion. Victims we are, and we
are also more than that, also somewhat healthy in our social and
emotional activities, also attuned closely to reality and successful in
mastering the tasks of ordinary life.
But it is important to attend to the bad as well as the good news
because the processes of transformation of individuals and society
rely upon awareness of both the unhealthy and the healthy ways of
functioning as individuals, and similarly, upon recognition of social
practices that promote deadly as well as enlivening group experi-
ences. To bring about the transformations I am referring to in-
volves undoing negative personal and social habits and routines
sometimes and simply fostering or enabling positive ones at other
times.
I have come to believe that too often persons and social move-
ments intending to change the existing systems have acted as if in-
dividuals were already subjects of the realm in the modern sense, as
if they functioned only maturely, as if a call to reason or a presenta-
tion of reasonable argument could mobilize citizens in the service
of overturning a social order built mostly on forms of domination.
In the past, agents of social change have acted as if a system of ex-
ploitation were merely clothing on the body politic such that our
psyches were unaffected, as if domination had not distorted our
personalities, as if we could shed at a moment's notice the outer
garments, or personas, we have adopted to fend off the worst as-
pects of the oppression we have known. Such persons and move-
ments have not spoken to us as whole individuals, as being both
healthy and unhealthy, committed to being exploited as well as op-
posed to it, but only to those parts of us that were reasonable and
rational. And that approach has not been enough.
A Beginning 5

I am mindful of Andras Angyal's> "theory of universal ambiguity"


here. Angyal, a holistically oriented psychiatrist, noted, as did
Alice Miller, that every child has experienced both healthy and
traumatic environmental conditions, and that as a consequence,
every child's personality forms two distinct patterns. One of these
patterns, obviously derived from the child's traumatic experiences,
is founded on isolation, with accompanying feelings of helplessness,
unlovableness, and doubt. The other pattern comes with a confi-
dence that one's basic strivings are likely to be realized directly and
fruitfully. Accordingly, says Angyal, we all live in.two worlds, the
world with the unhealthy principle as guiding factor, and the world
with the healthy principle in command of our being. These general
ways of being, which he calls the Gestalt of health and the Gestalt
of neurosis, control our experience, and we. shift back and forth
from one to the other principle as most in command of our lives at
any given time. The aim of psychotherapy, as of social change, isto |
enhance the degree to which the healthy Gestalt is in the driver's
seat.
Angyal has asserted further that the dual organization of human
life which he articulates promotes ambiguity: every item of human
behavior and experience has two meanings, one set by the feeling
of isolation and the other by the overarching feeling of confidence.
The sense of dependence, for example, which is major among op-
pressed peoples, can become intolerable in the context of the neu-
rotic Gestalt of helplessness; it can be a feared feeling, as in the
neediness of the person feeling alone and unsupported, or in the
profoundly experienced dread of weakness. But the sense of de-
pendence can also arise in a healthy framework and be a positive
force in community formation, a welcomed feeling, as in reliance
upon a trusted friend or a judicious leader. The meaning of depen-
dence is a function of whichever of the two Gestalts guides the in-
dividual at the time.
Agents of social change who have attended only to the healthy
functioning of individuals — who, for example, have assumed only
the rationality of all potential partners — have denied the full expe-
rience of those of us they have hoped to mobilize, and sooner or
6 A Beginning

later, one way or another, they have forfeited the allegiance they
have worked so hard to create. We human beings need to be seen
as we are, accepted in our best behavior but also in our worst, sup-
ported in our complexity, recognized in our ambiguity, encouraged
in our efforts to become complete. Unsuccessful social reformers
and revolutionaries are typically purists. While those who move
more Satisfactorily toward achieving their goals demonstrate the
patience necessary for dealing with the unhealthy parts of human
functioning in an oppressive world. For us to become contempo-
rary subjects of the realm, we need both support in our limitations
and challenge of our strengths.
In this essay, which centers upon psychological insights relevant
to processes of social change, I describe both the unhealthy and the
healthy psychological phenomena. The early descriptions of the
workings of the psyche look closely at the negative side, the instal-
lation of those personal styles and practices that are associated with
the establishment and maintenance of oppressive social relations.
These unhealthy psychological factors described in the early chap-
ters of the essay are best seen as emergency safeguards, appropri-
ate to the scene in which they were initiated but maintained be-
yond that situation, institutionalized, and ultimately limiting rather
than protective devices for the individual. Recovery from these
structuralized emergency measures leads back to the spontaneity of
behavior characteristic of well-functioning persons. In subsequent
chapters I look at the personal practices that are more healthy.
Wherever I attend to a negative factor, I have committed myself to
rendering what the healthy version is likely to be.
This essay is predicated upon the belief that psychological issues
and concerns are important to the process of social change. This is
hardly a new idea. The names of Wilhelm Reich, Otto Fenichel,
Alfred Adler, Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Harold Lasswell,
Kenneth Burke, Herbert Marcuse, Paul Goodman, and Frantz
Fanon come readily to mind as persons who have directed atten-
tion to the psychological in social struggle, and such entities as the
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Interna-
tional Society of Political Psychology, and the Association for Psy-
A Beginning 7

chohistory, Inc., exist with this perspective in the forefront of their


purposes. Acknowledging this heritage, I want also to indicate the
niche this present essay fits in, as follows:
As consciousness is to action, so the psychological is to social and
political activity. Human beings are primarily actors, and con-
sciousness is a secondary, guiding function in the service of making
actions more satisfying and more effective. "I do" is prior to "I
think,” as John Macmurray* has told us so well, and thinking is ori-
ented toward regulating the doing of which it is a part. Psychologi-
cal insights are most useful to social and political movements,
therefore, when seen as accompaniments to effort, as supportive
measures, sometimes to the fore but more often also present and
available for use. Too much attention to the psychological detracts
from the thrust of social or political action, while too little leaves
out the vital subjective side of creating subjects of the realm who
are capable of social struggle.
Central here is the following insight from psychotherapy. Its —
truth is well known in self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anony-
mous, and is demonstrated over and over again in psychotherapy,
especially therapy with a holistic perspective. We cannot in fact
make other people change. Agents of social transformation who try
too hard to change the people they work with or those they hope
to mobilize invariably alienate them. Trying to change others brings
resistance. Alternatively, agents of change can try to foster the
awarenesses that enable others to choose to change themselves. In
their social-change efforts as elsewhere, persons need to take re-
sponsibility for themselves in relations with others, and need re-
spectfully to allow others to be responsible for themselves, even
when they wish to avoid it and to place themselves in the hands of
leaders, authorities, experts, or anyone else who will take them on.
Agents of change can join with others, share themselves, and offer
to others insights that may be helpful to them as they go about
making their lives, but the agents of change must also recognize
that it is the others who make their own lives and who choose how
they will do that. As I hope to show, this willingness not to insist
that others change is especially relevant in the context of oppres-
8 A Beginning

sion, because basic adaptations to relations of dominance, on the


side of the oppressor as well as the oppressed, are active avoid-
ances of responsibility. In any application of the ideas in this essay,
accordingly, my emphasis is upon increasing awareness and then
letting go, permitting the other to become aware of what was un-
awares and use it as he or she sees fit. I know that this noncontrol-
ling form of relationship is hard to implement when one is engaged
in tense and difficult struggle, but this is the only way to proceed
that stands a chance of working in the long run.
Keeping to the position that one cannot take responsibility for
the choices others make is especially exacting in relations of domi-
nance because those who are on the oppressed side of the relation-
ship seem to plead for others to assume responsibility, while those
on the dominating side try to appear responsible without standing
fully behind that decisive appearance. In relations of dominance, I
will argue, we come upon the fusion of part-persons, whereas in
democratically grounded interactions we find cooperation between
autonomous individuals. There is a great difference between these
types of interdependences. The very nature of the psychology of
oppressive relationships limits the ways in which agents of change
can operate, and this reality makes contributions from the psy-
chotherapeutic world necessary to the world of social and political
change. In this work I have taken from the clinical arena ideas that
connect with social activity. I start with ideas on the very com-
monly recognized phenomenon identification with the aggressor, a
pattern of functioning found in children who have been abused and
in oppressed people generally. After discussing its development
and laying out what I consider to be the other processes for the in-
stallation and maintenance of relations of dominance, I turn to
some general characteristics of such relations. I then direct atten-
tion to ideas established in psychotherapeutic work that may stim-
ulate the undoing of these intrinsically harmful and unhealthful
patterns of functioning.
First, then, is identification with the aggressor.
Chapter 2

Identification with the Aggressor:


A Clinical Formulation

The psychoanalytic concept of identification with the aggressor


describes a predictable response to extreme stress in interpersonal
relationships, a response well known to clinicians and somewhat
known to sophisticated lay intellectuals, but strange and cause for
wonder to most citizens and social activists. The idea as presented
below was formulated first by Sandor Ferenczi, a major figure in
the early years of psychoanalysis, indeed one of Freud's earliest and
closest collaborators. His conception appeared in print in the early
1930s, the same period that saw the rise of Hitler and Nazism.
While Ferenczi developed the concept in respect to children who
were sexually abused by adults, later observers, having the expe-
riences of concentration camps available to them and knowing how
common identification with an aggressor could be in the world at
large, have applied the concept quite broadly and have tied it to
the description of various oppressed and subjugated peoples (e.g.,
Buss, !Fanon,” Lasswell,? and Memmi’). It is now a basic concept
in the psychotherapeutic lexicon.
Because nothing can provide a better beginning acquaintance
with the concept of identification with the aggressor than Fer-
enczi's original statement, I want here to reproduce an abridged
version of it. He is writing about the sexual molestation of chil-
dren:

"I obtained above all new corroborative evidence for my supposition that the
trauma, especially the sexual trauma, as the pathogenic factor cannot be val-
ued highly enough. Even children of very respectable, sincerely puritanical
10 Identification with the Aggressor

families. fall victim to real violence or rape much more often than one had
dared to suppose. Either it is the parents who try to find a substitute
gratification in this pathological way for their frustration, or it is people
thought to be trustworthy such as relatives (uncles, aunts, grandparents),
governesses or servants, who misuse the ignorance and the innocence of the
child. The immediate explanation — that these are only sexual fantasies of
the child, a kind of hysterical tying — is unfortunately made invalid by the
number of such confessions, e.g., of assaults upon children, committed by pa-
tients actually in analysis... .

"A typical way in which incestuous seductions may occur is this: an adult and
a child love each other, the child nursing the playful fantasy of taking the role
of mother to the adult. This play may assume erotic forms but remains, nev-
ertheless, on the level of tenderness. It is not so, however, with the pathologi-
cal adults. . . . They mistake the play of children for the desires of a sexually
mature person or even allow themselves — irrespective of any consequences
— to be carried away. The real rape of girls who have hardly grown out of
the age of infants, similar sexual acts of mature women with boys, and also
enforced homosexual acts, are more frequent occurrences than have hitherto
been assumed.

"It is difficult to imagine the behavior and the emotions of children after such
violence. One would expect the first impulse to be that of reaction, hatred,
disgust, energetic refusal, ‘No, no, I do not want it, it is much too violent for
me, it hurts, leave me alone.' This or something similar would be the immedi-
ate reaction if [the child] had not been paralyzed by enormous anxiety. These
children feel physically and morally helpless . . . for the overpowering force
and authority of the adult makes them dumb and can rob them of their
senses. The same anxety, however, if it reaches a certain ma@amum, compels
them to subordinate themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor, to di-
vine each one of his desires and to gratify these; completely oblivious of them-
selves they identify themselves with the aggressor. Through the identification,
Or let us say, introjection of the aggressor, he disappears as part of the exter-
nal reality, and becomes intra- instead of extra-psychic ....

"The most important change, produced in the mind of the child by the
anxiety-fear-ridden identification with the adult partner, is the introjection of
the guilt feelings of the adult which makes hitherto harmless play appear as a
punishable offense.

"When the child recovers from such an attack, he feels enormously confused,
in fact, split, — innocent and culpable at the same time — and his confidence
in the testimony of his own sense is broken. Moreover, the harsh behavior of
the adult partner tormented and made angry by his remorse renders the child
still more ashamed. . .
Identification with the

"The misused child changes into a mechanica b y a large


comes defiant, but is unable to account for thi ‘e 2 unless
Only with the help of this hypothesis [identific: ~ 5 \duce
understand why my patients refused so obsting te Bor
act to unjust or unkind treatment with pain or ' Sy af a es

From Ferenczi's description of identi_


as a response to excessive demand from a trusted authority can be
taken or inferred several salient ideas applicable to broader con-
texts than Ferenczi was dealing with:

1. The child, or subordinate, or weaker person, experiences enormous anxi-


ety. Identification with the aggressor is a response whose purpose is to
get rid of the anxiety.

2. The abused person becomes subordinate actively — puts the desires of


the stronger person in the primary position and becomes oblivious of
himself or herself.

3. The abused person, through introjection, feels the guilt feelings of the
stronger person, and beyond this feels ashamed in the face of the stronger
person's harsh behavior.

4. The weak individual feels confused, innocent and culpable at the same
time.

5. The abused individual becomes an obedient automaton or defiant, in ei-


ther case bound to the authority by the identification process.

6. The weak and misused person actively refuses to hate the dominating,
exploiting individual.

From this description of identification with the aggressor, I have


formed two schemes. One derives directly from Ferenczi's argu-
ment; the other is an elaboration based on interpretation of his as-
sessment. Each scheme describes a succession of phases. They ap-
ply not only to strong adults versus weak children but also to
stronger adults versus weaker ones and situations where sexual ac-
tivity is not the central subject, because domination and the re-
sponse of identification with the aggressor can happen anywhere.
10 Identification with the Aggressor

families. fpening, healthy phase of the first scheme, the weaker


eaten acting spontaneously and naturally, reaching out toward
e Conger person with expectations of happy and mutually bene-
ual encounters. This is the phase of natural spontaneity, seen by
Ferenczi in the adult-child context as a time when

"an adult and a child love each other, the child nursing the playful fantasy of
taking the role of mother to the adult.”

The relationship is assumed to be safe, and the weaker person is


psychologically open and unguarded, prepared only to find satisfac-
tion in a mutually supportive way with a trusted, more powerful
Other person. This is the way children normally are prepro-
grammed to be from birth on — friendly, positively oriented toward
others, confident, and spontaneous. (As I have suggested, children
are early on disabused of this orientation.)
In the second phase, the weaker person has been presented with -
demands and actions from the other that are discordant with what
was anticipated. The powerful person wants more from the rela-
tionship than the weaker person can manage successfully. In the
case of sexual abuse of a child as discussed by Ferenczi, the child's
play "may assume erotic forms but remains, nevertheless, on the
level of tenderness,” while the adult's actions are lustful and sexu-
ally beyond the child's natural capacities for sustaining excitement.
The consequence of the disparity of need and demand between the
weaker and the stronger, in this and other kinds of pairings, is the
experience of massive anxiety on the part of the weaker person,
and this phase may appropriately be called the phase of profound,
experienced anxiety. The weaker person feels unable to master the
situation and helpless in an unsafe circumstance. At bottom the
weaker person fears that he or she will be destroyed, overcome by
the massive stimulation and excitation that are felt. When a
worker on the assembly line who has happily maintained a precari-
ous balance between speed and accuracy, for instance, is now asked
to step up production or face the threat of replacement, the
worker is likely to experience such anxiety. Similarly, when a
Identification with the Aggressor 13

manufacturing plant or department store is taken over by a large


corporation and the possibility is raised of closing it down unless
profits are increased, the situation is sufficiently unsafe to produce
great agitation among employees, especially among those senior
workers who have been loyal to the company for a long time and
have built their lives around working at their jobs.
The anxiety in this phase may be called traumatic anxiety be-
cause the amount that is felt is at the upper limit of what can be
held in awareness and managed by the experiencing person. Anxi-
ety represents an emotional message to the individual experiencing
it that there is danger to his or her integrity and existence. Some
anxiety — the healthy variant, which I will describe later in this es-
say — is vital to productive functioning, but the anxiety we are
seeing in this second phase of the process of identification with the
aggressor is destructive of healthy functioning.
The third phase in this scheme based on Ferenczi's discussion is
replacement of the anxiety by the symptom of identification with
the aggressor. As he explains:

"The same anxiety, however, if it reaches a certain maximum, compels them


to subordinate themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor, to divine
each one of his desires and to gratify these; completely oblivious of them-~
selves they identify themselves with the aggressor.

Various components of identification with the aggressor — self-


subordination, introjection of guilt, confusion and automaton be-
havior or defiance, refusal to hate the aggressor — exist in the final
phase as described by Ferenczi.
The outline of this first scheme is thus:

Scheme 1

Natural spontaneity — Profound, experienced anxiety — Identi-


fication with the aggressor

This is the scheme that was most used by clinicians and social
theorists in the early years of reference to the concept of identifica-
14 Identification with the Aggressor

tion with the aggressor, and I have no quarrel with its essential cor-
rectness. It does not, however, capture many of the complex issues
that arise out of Ferenczi's discussion; and more recent thinkers
have made an attempt to articulate further the unfolding process.
Two additions to Scheme 1 seem especially productive in organiz-
ing the several components that make up identification with the
aggressor: 1) interpolation of a phase of angry feeling toward the
abuser between the experience of anxiety and the appearance of
the identification; and 2) the merging of the abused person's own
wishes with those of the abuser.
Ferenczi, like those of us working with victims of molestation af-
ter him, was puzzled that his abused patients did not experience
and share with him anger and disgust directed against their abusers:

"One would expect the first impulse to be that of reaction, hatred, disgust,
energetic refusal .. . . This or something similar would be the immediate re-
action if [the child] had not been paralyzed by enormous anxiety. These chil-
dren feel physically and morally helpless . . . .”

Here Ferenczi seemed to approach a belief that identification


i with the aggressor is not simply a transformation of anxiety, not
/sitaply a substitute of a symptom for unbearable feelings of tension
and doubt aroused by the trauma, but also a redirection of anger, a
turning back upon the self of rage that would naturally have been
oused by the abuser and aimed originally at the abuser. I have
cane belicve (hareageraTell”hatighticcatam by the abused
person. Here it was not openly expressed bec he child felt
helpless as well as angry; and Ferenczi did not observe anger be-
cause TtHadalready beenturned back upon the self when he dealt
with chikiven whoBadSoenied withtheiraggresson: I am sug-
gesting, in other words, that experienced anger follows anxiety and
recedes identification with the aggressor.
Rieker and Carmen seem to bridge Ferenczi's position and mine.
First, they comment on anger as a central response to abuse; sec-
ond, they hold that victims don't generally experience anger di-
rectly, but repress it:
Identification with the Aggressor 15

"... it is important to recognize the centrality of anger as a response to abuse.


In contrast to feelings aroused in others who hear about the abuse, victims
generally do not experience their anger directly; because it is viewed as poten-
tially dangerous and uncontrollable, it is repressed. Consequently, victims are
disconnected from their rage and their aggressive impulses; when these feel-
ings do erupt in other contexts, they are often perceived as irrational and in-
explicable."

The anger that is generated by the frightening situation, when it


is turned back upon the self, is felt as guilt. I am reminded of
Freud's provocative insight in The Ego and the Id:

"It is remarkable that the more a man checks his aggressive tendencies to-
wards others the more tyrannical, that is aggressive, he becomes in his ego-
ideal... . It is like a displacement, a turning round upon the self.

And in Civilization and Its Discontents he argued:

. every piece of aggression whose satisfaction the subject gives up is taken


overerby the super-ego and increases the latter's aggressiveness (against the
€go)."

The guilt felt by the abus i ixture. Surely a big partQ)


of it comes from the withholding and redirecting inward of anger
felt toward the unjust authority; another part is, as Ferenczi noted &)
for the child-abuse situation, guilt registered by distressed
the and
remorseful abuser which the abused person has introjected. The
guilt may be strongly felt, or it may barely emerge as a feeling bad )
about oneself. Either way, the abused person is not aware of the
farmer anger or of the introjection of guilt, and $Q
sg willfeel con-
fused about why he or she should feel this way. There will tend to
Be
less of the feeling of confusion when the desires activated in the
abused person by the event are not altogether comfortable — as,
for example, with aggressive or sexual wishes that someone has
previously criticized, giving the abused person a relatively
grounded sense of not being entirely innocent in the matter.
There is, then, a fundamental confounding within the abused
person of feelings of guilt. And with this confusing mixture — in
the superego, the realm of conscience, of self-control by way of
16 Identification with the Aggressor

moral judgments and strictness — a merger of self with abuser


takes place, and identification with the aggressor begins. This
phase that follows anger I call confusing guilt and self-hatred.
Beyond the merger of self and other in the superego is one fur-
ther phase of identification with the aggressor. Not only are the in-
ner forces of self-control, self-judgment, and self-punishment in-
fused with the demands and other pressures of a dominating other;
also affected in the attempts to master extreme stress are the very
desires of the abused individual. Ferenczi spoke of children as sub-
ordinating themselves like automata to the will of adults, divining
their desires and gratifying them completely oblivious of them-
selves. But no one can be completely oblivious of self as far as de-
sires are concerned. At most one can act as if the desires of an-
other were one's own and permit oneself the experience of only
those desires of one's own which meet the demands of another,
forsaking any unique, self-actualizing expression in the interest of
placating that dominating other person. These things are done in
the final phase of identification with the aggressor that succeeds
guilt and self hatred, a phase that I call fusion of own and aggres-
sor's desires.
‘The two parts of identification with the aggressor that I have
isolated — confusing guilt and self-hatred and fusion of own and
aggressor's desires — actually represent two degrees of merging self
with other: In the first instance, the person takes the demands and
other pressures from the aggressor, interiorizes them, and mixes
them together with his or her own self-regulating activities so that
the self-control that is exerted is ambiguous as to its origins and
whether it is in the service of self or other. In the second instance,
not only is self-judgment altered, but the very desires that are being
regulated and organized become ambiguous as to whether they are
the person's own or the aggressor's desires. The ultimate in such
unhealthy identification is reached when the weaker person lives
out the projected (unacceptable) wishes of the aggressor, becomes
only a tool in the hands of the aggressor, without volition or choice.
In Hellmuth Kaiser's discussion of what he calls the submissive
mode there is
Identification with the Aggressor Li]

"obedience without decision to obey . . . The imagined relationship between


two people is such that the separateness of the individual appears diminished.
Though in all other resvects they might be considered two persons, they have
only one power of decision between them. Or, in oth¢r words, one of them
appears only as an extension or an organ of the other.”

An important sign of the merger of the victim with the abuser is


the intense loyalty shown by the victim. Cynthia Solin illustrates
this in her discussion of "displacement of affect in families follow-
ing incest disclosure." She is writing here of incest between a fa-
ther and child:

"Censure of the offender almost invariably elicits pronounced anger in the


mother and children. Their wrath is grounded in family loyalty and fueled by
perceptions that the offender himself is being victimized by uncaring and in-
sensitive institutions. Incest victims tend to have a highly developed sensitiv-
ity
feelings
to the of others; a sense of their father's mistreatment mobilizes
them to assume a very protective stance."

Perls et al. note the merger and the satisfaction that is derived
from joining an oppressive authority:

"... the self now gets an enormous positive satisfaction from its identification
with the strong authority. As a whole the self has been defeated, for its con-
flict has not been allowed to mature and become some new positive thing;
but the identifying self can now say T am the victor.’ This powerful satisfac-
tion is arrogance. What are the elements?

"First, added to the relief of the cessation of suffering the conflict, is the ex-
pansive relief from the pressures of threatened defeat, shame, humiliation, by
assuming another role, arrogance is expansive, brash, confident. Second,
there is the blushing satisfaction of gloating, a species of vanity; in Freudian
terms the super-ego is smiling on the ego. Third, the proud self arrogates to
itself the fancied virtues of the authorities, strength, rights, wisdom, guileless-
ness. Last and most important, and by no means an illusion, the arrogant self
can now wield its aggression and continually prove that it is a conqueror, for
the victim is always available for domination . . . Unfortunately the chief vic-
tim of the aggression isjust oneself, atways available to be beaten, squelched,
bitten, and so forth.”
18 Identification with the Aggressor

The second scheme that incorporates these added phases of ex-


perienced anger and two degrees of identification with the aggres-
sor is as Shown below:

Scheme 2

Natural spontaneity —> Profound, experienced anxiety —> Experi-


enced anger — Confusing guilt and self-hatred (identification with
the aggressor, first degree) — Fusion of own and aggressor's de-
sires (identification with the aggressor, second degree)
But what of the aggressor himself or herself? To this other side
of the story I now turn.
Chapter 3

Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable


Other: A Clinical Formulation

Although the ideas in the concept of identification with the ag-


gressor are impressively descriptive, I have come to realize that a
major omission of complementary ideas must be corrected before
the theory can be made useful to social action. The omission is of
lesser importance in therapeutic work, which may explain why it
has-been accepted lightlyfarsolong,but the use of the concept of
NE Seer scene, where not only
the weak
personis-to-be-changed,
or abused requires that I attend
to that which has been slighted.
I have set forth the response of the weaker person to stress-cre-
ated in the interaction with the more powerful person, and I have
traced the steps by which the abused person becomes merged with
— or fused with, or confluent with — the abuser. To this point,
however, I have left unexamined and undeveloped the social and
psychic functioning of the person who is powerful in the relation-
ship. Ferenczi clearly implied that abusers have personal problems
comparable to those experienced by the abused — indeed his
discovery of identification with the aggressor partly stemmed from
psychoanalytic work with adult molesters. He noted that the adult
misinterpreted and misused the playful fantasies of the child when
rape or molesting took place, and he also referred to the guilt of
the adult which the abused child introjected. We most of the time
assume something is wrong with rapists, brutal concentration camp
guards, wife batterers, and other such aggressors, and their victims
often identify with them. Nonetheless, systematic exploration of
20 Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

the psyche of the aggressor has not been included in the analysis of
identification with the aggressor — by Ferenczi, who was treating
molesters, or by later thinkers. Overlooked has been the possibility
that the aggressor merges with the victim fully as much as the weak
one merges with the powerful one.
Let me say this again, in different words, to underscore the criti-
cal point. The strength of the concept of identification with the ag-
gressor lies in its description of an unexpected and perplexing phe-
nomenon: those brutalized by aggressive practices not only accept
their domination but also help to carry out these practices which
hurt them, and even come to admire, defend, serve, and promote
the interests of those who oppress them. The limitation of the con-
cept is that "identification with the aggressor” implies a one-way in-
fluence, from oppressor to oppressed. It would seem to the inno-
cent eye that those who are oppressed merge with their oppressors,
take on their practices and values, but those who oppress others
are free from the influence of those they dominate. A formula to
express this (distorted) view would be: The oppressor is agent, the
oppressed is agency.
Agents are persons who act from their own needs, who know
they are subjects in relating to objects, who stand behind their ac-
tions and acknowledge responsibility for their choices, and who are
rightly recognized as the cause of their own behavior. Persons act-
ing as agency are persons who are instruments for another person
or for an overriding system, who have a diminished sense of sub-
jecthood, who shift responsibility for their choices to others and
who are recognized less as the cause of their own behavior than as
persons who carry out predetermined actions. An agent would say,
"It is Iwho am doing this thing," where an agency would aver, "I am
doing what I am required to do."
Two factors are hidden in the formula that holds the dominator
as agent and the oppressed as agency: 1) underestimation of the re-
sponsibility of the weak participant in the transactions, and 2) ex-
aggeration of the responsibility and psychological health of the
powerful participant. We cannot understand adequately both the
guilt of the abused and the desperate insistence of the powerful un-
Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other, 21

less we discard the formula and these in fact widely encountered


distortions.
C. G. Jung is among those who have seen the problem and called
for such rectification in his discussion of prestige, which is very
much related to the hierarchical situation of oppression:

", . the building up of prestige is always a product of collective compromise;


not only must there be one who wants prestige, there must also be a public
seeking somebody on whom to confer prestige. That being so, it would be in-
correct to say that a man creates prestige for himself out of his individual will
to power; it is on the contrary an entirely collective affair. Since society as a
whole needs the magically effective figure, it uses the needful will to power in
the individual, and the will to submit in the mass, as a vehicle, and thus brings
about the creation of personal prestige."

Recognition of the limitation of the concept of identification


with the aggressor means that I must take into consideration the
transactions between aggressor and victim and attend to the psyche
of the aggressor. The schemes that I have thus far put forth must
be enriched by incorporating what is happening to the aggressor
while the victim is identifying.
Identification with the aggressor is a special case of the general
process of identification; it is that pathological form of identifica-
tion which is activated during interactions with an exploitative or
aggressive stronger person. It is pathological in that the weak per-
son becomes confused by adopting self-evaluative standards that are
dictated and enforced by the ageressor and subsequently by con-
founding his or her own desires with the aggressor's wishes. That is,
the identification process is effected at the expense of the weak
person's own needs and values as these would be independently
achieved were the aggressor a cooperative rather than exploitative
partner in the relationship. Identification with the aggressor, we
must always remember, does not appear when the stronger person
is democratic, equalitarian, and cooperative in the relationship.
But at the same time that identification with the aggressor is
pathological in its ramifications for the individual, it is also adaptive
and self-preserving. It happens when the weak person is relating to
oppressive or abusing circumstances and enables the person to sur-
Z2 ‘Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

vive what seems unbearable as well as to refrain from fighting back


J
~and making things-worse.It has the further consequence of keep-
ingsihenrelddonsbinigorng While such relationships with an
aggressor are abusive, are also relationships that the weaker
person relies upon out peers eee the
prisonér will suffer more by antagonizing the guard, the woman be-
lieves she will sink into poverty if she leaves her battering husband,
the worker can fear joblessness if he rages against that abusive su-
perior. Identification with the aggressor can limit one's life
possibilities, to be sure, but it can also be life-saving.
I assume in what follows that adults who abuse children, hus-
bands who batter wives, concentration camp guards who torment
prisoners, and business people who abuse lower-echelon workers
are all persons who have failed in their own psychological devel-
opment. Identification with the aggressor is a two-party event in
which the aggressor's personality limitations are heavily implicated.
If the weak persons who identify with the aggressor fulfill Kaiser's
criteria for the "submissive mode" in their "obedience without deci-
sion to obey,” it is similarly true that the abusers meet his sense of
the "tyrannical personality":

"The tyrant wants the people he tyrannizes to obey; but obedience in itself is
not enough to satisfy him. They should not obey by any rational reason, be-
cause they share his goals or are motivated by rewards promised or punish-
ment threatened. They should obey blindly like robots without any volition
of their own. He is interested in making demands which are arbitrary and un-
reasonable, or at least must appear as such to his subjects, in order to make
sure that their obedience is not attributable to their agreement with his <
goals."

In Kaiser's view, the tyrant wants of the people whom he tyrannizes


that their role as agent as persons following their own wants and
{ i su ; they must become agency.
Kaiser next indicated that both the submissive and the tyrannical
efforts of people are in the service-of creating for each individual a
reer eanseeeie yan in which the delusion involved
seems to soften the strict boundaries which separate one individual
from another. That is, people try to obscure their own boundaries,
a
Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other 23

their separate responsibilities as agents in the creation of social re-


lations, by entering either submissive or tyrannical endeavors, in
which they imagine they_are_ merged with others. They choose to
be submissive or tyrannical depending upon their established
power relation with an other to whom they relate — their spouse,
their boss, their child, their friend. Kaiser believed that the delu-
sion of fusion isbasic toall psychopathology.
Following Kaiser, I am led to propose that a mutual striving for
fusion takes place between aggressor and abused,
a striving en-
gagedthose-connected
in by all in an oppressor-oppressed way.
WHIE-EN aapTesor mayseenr Tobeendowed Will unconstrained
power and with the apparent ability to arbitrarily impose his or her
will, this very aggressor mustbe understood as also deprived of true
autonomy and separateness and as in fact seeking fusion with, and
thus becoming controlled by,hisorheridentified victim orvictims.
Oppressors can best be viewed as also victims.
Furthermore, the pace of the fusion process is exactly the same
for_the aggressor and the victim. e g Of identification
with the aggressor as outlined in Scheme 2 is paralleled by a pro-
cess that step by step brings the aggressor to become fused with the
victim. The two jpaitittos ifn cenTimoitare intertwinedAvnew
formula would express
this view: The extent to which the abused
(submissive) isagency rather than agent ismatched precisely with
the degree to which the aggressor (tyrannical) is agen
agent or mock-agent) rather than agent. Theretreat from self as
agent, orresponsible one, to self as agency, or instrument, is a_re-
ciprocal process between aggressor and victim. The complete fu-
sion of the weak with the aggressor, if achieved in its delusional
form, is also the complete fusion of the aggressor with the weak.
When I talk about violence, rage lence,
anny, and exploitation, I am obviously talking about power, and
ieaici Akar ASDIGHOE
gforced
tet and
aTunjust uses of power
by thestronger against theweaker. When Ispeak of the fusion of
one person with another, however, and I note that in-this_merging
both parties diminish or lose their capacities as agents and takeyon
24 Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

the character of instruments, I am referring to the development of


form_of powerlessness.
From the point of view of those who fill the role of victims in the
social relations characterized by aggressive manifestations of
power, there is consistency inthe experience ofpower here. There
is powerlessness in res Se, as
with the girl who wishes to play mother to the adult male and is
raped instead; and there is powerlessness in the psychic sense of
selfhood when the victim identifies with the aggresso:
geressor and loses
control over the definition of v
rom the point of view of those who are the identified aggres-
sors, however, the assertion of strength and control in the exploita-
tive mode represents powerfulness, while the fusion with the victim
represents profound powerlessness (thus the idea of pseudo-agent
or mock-agent). In the situation of unjust power relations, the ex-
pression of power by the stronger is associated with an increased
powerlessness: the oppressor becomes more powerful and more
powerless at one and the same time. This paradox stands in need
of clarification.
We can see through to the resolution of the paradox by traccing
the compelled dependence whi
tioning asas tyrant. In the first place, the aggressor is dependent
uponCertain
a narrow type of social relation for the resolution of
personal desires: the self-regulation of the aggressor, his or her
mastery of these desires, depends upon control of an other. The
social relation that empowers the aggressor is not just casual or
convenient; the aggressor requires that_an available to be
ofepinthe mangement
aggressor
dependent-upon_the
may be social relation be-
causethedesitesa sostrongthatinnetresources atefearedtobe
inadequate to their control or because his or her inner executive
po are eeds can be ef-
fectively organized. In either case, when the balance of desire and
self-regulation is threatened, the relation-to-an-otherwho empow-
ers the aggressor is vital to the aggressor's internal psychic econ-
Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other 25

omy. Peter Marris suggests how this all works, including the conse-
quences for the weaker person, in his assessment of transfer of risk:

"The powerful,in managing relationships so as to secure for themselves the


most highly predictable canronment icyean,ineviabiy
ly make
makethat
tarenviron-
ovr
ment less predictable
forthewegker.Power is,above all,theability10trans-
fer the burden
en of risk to others."

In addition, not simply any other person will satisfy the aggres-
sor; the other person, or persons, in the social relation must
possess a special characteristic. The other be. vulnerable, that
is, predisposed to giveup responsibility and decision-making power
in the social relation as a way of handling his or her own desires.
Vulnerability is just this readiness to let an other take over one's
responsibility, as in “obedience without decisionto obey.” This is
readily seen in the molested children who drew Ferenczi's
attention. These children were abused by parents, other relatives,
or closely connected friends whom the children trusted. The
abusers were figures who the children could reasonably assume
would act in a responsible fashion and so could be counted upon to
make decisions for them. The children were predisposed to
allocate
authority
to their abusers. This is ageneral trait associated
with the aggressor-abused relationship, and it means that the
ressor_is dependent upon a vulnerable other, not an other
Fineeioning as agent.
Yet another dependence of the aggressor is this: the aggressor
must have the appearance of con ecision-making power in
the social relation, without the,personal accountability toself and
others that is necessary for the development and maintenance of
cooperative efforts engaged inbyseparate, self-directed individu-
als. This is the essence of Kaiser's remark that obedience itself is
not-enough
for the tyrant:

"He is interested in making demands which are arbitrary and unreasonable. . .


in L is subj ienc is not attributable to their
~ agreement with his goals.”
26 Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

Were others to obey the aggressor in the service of their own goals,
they would be denying the special power of the aggressor, and they
would be showing themselves as agents rather than as instruments
available for the aggressor's purposes. The dominator's intolerance
of the ae of others is neither idle nor uy dite It is a
function of dependence on_the-vulnera fort! efinition
of his or her own power.
A final dependence of the aggressor which indicates powerless-
ness in the social relation is a parasitical relation to the needs of
the vulnerable other persan_thal Becomes, prominent wetheres
tion unfolds. Whether these needs are appropriated by the aggres-
sor or their denunciation and rejection become focal in the rela-
tion, the aggressor leans upon the vulnerable one's needs. All
aggressors fuse the needs of the vulnerable other with their own
needs in the way that the adult molester fastens on the innocent
sexual play of the child to live out his or her sexual needs. Here we
come upon the complete counterpart
to identification with the ag-,
SXDIGSSSS SOT sy Beans AESPEOREA
gressor: the aEoT O00F-
be called projection
The scheme I have formed to describe the erases of projec-
tion upon a primed vulnerable other is based upon the scheme for
identification with the aggressor. The same steps appear because
the two processes are reciprocals. The disempowerment that takes
place through identification with the aggressor is reciprocal with
the controlled empowerment that takes through projection
upon a primed vulnerable other.
At each step a reciprocal process takes place-such_that while the
weaker partici tion — a
taking on, or substituting in the self, of what belongs to the other,
in the sense of values, needs, and desires — the stronger participant
is in ingly under the influence of projection, wheréby he or she

for ae or herself what is desirable or managea le:

ioe the weaker person with expectations ofhappy and mutually


_a ES eee
Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other 27

A gat hif : e Safe dt stronger per-


son,‘iit the:ee is psychologically open andunguarded, pre-
pared only to find satisfaction in a mutually supportive way with
another person.
Something goes-wrong
natural-spontaneity,
with and the second
Se ae The stronger per-
on may have risked more than intended in the relationship, and
may feel threatened by exposure to a wider audience; or deep,
feared impulses may have surfaced and challenged his or her exec-
utive controls; or the stronger person, wanting more from rom_ the
situation than the weaker person wants, as in the case of thechild
molester, may have provoked great anxiety and desperation
in the
weaker person, which iin turn has threatened the stronger person.
In short, a saf me unsa €, dangerous not onl t
the but to the maker of the excessive ~ The stronger
person feels unable to fully master the situation and feels threat-
ened in an unsafe circumstance.
The power differential first appears in the phase of profound,
experienced anxiety, wherein or
er Own anxi using upon the anxiety of the n.

surances that the situation is not dangerous and need not be


feared; or efforts are made to control the weaker person so that he
or she will not dangerously live out anxiety in public. The molested
child, for example, may be told that things are all right, that nothing
wrong has happened and nothing is to be feared; or the child may
be warned not to reveal what has taken place, since other folks
might not understand. In either case, the stronger person acts to
manage the aroused anxiety through attending to the weaker per-
son, as well as through implementation of internal self-control
measures. It is as if the stronger person were to say, "The excess of
my anxiety can be resolved through the handling of your anxiety."
It is easy to see this in the adult-child relation, since the adult can
mask his or her own anxiety by taking care of the child, who
expects to be taken care of, but the same process happens among
28 Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

peers as a control-dependence bonding begins to develop and as


the fusion process takes hold. ,
The third phase in projection upon a primed vulnerable other, as
in identification with the aggressor, is the phase of experienced
anger. Both those who project and those who identify are angry
and are aware at some time of their feeling; and both aim their
anger at the other who makes them anxious. I postulate here that
anger is a crucial part of a person's intensified exertions that are
aimed toward influencing others in a threatening situation. Great
anxiety mobilizes anger as a means for alleviating the anxious-
making circumstance.
Although the stronger and weaker individuals are comparable in
being angry outward, focusing their anger on the other in the rela-
tionship, they differ in how they are angry. The experienced anger
of the weaker person flares into forms that lead toward disempow-
erment in the relationship (such as exasperated, helpless rage),
while the stronger one shapes angry actions that facilitate self-em-
powerment (such as using power allocated by a larger system in
which the two are both embedded to threaten the weaker person).
The management of the social emotion of anger in dealings be-
tween weaker and stronger involves each person's regulating his or
her own feelings and, at the same time, handling the other's angry
endeavors. It is quite challenging and difficult to pay this simulta-
neous attention to self and to other fully with awareness, which is
why it can happen unawares that one attends to self or to other and
power distribution follows. If both the weaker and the stronger
person focus attention on the rage of the weaker, for example, the
limitations of the stronger are hidden and the unequal power
alignment is developed. In this case, the weak individual attends to
himself or herself, the stronger focuses on the other, and together
they diminish the weaker through underscoring the helplessness in
this person's rage.
Projection upon a primed vulnerable other is promoted when
the stronger person both develops controlled rage inside and fos-
ters the evolution of helpless rage in the weaker person. On the
one hand, the stronger person attends to self-control in the mas-
Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other 29

tery of felt anger; on the other hand, the stronger person


encourages helplessness in the weaker person as that person
struggles with angry emotions. Both the self-control and the
helplessness help the stronger manipulate the weaker more
fiercely. The strategies of self-control and rendering the other's
rage helpless are thus key components of the process that em-
powers the stronger person and makes for a tyranny in the relation-
ship. And the strategies can be carried out alternatively: it is not
necessary that both be activated at the same time.
The stronger person is seldom free in magnifying the helpless-
ness of the weaker's rage. Rather, control of the weaker is vital to
the maintenance of internal integrity and is, therefore, a necessary
and compelled effort for the stronger person. That portion of the
experienced anger which the stronger person can manage through
internal regulating devices appears to the observer as self-con-
trolled anger — and can be seen in a tense face, a stiff body, erect
posture, a tight voice — but that is not the whole of the anger that
wells up inside the stronger person. The remainder of the anger,
which threatens to overwhelm the person and tear him or her
apart, is projected upon the weaker person, and control activities
are shifted outward toward management of this primed vulnerable
other's rage. The powerful one gets distracted from his or her own
anger by focusing on the other's.
Incidentally, most powerful people can't admit to being
disturbed by their anger, since that would show them as weak.
Their inability to admit this is part of the projection process — a
way of projecting weakness outside of themselves. I am reminded
of President Nixon, under fire from reporters during the Watergate
hearings, on television angrily denying that he was angry. He was
avoiding experiencing his own rage and attempting to divert
television viewers from it by centering on the reporters and their
questions — but he did behaviorally what he was denying in his
words.
The fourth phase in the development of projection upon a
primed vulnerable other, again paralleling identification with the
aggressor, is confusing guilt and self-hatred. When the rage in the
30 Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

transactions between the tyrannical and submissive persons be-


comes intolerable and projection of anger and induction of help-
lessness and its concomitant control fail to solve the problems in
making the relationship work, there is a remarkable disappearance
of the experienced anger. In its place arise guilt and self-hatred,
and these follow the same pattern as the experienced anger; some
is internalized and some projected. The rage that was being dealt
with by inner control is turned back upon the self and leads to the
same sort of guilt and self-hatred experienced by those who
identify with the aggressor. The rage that was managed through
projection upon a primed vulnerable other is transformed into
preoccupation with the guiltiness and hatefulness of that weaker
other.
Projected guilt and self-hatred do not look like what we ordinar-
ily call guilt and self-hatred at all. To be guilty is to be focused
upon oneself and to blame oneself. Similarly, self-hatred involves
hatred either of one's own desires or of one's control over desires,
one's aggressiveness against oneself. Self-contempt, self-denigra-
tion, self-abasement typify self-hatred. Projected guilt, however, is
manifested as hypersensitivity to moral indiscretions by the other.
In projected guilt attention is pointed toward the other rather than
toward the self, and specifically to the moral foibles of the other
that are very like one's own. Similarly, in projected self-hatred, the
hate is of the other, not of the self; the subject matter of the ha-
tred, furthermore, is composed of desires and internal controls that
are unacceptable to the self, that are part of what Jungians call the
"shadow." For example, men who stereotype women as emotional
rather than rational are often repressing their own emotionality
and projecting it upon women, where they then act to reject it a
second time. They are obsessed with emotionality, disallow it in
themselves, see it or provoke it in women, and then punish it.
The final phase of projection upon a primed vulnerable other is
called fusion of own and vulnerable other's desires. When guilt and
self-hatred are projected, the stronger is riding upon the guilt and
self-hatred of the weaker. In this final phase, beyond guilt and self-
hatred, the stronger person merges self with other in the very de-
Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other 31

sires expressed. The stronger person lives out his or her unaccept-
able wishes through the weaker person. Being pressed within by
strong desires and unable for whatever reason to satisfy them di-
rectly, stronger persons look elsewhere to deal with them. It is im-
portant for them that they find comparable desires in weaker oth-
ers and that they live through these others, either by encouraging
the weaker persons to express the desires they themselves cannot
express or by deploring behavior of these others that is based on
such desires. Attending closely to unacceptable desires but seeing
them only in others constitutes the means by which stronger per-
sons project. The weaker are either to do something or to stop
doing something in accord with the demands of the stronger, and
those demands are a function of the desires stronger persons can-
not take responsibility for in themselves. We here once again
come upon the tyrannical mode as described by Kaiser, in which
there is insistence upon being obeyed without any decision to be
obedient by the weaker. The projector and the identifier have only
one power of decision between them; one is the extension or organ
of the other; they are merged, or fused.
Projection is the great unrecognized factor in the establishment
and continuation of tyranny. And unhealthy projection is a dra-
matic limitation on human growth and fulfillment. The strong in
relations of domination are not self-actualizing in those relation-
ships.
A summary of the phases of projection upon a primed vulnera-
ble other is contained in

Scheme 3

Natural spontaneity > Profound, experienced anxiety — Experi-


enced anger — Confusing guilt and self hatred (projection upon a
primed vulnerable other, first degree) > Fusion of own and vul-
nerable other's desires (projection upon a primed vulnerable other,
second degree)
ay Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other

Having laid out complementary schemes of identification with


the aggressor and projection upon a primed vulnerable other, I
turn to elaboration of the mutual processes of pathological em-
powerment and disempowerment that characterize oppression.
Chapter 4

Empowering and Disempowering


Reciprocally

The processes of identification with the aggressor and projection


upon a primed vulnerable other entail efforts to achieve fusion
among persons. Such psychological fusion cannot happen without
the participation and acquiescence of the other or others in the
relationship with whom a person fuses. I have already suggested
that the aggressor fuses with the victim as much as the weak one
fuses with the powerful one; now I am going to expand upon the
idea that the unfolding of the identification and the projection in-
volved is mutually created and proceeds in lock step. Whether the
shift from anxiety to anger, for example, begins with one or the
other partner in the collaborative relationship, the consolidation
into any condition such that experienced anger is the dominant so-
cial emotion in the interaction is a result of the combined efforts of
the participants.
The shift to a more fused level of functioning — from anxiety to
anger, from anger to guilt and self-hatred, and from guilt and self-
hatred to the fusion of desires, in short each step on the path from
individuals operating as agents to individuals becoming agencies —
takes piace when the relationship is perceived to be threatened
with destruction. The anger of the persons who are interacting, for
instance, may mount into rage, and the rageful confrontations may
be read as murderous or suicidal. The actors in this drama will be-
lieve that they cannot reduce the danger implied by the depth of
their angry feelings except by halting the angry encounter. When
this threshold is reached and when the participants find that they
34 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

cannot flee from the relationship, the anger disappears and is no


longer the figural social-emotional characteristic of the relation-
ship. In its place appear manifestations of confusing guilt and self-
hatred as these are experienced in their differing ways by the weak
and the strong. Each shift, accordingly, is like the emergence of a
new symptom.
The interplay of identification with the aggressor and projection
upon a primed vulnerable other centrally involves complexes of the
social emotions I have described: these complexes are the locus of
the simultaneous unfolding of the senses of powerlessness and
powerfulness in the participants.! Power is relational, contributed
and developed by all actors in a relationship, and negotiations
around power take place through each person's handling of the so-
cial-emotional complex that comes to be figural in the relationship.
Thus, there are methods for managing each social-emotional com-
plex that maintain or promote equal power, inhibiting faulty identi-
fications and projections, but there are also methods that foster a
sense of powerlessness or a sense of powerfulness. Angry feelings,
for example, can be addressed to a partner in ways that affirm self
without diminishing or negating the other. These ways promote
equal power, whereas anger that is meant to frighten, intimidate, or
overwhelm a partner aims at creating a power differential. I want
now to elaborate on this theme.
When uncertainty about some central aspects of their common
efforts spreads among the members of a group, anxiety becomes a
pronounced and shared social-emotional factor. People may be-
come insecure about whether the group can reach its objectives,
whether the members will be treated with respect, whether their
needs will be met, or whether too much will be asked of them.
Something entirety unrelated to the group may even bring anxiety
to the forefront, as when a member comes into the scene anxious
about other parts of his or her life and by means of contagion or
resonance that anxiety spreads to others in the group. By any of a
number of means anxiety may appear in a group and take hold as
the dominant social emotion to be contended with, that is, negoti-
ated, by persons in the situation.
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 35

The differing ways these participants grapple with their anxiety


may lead to productive management of the anxiety and equal em-
powerment of all, or they may lead toward the empowerment of
some and the disempowerment of others. Angyal's idea of univer-
sal ambiguity is applicable here: anxiety may be seen to have two
meanings, and these meanings are opposed to each other, since
one is based on confidence (the anxiety of anticipation and excite-
ment that we all know before a lively event is to take place) and the
other is based on isolation (the anxiety of dread and fear, as in
phobias).
The handling of anxiety is not only a private affair for each
member of a group; whether the anxiety that dominates the group
is managed in the positive or disabling mode is partly determined
by the usual methods each individual is accustomed to using and
partly by the group process. A group may urge its members to rid
themselves of this uncomfortable social emotion, or it may enable
them to experience anxiety without fear and retreat. Indeed, one
group function is to enable individuals to experience and master
difficult emotional effects, a function it may succeed or fail in per-
forming. Whichever way the group moves in this regard, the na-
ture of the group process is one critical element in the distribution
of power.
For example, it can be functional for the participants to elevate
to leadership in an anxious period persons who are familiar with
their own anxiety, and can experience it, tolerate it, contain it, and
use it productively to mobilize themselves and others. We know
this positive expression of anxiety as alert apprehension, an appre-
hension that undergirds concerted, challenging, and effective ef-
fort. Conversely, it is disruptive for the group members to lean
upon those who are paralyzed by anxiety, who must repress it when
others are ready to be openly anxious, or who otherwise cannot
manage their experienced anxiety in a socially fruitful manner.
These functional and dysfunctional qualities may lead to a rational
division of influence within the group.
Yet what is realistic in the short run may become distorted over
time. If one person is always the leader of the group when anxiety
36 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

is prominent, then the others in the group may gradually lose what-
ever capacities for dealing with anxiety they had. This will come to
happen if they come to rely on that leader whenever they feel
anxious. Instead of acquiring from that leader techniques for in-
creasing their tolerance of anxiety and procedures for making their
anxiety serve them rather than disable them — that is, instead of
enlarging themselves through the relationship — the participants
may routinely diminish their social-emotional executive powers.
Little by little they may lose their sense of responsibility for mas-
tery of anxiety and acquire a sense of powerlessness at the merest
signal of anxious feelings. Part of the self is given over, and first
steps on the path to fusion are taken.
Leadership choices and the expression of leadership styles are
not the only group processes that facilitate or undermine the pro-
ductive management of anxiety. Among the many other group
facts which influence how it is managed is the group's norm for
emotionality among its members, the standard level of affect en-
couraged and tolerated by leaders and members of the group. In-
tolerance of intense affect as the norm of a group ensures that self-
controlled persons will rise to leadership and others will be less ca-
pable of mature handling of their emotions because they lack the
necessary support. Not surprisingly, authoritarian groups strictly
regulate emotional life, usually discouraging awareness and sharing
of such unpleasant affects as anxiety, or channeling them toward
perceived outgroups and not allowing them to influence ingroup
interactions. Enveloped by these antiemotional norms, members
are ill-prepared to deal with the risky, scary, challenging tasks of
life and increasingly lean upon authority in a fusion process when
the simplest flicker of anxiety appears.
Another, more nasty strategy for dividing power unequally in the
presence of an anxious group climate is to focus attention and con-
cern upon one person who is experiencing and contending with
personal anxiety. By turning that person inward and by centering
upon him or her in an isolating way, others, including those moving
toward self-empowerment, can hide their own anxiety or pretend
that it is less than is in fact the case. The highlighted anxious per-
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 37

son may be subjected to competing communications: "We care for


you in your distress"; "Your anxiety is extraordinary and reflects
some kind of inadequacy"; "We will attend to you later"; "You are
interfering with our normal process." Bringing some individuals to
be self-reflective in a group while others are not is a method for
controlling, containing, or diminishing those individuals while si-
multaneously empowering the non-self-reflective participants.
These illustrations of the uses of anxiety management for em-
powering and disempowering purposes embody another relevant
matter, namely, the fact that the distribution of power is a collabo-
rative activity. While it is true that some individuals act to em-
power themselves by one or another process, it is also true that
some act to disempower themselves, as when group participants
allow the leader to handle all matters involving anxiety. Some per-
sons do not initiate or direct their efforts toward self-empower-
ment but do allow themselves to be empowered; and similarly,
some are less assertive in disempowering themselves than they are
tolerant of being disempowered. Power, it must be remembered
over and over, is not an attribute of an individual, but rather is a
characteristic of a social relationship, created and maintained by all
participants in the relationship. Thus, disempowerment and em-
powerment may be sought, may be tolerated, or may simply happen
without anyone's awareness that they are taking place.
In describing the anger found in persons who are projecting
upon vulnerable others, I noted that controlled rage in the stronger
persons is paired with helpless rage in the weaker. Some variants
in this combination can be sketched to further illustrate the main
idea. In one of the simplest, the stronger person may occupy a
higher position in a hierarchical setting than one or more weaker
persons. In such a situation, the anger of the stronger person may
be embedded in the system's privileges, so that his or her personal
irritations can hide behind authority to enforce the rules of the sys-
tem. For example, a military officer rants about neatness and tidi-
ness on the base when disgruntled about something gone wrong at
home, and the social-emotional complex of the transaction be-
tween the officer and enlisted soldiers becomes one of angry feel-
38 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

ings. The "self-control" of his rage amounts to a collapsing of per-


sonal animosity into the regulations of the military system. The of-
ficer can be quite arbitrary and offensive and still expect the sys-
tem's support in the expression of rage. His or her confidence in
this support is basic to the empowerment phenomenon, as well as
to the sense of helplessness and powerlessness felt by those sub-
jected to the abuse.
Because there is a real power differential between officers and
plain soldiers, a differential embodied in rules and regulations ac-
knowledged by all, it might be asked where simple, appropriate,
task-related anger ends and projection upon a primed vulnerable
other begins. One answer to such a question is that a certain neat-
ness is necessary and functional to military life, and the push to-
ward that degree of neatness even in a tone of annoyance and irri-
tation reflects efforts to accomplish good work. Most husbands
and wives negotiate around cleanliness in their homes for the sim-
ilar purpose of being able to work comfortably and easily on the
things they choose to do. Beyond insistence on a certain level of
neatness, however, commands, whether from ‘military officer or
ie ne or wife, are intended to institute o out deci-
the automatic obedience Kaiser described indefining
ate Excessive anger around tidiness is tyranny whether the
weaker person is soldier, spouse, or, as most of us may remember, a
child whose parents are appalled at the state of his or her bedroom
or play area.
A different kind of answer surfaces upon scrutiny of the re-
sponses of soldiers to the officer, or spouse or child to the de-
manding other. When an officer is angry, the soldiers may be ac-
commodating and accepting of the authority's anger, even though
they may be discomfited by it. But they may find triggered in them
a crescendo of their own resentment and rage; indeed, they may
feel overwhelmed by wishes to be defiant, fantasies of aggression
against the officer, anger so profound that it frightens them as they
experience it. That deep anger, often accompanied by a sense of
futility, is likely to be their carrying of the officer's projected rage.
The officer has elicited helpless resentment as part of externalizing
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 39

his or her own perhaps overwhelming and frightening anger. In ef-


fect, the officer has arranged to “experience” his or her own anger
in the form of a perception of someone else's rage. In projecting
anger, the officer may hope to control it by relying upon the au-
thority of the system guiding all participants in the encounter. The
military hierarchy demands submission as part of its system princi-
ple, and the officer relies on adherence to that principle. Insofar as
the officer does place reliance upon obedience to the system, it can
be noted, he or she is thereby becoming an instrument of that sys-
tem in the sense of being agency rather than agent. Such officers
are known as "bureaucratic" military persons, and by this reference
is recognized their agency status. Many Nazi war criminals relied
for their defense after World War II on being such functionaries —
that is, not being personally responsible.
Another example is those teachers, bosses, or parents who are
seldom overtly angry but who regularly evoke rage in their stu-
dents, subordinates, or children. It may be that at the first inkling
of angry feeling of their own penetrating to their awareness such
individuals squash their feeling and promote it in others; or it may
be that as authorities they are hypersensitive to nuances of rage in
the weaker persons and foment and exploit those feelings. Either
of these kinds of projection is especially effective with rebellious
students, subordinates, or children, that is, with others who are vul-
nerable according to their status and who are primed by their own
near-the-surface anger.
An authority's self-control of anger may set in motion a transac-
tional process that elevates anger among the participants and dis-
tributes power unevenly in his or her favor. A leader who is always
and obviously holding in anger may intimidate those who are sub-
jected to his or her leadership. Subordinates, observing the tightly
reined anger, may act as if they were walking on eggs, fearful of
breaking a shell and receiving a blast of the anger being controlled.
Their fearfulness may stimulate their own anger, which they must
now keep under control. The leader, sensing rage in the subordi-
nates, perceives a possible power struggle and becomes more
40 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

threatening, uses more self control, leans more on the system for
authority, and increases his or her power.
Subordinates' anger-management practices may lead to disem-
powerment. When a subordinate loses control over his or her
anger, goes into a tirade, and is ineffective in moving authority or
mobilizing support or otherwise accomplishing the aims associated
with the anger, disempowerment occurs. The person may feel
foolish, self-critical, impotent, or resigned after the flash-flooding
of the rage. Confusion about the origins of the anger and its ap-
propriateness may enter awareness. Temper tantrums may be con-
tributors to disempowerment as well as signs of felt weakness.
Harriet Lerner refers to such ineffective kinds of anger in the
following observation:

"Fighting and blaming is sometimes a way both to protest and to protect the
status qug when we are not quite ready to make a move in one direction or
another.”

Finally, the simplest process in the use of anger to maintain


power-dependence relations is for a superior to intimidate a subor-
dinate by his or her fury. Fear of the superior's wrath, especially if
one's aspirations are dependent upon favorable relations with the
superior, is a basic ingredient of submissiveness, seen not only in
the most lowly in a hierarchy but also in those higher up who are
made vulnerable by their hopes or ambitions. Colonels, protective
of their careers, feared General Westmoreland's rage in the Viet-
nam War.
It is fairly easy to see mutually created empowerment and dis-
empowerment by means of anger management in social relations; it
is more difficult to trace empowerment and disempowerment when
guilt and self-hatred are the figural social emotions. There are
many reasons why the empowerment issues are obscured when
guilt’ and self-hatred are prominent, but the merging of the
stronger and the weaker is the primary factor.
"Confluence" is the word in Gestalt therapy theory for what I
have been mostly calling merging or fusion, and Polster and Polster
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 41

discuss/ guilt and confluence_jn terms pertinent to empowerment


and disempowerment:

"Two clues to disturbed confluent relationships are frequent feelings of guilt


or resentment. When one of the parties to a confluent contract senses he has
violated the confluence, he feels obliged tn apologize or to make restitution
for his breach of contract. He may not know why, but he feels he has trans-
gressed and believes that atonement, punishment or expiation is in order. He
may seek this by asking for or meekly submitting to harsh treatment, scolding
or alienation. He may also try to provide this punitive treatment himself by
retroflective behavior wherein he deals cruelly with himself by self-degrada-
tion, abasement, or feeling worthless and bad. Guilt is one of the paramount
signs that confluence has been disrupted.

"The other party, who feels that he has been transgressed against, experi-
ences righteous indignation and resentment. He is hurt and offended. He
has been betrayed, wronged, and sinned against; he has something coming
from the offender. He demands that the transgressor shall at least feel guilty
for what he hag done and that strenuous efforts at apology and reparation
shall be made."

I can illustrate problems caused by fusion by once again attend-


ing to Ferenczi's analysis of identification with the aggressor in the
instance of the molested child. Ferenczi believed that the signal
event for the child as a consequence of identification with the of-
fending adult partner is the introjection of the guilt feelings of the
adult, which transforms what had been harmless play into a punish-
able offense. The child perceives the guilt experienced by the adult
and introjects it, that is, becomes guilty from the adult's self-judg-
ment. But this is just one source of the child's guilt; there is a sec-
ond, possibly more important source as well: the anger felt by the
child toward the adult is turned round upon the self by the child,
who is feeling helpless. The internalized, self-directed anger,
mixed as it is with anxiety from the excessive stimulation, is also ex-
perienced as guilt. Accordingly, the child is confounded in the un-
derstanding ofhis orher guilt because that guilt iscomposed partly
's guilt which has been introjected and partly of the
child's self-contro reflexive rage. This confusion immobilizes
the child and further disempowers him or her.
42 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

Erich Fromm in Man for Himself has described the dependence


that accompanies guilt and disempowerment:

"Guilt feelings have proved to be the most effective means of forming and in-
creasing dependency, and herein lies one of the social functions of authori-
tarian ethics throughout history. The authority as lawgiver makes its subjects
feel guilty for their many and unavoidable transgressions. The guilt of un-
avoidable transgressions before authority and the need for its forgiveness
thus creates an endless chain of offense, guilt feeling, and the need for abso-
lution which keeps the subject in bondage and grateful for forgiveness rather
than critical of the authority's demands. It is this interaction between guilt
feelings and dependency which makes for the solidity and strength of the au-
thoritarian relationship. The dependence on irrational authority results in a
weakening of will in the dependent person and, at the same time, whatever
tends to paralyze the will makes for an increase in dependence. Thus a vi-
cious circle is formed."

The self-hatred that appears in the identifier and in the projec-


tor is another ground for the empowerment and disempowerment
process. There are two sides to the self-hatred, the hatred directed
against one's desires that put one into danger situations, which is
the hatred of one's spontaneity in response to impulses; and the ha-
tred of one's self-control, of the rage directed inwardly, of the at-
tempt to accommodate to the threatening reality. Internal conflict
from these self-hating activities consumes the person's energies,
making him or her less able to contend with reality in a responsible
way and so contributing to the powerlessness that is felt in the situ-
ation. .
The first of these self-hating acts is the hatred expressed in the
condemnations coming from the superego: "You are contemptible
for having such repellent desires; you are bad in your impulses; you
should not want what you want.” This self-hatred is associated with
the first degree of identification with the aggressor or projection
upon a primed vulnerable other. The second of these self-hating
acts is the last resort of holding on to one's own desires before the
second degree of the faulty identification or projection takes hold.
This hatred comes from the side of the desires and is aimed at the
excessive forces within oneself demanding self-control: "I hate it
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 43

that I deny myself what I so much want; my self-restriction is


ridiculous; I'm a fool to give up striving for what I desire.”
As I have said, some of the self-hatred of oppressors is projected
onto weaker persons in the form of preoccupation with the hate-
fulness of these weaker others. This in fact is done often. The pro-
found self-hatred of oppressed peoples is fertile ground for such
projections. Prepared for by contrasting styles of managing anxiety
and anger, the collusion between the weak inviting contempt and
the strong projecting self-hatred is often quickly established.
Those who disempower themselves by identification with the ag-
gressor are predisposed to receive and accept almost anything that
sg al ae ni those who empower themselves
are ever ready to project their guilt and to hate the weak. To-
gether, they install oppressive relationships.
Perhaps the fused, reciprocal empowering-disempowering trans-
actions can be better indicated by attending to some of the parallel
contributions the stronger and the weaker make. While the
stronger stirs up anger and ensures that it is made helpless and
turned round upon the self by the weaker, the weaker is simultane-
ously afraid of his or her own anger and afraid of the anger of the
stronger. The push by the stronger person toward angry relations
that he or she can then constrain is met with efforts by the weak to
avoid situations that provoke anger. So the strong and the weak
are ever threatened with open rage and on the verge of having to
deal with it. For the strong, anger is in the service of requirin

Whereas stronger persons, those who are empowering them-


selves, foster doubt and self-scrutiny of a debilitating nature in the
weak, those who are disempowering themselves overestimate the
assuredness and togetherness, the rationality and the self-serving
effectiveness, of the stronger. The fostering of doubt has its active
form, as when a self-empowering person imposes self-criticism
upon a weaker one. Women who have been raped may be chal-
lenged in court to demonstrate that they did not participate in the
rape, either by inviting it or accepting it too readily or because of
having a masochistic personality. Planting the seeds of self-doubt
44 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

may enhance the power of the rapist or his defenders. Students


who object to arbitrary actions of their teachers may be required to
examine whether they are being objective or merely rebellious,
whether they have what are called problemsin accepting authority.
The fostering of doubt may also take a reactive form, as when
the stronger person pays selective attention and gives excessive
amplification to the self-effacing or self-critical endeavors of the
weaker person. Those who minister to people when they are vul-
nerable — physicians who tend the sick, priests who comfort the
aggrieved, psychotherapists who serve the neurotic — recognize
how easily they are given a sense of being very powerful when lis-
tening to the self-hatred of hurt and guilty individuals. In the
training of these professionals, considerable demand is made that
the trainees learn to control the sense of omnipotence that is
thrust upon them. Exploitative persons know how to aggrandize
themselves by facilitating self-abasement and _ self-degradation
when it surfaces among the weak.
While those who are stronger foster doubt and self-scrutiny in
the weak as part of the empowerment process, those who are
weaker do the reverse as they disempower themselves. In doing so
actively, the weak attribute security, inner strength, rationality, and
personal superiority to the strong. They may envy the strong, or
they may demand that the strong solve the difficult problems of
collective life for all who are involved. Reactively, the weak sel-
dom test the pretended security of the stronger. As small children
do not want to know that their parents are fallible, or adolescents
avoid believing their parents are sexual and probably experience
the problems and vulnerabilities of sexual relations, subordinates
resist perceiving the inner turmoil of their superiors, or they mis-
read as security the intolerance of inner conflict that characterizes
oppressors. The weak are helped along in this avoidance process
by the strong, who discourage investigation of their psychological
functioning.
In authoritarian hierarchies, the subordinates are saddled with
accountability, loyalty, duty, and adherence to norms, all of which
are invitations to guilt; superiors are expected to show initiative,
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 45

decisiveness, autonomy, risk-taking aptitude, and freedom from


narrow constraints, all of pues promote intolerance of inner
doubt, hesitation, and guilt.© The intolerance leads toward projec-
tion upon the primed vulnerable others.
In essence, the weak denigrate self-and-overestimate
the other in
living out guilt and self-hatred. Thus, depression-is-the malady of
_the oppressed. The strong diminish others-and inflate themselves,
and the affliction of the exploiter is paranoia. The battered wife is
typically depressed; the battering husband is just as typically suspi-
cious and paranoid about his wife. The two of them are the classic
clinical examples of fusion. Together they create the fused power-
dependence relationship.
In the final phaseof identification with the aggressor
and projec-
tion upon a primed vulnerable other, the disempowerment and
empowerment forces operate through the desires motivating the
participants. The oppressed_andthe oppressorbecome fused in
the very
that-are-allowed_to
desires impel their behavior, and be-
cause they are-fused;they-become_confused. Which of their ac-
ceptable desires are their own, and which are induced in them or
enabled for them by the other in the relationship? This isthe basic
insecurityfelt bythe-actors, the origin-for feelings of emptiness, o
lack
a-center,
of of being agency rather than agent. Loss of |
sense of the rhythms and uniquenesses of one's desire
desires is the ulti-
mate price ofconfluence. Deadness is the common on feeling, dead-
ness punctuated periodically by agitated, oppositional, fearful en-
counters.
If the weak and the strong become fused in their desires, then a
whole
human-unit-is-
formed only when theyiate tn a relationship.
Part_of
empowerment-disempowerment
the phenomenon, accord-
ingly, is overinvolvement of the participants
in each other's lives.
Whether we look at the invasions of authoritarian systems into the
private lives of their members, or the intolerance of separations
from their therapists of disturbed, borderline patients, or the-iniru-
sive engagements of overprotectiv wit ir-children, we
observe as one indication oof power problems an. intolerance of
those boundaries that ensure autonomy at
and separateness for indi-
46 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

viduals. Inundating collectivity which overwhelms the particulari-


ties of persons is both a_result of fusion and a strategy for intro-
ducing and keeping in place power differences.
Heinz Kohut has described this overinvolvement in writing
about his work with narcissistic personality-disordered individuals.
These persons are characterized by their grandiosity, their lack of
empathy, their self-importance, and their exploitativeness, all of
which derive from an inability to_differentiate themselves from
others:

"The foregoing considerations — specifically the fact that . . . the analysand


experiences the analyst narcissistically, i.e., not as a separate and independent
individual — explain the strategic role played in the course of analysis not
only by the patient's rage, despondency, and regressive retreat when facing
extended separations from the analyst (such as the summer vacation) but
also by his severe reactions to small signs of coolness from the side of the
therapist, or to the analyst's lack of immediate and complete empathic under-
Standing, and, especially, to such apparently trivial external events as minor
irregularities in the appointment schedule, weekend separations, and slight
tardiness of the therapist. Significantly, and understandingly in view of the
narcissistic nature of the relationship, the analysand reacts with rage against
the therapist even when irregularities and interruptions occur which are un-
dertaken at the request and for the benefit of the analysand."

The weak pay vigilant attention to the desires of their abusers, as


Ferenczi noted in referring to abused children acting like au-
tomata. Since no one can actually-give-up-his or her own needs,
however, the weak still have their own
desires-to-contend-with —
that is, to control. There are three features in their efforts to do
this. The weak would prefer to have no unique desires so that they
could avoid offending
thestrong, and so the first feature is repres-
sion_ofown desires, becoming a robot or automaton. If one must
have desires-and repression usually fails so there is no avoiding
them-then it is better thatOne's desires please the oppressor, so the
second feature isself-censorship such that desires acceptable to
this powerful
one are tolerated but all unacceptableones are dis-
owned. The third featureisencouragement of all desires that can
be geared to the expressed wishesof the powerful. This may take
the form oftrying to have the same desires orcomplement the de-
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 47

sires of the strong. In all three instances, the weak confuse them-
selves in respect to clear ownership of_their-desires. Thus, self-as-
sertion and a sense of identity are made_difficult. One way out of
such
a bind, as Ferenczi also observed, is for the-weak to_become
defiant. But this is merely to_do_the-oppesite-of what-the- abuser
accepts, which is another way of measuring one’s own desires
against those put forward by the stronger person.
The powerful reciprocate. They, too, wish to be unburdened of
theirown desires, especially when
relating to the weak. In relation-
ships with the weak they emphasize and glorify their self-control
abilities. And what do they control in themselves but their emo-
tions and their desires! Self-domination is_a prerequisite for the
acquisition-of power. Exaggeration of control leads to estrange-
ment from what is controlled, from affects and desires. Further-
more, those desires the powerful do live out must be acceptable in
some way to the pas or their legitimacy as superiors will be lost. .
Elizabeth J aneway® has noted the firstpower of the weak" resides)
<in_their-eapacity to+take_away_the legitimation of the powerful. If
the powerful appear impulsive, unconventionally loose, unable to
delay gratification, they cannot maintain the appearance of being
in charge of themselves that is vital to their position of power. The
free play of desires, if given full scope, would show their human in-
consistency and vulnerability and undermine their striving for per-
sonal superiority.
When the weak and the strong fuse by accommodating their de-
sires to each other, they rely heavily_intheir_transactions_upon
ETE ty he ieee including social institutions, that
surround them. A new otherness-is_required_to fill the void— the
lackindividual
of boundaries — left by the fusion. Together, the
weak and the strongform but one unit, and they stand in need of
an otherness that helps to define their boundaries as that unit.
‘That otherness is composed
of two main social groupings that
become prominent in the
the re
regulation Of
ofintricate
the encounters be-
tween the weak and the strong: the ingroup.of which they are a
part, and theoutgroup from which they are apart. Both the in-
group and the outgroup are used to install and maintain the power
48 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

differentials around individual desires. As people become more


and more fused with one another, they give over the design of their
patterns of behaviors, and therefore of their desires allowed and
disallowed, to the groups in which they are embedded. Individuals,
whether weak or strong, become defined by their position in the
ingroup hierarchy and by their segregation from members of the
outgroup. Fused people live by group requirements and see the
group as a controlling mechanism rather than as a chosen means
for the realization of their individual goals.
The persons in the -weaker_position are asked to accept and live
by whatever
norms_define
the ingroup, or they themselves-adopt
conventionalism-in-their
désires and behavior such that their de-
sires are structured according to established mores.” They try to
learn the rules and fill the roles-assigned to their position. Signs of
self-assertion beyond typical patterns for ingroup behavior, of re-
liance upon actions not-established-as-characteristic for their posi-
tion, are condemned as rebellion or deviance. It is an indication of
their own identification with the—aggressor that they condemn
ee re a a er upon
their own motives when these are unconventional. Their hatred of
their own desires reaches a peak in this process.
It is also an indication that
identification_-withthe-aggressor is
fully established whenweak-project_their-unacceptable
the desires
upon the outgroup. Even these projections are group-determined
because stereotypes of the group's enemies are targeted. While
there are multitudes of examples of this process — poor whites
hating blacks in the U.S.A., northern Italians hating southern Ital-
ians, the Welsh disliking the English, and so forth — the analysis of
such proiecusts that is closest to what I here argue is Vamik
Volkan's'® study of the Greeks and the Turks on Cyprus in the
twentieth century. He has illustrated in his study how the. op-
pressed project upon outgroups, who themselves are oppressed,
precisely-those
impulses-that-are-activated-in_the
projector's op-~
pression but are unacceptable to.own inthe context ofthe ingroup.
Thus, cultural habits develop that allow some actions in
the’ in-
group and externalize others to the outgroup. For example, Greek
Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally 49

Cypriots tend to be loud, while Turkish Cypriots tend to be quiet.


Impoverished Turks, then, disallow noisy protestations within the
community and stereotype all Greek Cypriots with the loudness
they do not permit for themselves. So, to, the Greeks tend to re-
spond with active alertness to external dangers, while the Turks
tend toward pervasive passivity. Accordingly, the Greeks readily
project their own passive acquiescence in their poor conditions
upon the Turks. But while the Greek and Turkish Cypriots are im-
portantly opposites of each other in some dimensions, they are very
like each other also, as in their rituals for dealing with the dead and
their attitudes about dreams.

exploitative relations that those iin stron


strong positions areable to live
out their desires unhindered and with a directness that‘can only be
associated—with-self-actualization. Because the strong are fused
with the weak, however, it is far-from true_that they can accept,
own, and act directly upon their desires. Like the weak, those high
in power-oriented hierarchies are exceedingly conventional. They
are constrain € themselves in the customs,
rules, and proprieties of the systems-that-authorize their power.
No groups in society are more attentive to social conventions than
groups made up of the powerful, as is seen, for example, in country
club life, or in high society, or on the boards of directors of large in-
stitutions.
The powerful confound their own desires and those of the sys-
tem in which they operate. They project all desires that violate the
system's customs onto the weak or members of the outgroup. And
they go one step further: they are> preoccupied with so defining the
conventions of the ingroup that those desires they can manage well
are recognized as legitimate and those they have trouble handling
are outlawed. They pull the levers of power in the attempt to reg-
ulate their private, inner struggles. We read of the male legislator,
for example, who has sponsored bills in the legislature that are hos-
tile to homosexuals, and who has subsequently been arrested by the
police for soliciting another man in a public place. He tried to han-
_ dle his inne ict by putting in place social controls. He suc-
50 Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

ceeded in obtaining the social legislation, but he failed in control-


ling himself by means of it.
The tyrantis arbitrary,and therein lies or-her
his power; but
when seen closely, the tyrant is arbitrary within the constraints of an
accepted system. Without the support :
the tyrant isnaked and |alone, vulnerable to defeat and destruction.
Support for tyranny may come from raw power such as the police,
the army, the ability to fire an employee, the parent's physical supe-
riority over the small child, or it may come from collective acquies-
cence in allocations of power — the conventionalism of the weak.
Yet the support
must be there, and that means that the arbitrari-
ness of the tyrant is conditional, contingent.
or Here again is the
powerless ‘side of the
€ tyrannicall owerful individual, the-side that
he or sheProjects. the group is used to distribute power un-
evenly, §so too it is used to contain those who administer its forces.
Chapter 5

Some Qualities When People Fuse

In addition to the fact that the exploiter_and the exploited are


mutually disempowering themselves-and-together deciding to be-
come agencies rather than agents, some-other qualities of the fu-
sion
process stand out, and I want to give brief attention to them
eae an because the stronger and weaker fuse, they become

an with the aggressorr_and projection upon a_ primed vulner-


able other appear in each person. The same person sometimes lives
out the faulty identification atte n in
the dominant positio a_relationship, li t_the faulty
projection pattern. Second, the fusion process binds_together
profound destructive tendencies, so that the possibility-of rage and
violence
is ever-present. Third, associated with the fusi CESS
is the tendency, well known in the pssychological_world,_to. be
intolerant of ambiguity, complexi alence. Finally, the
fusion process is never simply installed, but-must be-repeated in
each new
encounter, and it is reinstalled
by a process_-call-quick-
circuiting.
“To this point, I have dichotomized the weak and the strong, the
identifier and the one who projects, the vulnerable person and the
aggressor. I have been following common sense in doing this, and I
am clearly not all wrong, because some individuals are much more
likely to be victims and others more commonly take the role of
oppressor. There are abused children and executives of banks. Yet
as I indicated in the last chapter, the strong know powerlessness in
their fusion with the weak, a fact that reveals complexity in this
52 Some Qualities When People Fuse

weak-strong dimension; and central analyses of authoritarianism


(Fromm,! Maslow,” and Adorno et al.>), in which the same person
is slave to a superior and tyrant to a subordinate, make the
presence of complexity even clearer. Perhaps the finest statement
on this is that of James Mark Baldwin, written in the early part of
this century — finest because it is explicitly concerned with the
"dialectical movement" in the development of personality:

"The child's sense of himself is . . . one pole of a relation; and which pole it is
to be, depends on the particular relation which the other pole, over which the
child has no control, calls on it to be. If the other person involved presents
uncertain, Ominous, dominating, instructive features, then the child is
‘subject’ over against what is 'projective.' . . . His consciousness is in the
learning attitude; he imitates, he serves, he trembles, he is a slave. But on the
other hand, there are persons to whom his attitude has a right to be different.
In the case of these the dialectic has gone further. He has mastered all their
features, he can do himself what they want to do, he anticipates no new de-
velopments in his intercourse with them; so he ‘ejects’ them . . . Now this is
what the brothers and sisters, notably the younger ones, are to our youthful
hero. They are his ‘ejects’; he knows them by heart, they have no thoughts.
They do no deeds, which he could not have read into them by anticipation. So
he despises fhem, practices his superior activities on them, tramples them
under foot."

To be weak or strong is to be in a social relation, and one's posi-


tion in the relation determines which role is predominant for one.
Beyond this, the weak and the strong understand each other, as
they must if their fusion is to have any coordination at all; that is,
each person knows both roles. Accordingly, identification with the
aggressor and projection upon a primed vulnerable other can —
and do — appear in the same person.
There is another way to see that identification with the aggressor
and projection upon a primed vulnerable other exist in the same
person. Identification is a process by which one takes on and ex-
presses through the self what was exhibited by another. When the
weak person identifies with the powerful other, one characteristic
taken on is the powerful person's tendency to project. The identi-
fier becomes a projector through the dynamic of identification! Is
the reverse case true, namely does the person who projects become
Some Qualities When People Fuse 53

identified with the victim? Of course. That which is projected is


one's own unassimilable material, and one meets it as coming from
the other. Seeing oneself in the other leads on to identification. In
coming to this understanding, incidentally, I am simply rediscover-
ing the fact that the weak and the powerful become fused and also
confused.
Once the process of fusion extends beyond mutual anxiety, each
step in the development of identification with the aggressor and
projection upon a primed vulnerable other represents a new bind-
ing of disruptive and destructive tendencies. Anger becomes guilt
when the persons in the transaction believe that the rage in the so-
cial-emotional atmosphere will lead to murder. Guilt and self-ha-
tred are converted into fusion of desires lest they lead to suicide or,
in the case of projection, the bringing down upon oneself of de-
structive outbursts coming from whoever carries the projected guilt
and self-hatred. The paranoia of the oppressor is grounded in this
projection process. Racists who exaggerate the sexuality and im-
pulsive looseness of oppressed minority members live in fear of the
imagined savagery of those they oppress.
Because of this sequence of binding of destructive tendencies,
when identification with the aggressor and projection upon a
primed vulnerable other are established and in place, considerable
tension marks the interactions, tension of an unstable nature.
The instability of the tension in the social relationship has sev-
eral particular sources. Aggression that is repressed grows in the
unconscious and assumes fearful proportions in the minds of those
who are repressing. The apparent profundity of this aggression
and the feeling that it cannot be handled well cause the bearer to
be keenly alert to inner and outer temptations that might tap the
aggression. It seems always to lie in wait, like a panther ready to
spring forth at the slightest provocation. That is a source of the in-
stability of the tension. Another source is the delusion of fusion:
the individual is not acting alone to manage the destructive urge,
but is relying upon an other as well. This situation of the other's
responsibility in the management of inner pressures requires im-
peccable coordination with the other. Given the inherent conflict
54 Some Qualities When People Fuse

between the identifier and the projector, that coordination is ex-


ceedingly difficult, and instability is an inevitable result. Still an-
other source for the instability of the tension between the actors is
the confusion that typifies the internal and social lives they lead.
When persons do not know if a motivation is their own or a reflec-
tion of another's, when they cannot be sure whether self-control
comes from the inner voice of conscience or instead from fear of
retribution, their confusion is not conducive to the mastery of de-
structive tendencies.
Instability of the tension in the relationship means that violence
is ever a distinct possibility. Given the fusion and the confusion
that exist, violence not only is possible but is the most probable
form that destructive urges will take when they break through the
controls into action. Direct, mutually managed anger has failed to
create a satisfactory resolution to the differences between the
actors; guilt and self-hatred in their distinct forms have failed also
to diminish the conflict; there is little else available to the partici-
pants for managing the threatening situation but the explosive
eruption of violence — at least in the eyes of those who are locked
into identification with the aggressor and projection upon a primed
vulnerable other. This is why so many abused children grow up to
become violent parents.
We see or would not be surprised to see violence in the most ob-
vious instances of identification-projection Ce aySu be-
tween the colonizer and the colonized (Memmi, Fanon, oy black
rage (Grier and Cobbs’), incest, child abuse, spouse abuse, rapes,
concentration camp brutality. Beyond such instances, there are
many, many more "normal" social relations that harbor destructive
tendencies. Because violence is the probable expression of the
pent-up destructiveness, the individuals involved are very resistant
to change. While they would be freed to become themselves, to be
agents rather than tools, under a different political or life regime,
they believe they must cross the mine field of mutually destructive
encounters to approach that new life, and they are sure they will
not make it across successfully. This is an important reason why, as
is known from the history of revolution and social change, it is that
Some Qualities When People Fuse 55

the oppressed equal those dominant in oppressive relations in their


reluctance to change the social structures that exist. While they
may ultimately institute and carry forth social revolutions, they are
customarily resistant to social change and move only when they
both are desperate and have some reason to hope,
The obverse of the unstable tension in the kind of social rela-
tions I am discussing is the rigid and coercive social control that is
called upon to contain the destructive tendencies. Whether per-
sons are acting from identification with the aggressor or projection
upon a primed vulnerable other, they require strong social forces
to match the awesome aggression they believe exists within them-
selves and in those they fear. So it is that these individuals rely
upon raw force, as in repressive police work, death squads, military
action, national guard control of daily life, law and order politics
and legislation, and strict religious codes. The more fusion exists in
the members of a social system, the deeper are the destructive
urges that are being controlled; and the deeper these are, in turn,
the more frozen the social institution or society. The delusion of
fusion is vital to the freezing of the status quo.
This same rigidity is a characteristic of people who think in terms
of dichotomies — good versus bad, weak versus strong, men versus
women, blacks versus whites, Greeks versus Turks — a characteris-
tic well known in the world of psychological theory. Sometimes this
characteristic is referred to as the defense mechanism of "splitting,"
in which the "good" other is kept distinct from the "bad" other, the
"good" self from the "bad" self. Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levin-
son, and Sanford have developed theory about this tendency to di-
chotomize under the umbrella notion of "tolerance of ambiguity.”
They have noted the inability of persons considered to be authori-
tarian to

“face ‘ambivalence’ — which is emotional ambiguity."®

To be able to face ambivalence means to have the capacity to hold


contradictory ideas toward the same person or group without re-
56 Some Qualities When People Fuse

pressing one side of the contradiction, to be able to hate and love


another at one and the same time.
These authors connect intolerance of ambiguity with repressed
rage, a central ingredient in the binding of destructive tendencies I
have been discussing. Intolerance of ambiguity, with its di-
chotomizing accompaniment, is in the service of the repression of
hostile emotions in the Adorno et al. scheme:

"The inability of [authoritarians] to face 'ambivalence' . . . has been discussed


in connection with their attitude toward parents and toward the other sex; in
these and other areas hostile emotions were found to have been repressed
and hidden behind a facade of glorification. A rigid, and in most instances,
conventionalized set of rules seems thus to determine the gonception the
[authoritarian] has of his own and of other people's behavior."

The essence of this line of thought is that intolerance of ambi-


guity and thinking in dichotomies appear among people who feel
trapped in social relations that have much unfulfilled destructive-
ness in them. When they believe they are unable to escape and un-
able to express their rage directly and productively, people identify,
project, and develop the intolerance of ambiguity. Doing these
things both binds the aggression, preventing its release against
members of their ingroup, and prepares for the expression of hos-
tility toward their outgroup. If the ingroup must appear as all-
good, then there must be a place to put the not-good that appears
in all of life's activities. That place is the outgroup.
For persons who are fused, there is a dialectic to the di-
chotomizing. The other must be idealized (ingroup) or negated
(outgroup), and in either case robbed of individuality; but the other
must also be affirmed as existing, as a complement to the incom-
plete self. The units of existence for the fused person are the
good-me-us and the bad-you, or the bad-me-us and good-you, not
the good-bad-complex me and the good-bad-complex you who are
separate from but in transaction with each other.
I observed earlier that the powerful are dependent upon being
connected to the weak for the maintenance of their inner, psychic
integrity. In addition, those who regularly dichotomize, both the
Some Qualities When People Fuse 57

strong and the weak, are driven by their fused condition to keep
themselves bound to those they negate in the outgroup. They must
have an outlet for the bad stuff that arises in the ingroup and is not
allowed free play, and the outlet is the outgroup. It is not the case
that whites who are racist avoid all contact with blacks or other mi-
nority persons of color; women who hate all men do not ignore
men or stay away from them. Racism and sexism would be less op-
pressive if connection were indeed limited, but, because of intoler-
ance of ambiguity, which calls for continuing projection of hostility
to an outgroup, racists are overinvolved or preoccupied with those
they negate, sexists are hyperattentive to those they detest.
When a person has become identified with an aggressor or has
established a projection upon a primed vulnerable other, his or her
difficulties in that social relationship are far from being resolved, in
a way not yet mentioned. In addition to the unstable tension that
marks the transactions that make up the relationship, tension at-
tributable to the destructiveness that is systematically aroused and —
then bound, there is a further source of trouble. No matter how
adept the person has been in fusing his or her desires with those of
the other, the natural biological rhythms of the person produce
new impulses and desires all the time. These new desires are not
necessarily geared to the social relationship when they first appear
because they have their own separate origins deep in the interior of
the person's body. While we are sometimes sexually aroused by the
presence of a loved other person, so that our sexual desires and so-
cial relationships are coordinated, we are also sometimes sexually
aroused completely independently of attractive and available oth-
ers, quickened in the sexual sphere by natural bodily processes.
Similarly, sometimes we desire to work slowly because we are tired,
not because of disliking the work organizers or resenting the de-
mands of the job that we work quickly. In short, because we are
biologically grounded as well as socially embedded, we enter every
relationship in the first phase of the process that can lead to identi-
fication with the aggressor or projection upon a primed vulnerable
other — the phase of natural spontaneity.
58 Some Qualities When People Fuse

Persons who are chained to these identification and projection


practices are striving to become fused with others, but they are
acting under the delusion of fusion, not out of the fact of fusion. A
person's desires are that person's desires, and the personal, private,
and special nature of those desires poses for the person the task of
socializing himself or herself anew all the time. Accordingly, per-
sons who are acting under the delusion of fusion begin each new
transaction not fused, but alarmingly separate and spontaneous.
Then, because they are fearful that the destructiveness associated
with the relationship may at any time erupt from its bound state if
their spontaneity is allowed to exercise itself and they express their
true desires, they move quickly toward fusion.
I speculate that no phase of development is omitted, but rather a
quick-circuiting of the process is initiated. With the first awareness
of separate desires, the person rapidly becomes anxious, then an-
gry, then guilty and self-hating, whether guilt and self-hatred are
expressed directly or projected, and finally experiences the delu-
sion of being fused with the other. The spontaneity is only a flicker,
the anxiety only a tick of excitement, the anger but a flash, the guilt
and self-hatred a suggestive blur, but each of these is touched in
the rush to reinstate the final delusion of fusion. The quick cir-
cuiting involves the rapid traversing of each phase, not the omis-
sion of any. The persons are intolerant of spontaneity, anxiety,
anger, and guilt and self-hatred because full expression of these so-
cial emotions would result in the release of powerful, threatening
destructiveness. People who are under the influence of the delu-
sion of fusion are committed to confluence, not merely adapted to
it. They depend on it.
A qualification is that persons who have been under the full
delusion of fusion but have now corrected that stop at the prelimi-
nary phases instead of quick-circuiting to the final confluence.
When they have corrected their readiness to fuse desires, they
quick-circuit from spontaneity through anxiety and anger to a stop-
ping point at guilt and self-hatred. When these latter have been
worked through, they focus on anger; and when anger is managed
Some Qualities When People Fuse 59

more successfully, anxiety becomes the figural problem in their op-


pressive social relations.
This view of the quick-circuiting process will be helpful when at-
tention is directed to the undoing of identification with the aggres-
sor and projection upon a primed vulnerable other. If my specula-
tion is correct, it means that no new process must be created for
the undoing to succeed. Instead, a slowing down of the quick-
circuiting is called for so that a reworking of the social emotions
can be accomplished. It is not necessary, for example, to artificially
create anger when a reversal of the quick-circuiting tendency
uncovers an anger that has been experienced in each new
transaction, even if it was only a minimally experienced and greatly
feared anger. Neither guilt nor anxiety need be induced; they must
only be discovered, amplified, and then transformed.
Furthermore, the order of undoing the identifications and pro-
jections is implied by this conception of a quick-circuiting process.
The final stage of faulty identification and projection, or the pre-
liminary phase the person has come back to and stopped at, is what
is central in the present and must be confronted. First to be
achieved is awareness of and transformation of the effort to fuse
desires; when progress has been made in this respect, attention can
center on guilt and self-hatred; later anger becomes figural and still
later, anxiety. The slowing-down process moves backwards, from
the later phases to the earlier ones. But before I proceed to elabo-
rate on the undoing of faulty projections and identifications, I want
to make a general statement that differentiates self as agent from
self as agency.
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nd
Chapter 6

Self as Agent, Self as Agency:


A General Statement

In all social relationships persons are self-regulating in two dis-


tinct senses: 1) they organize their various desires in respect to
each other so that they assert in their actions as much of their com-
plexity as possible; and 2) they organize their desires in order to
take into account others in the relationship; that is, they accommo-
date so that their actions connect them with others as complexly as
possible. Individuals are constantly balancing self-assertion with
social accommodation, aiming to satisfy self and other at the same
time. I take this as a matter of fact, not as some ideal that persons
are striving to reach, and I have argued the matter in Psychoanaly-
sis: Radical and Conservative and in Getting Even: The Equalizing
Law of Relationship.'
In mature, psychologically healthy social relationships, the self-
regulating processes of a person clarify, organize, and express the
distinctive, separate, current desires of the self and the needs and
demands of others in the relationship as well. The person searches
for, discovers, modulates, and asserts his or her active desires.
These are seen as the person's own unique desires and in their as-
sertion the person construes self as agent. "It is Iwho am doing
this in order to satisfy my desires." Simultaneously, the person
searches for, discovers, and in the shaping of actions tries to ac-
commodate to the true needs and demands of others in the rela-
tionship. Here again the person construes self as agent; the ac-
commodation to the others is controlled by the separate, au-
tonomous intention to satisfy one's own desires while also satisfying
62 Self as Agent, Self as Agency

the needs and demands of the others. These conditions are charac-
teristic of all participants in a healthy social relationship, and a
community of agents is the result.
In social relationships that involve the delusion of fusion, the
self-regulating processes of the person mix, confound, organize
disjunctively, and fuse the current desires of the self and the needs
and demands of others in the relationship. The person mixes to-
gether and obscures his or her own desires and the needs and de-
mands of the others. The result is that what is asserted in action is
a combination of vaguely perceived own desires and what are
imagined — that is, projected — as being the others’ needs and de-
mands, not anything solicited and received from the others. The
person construes self not as agent but as agency, the relatively non-
responsible instrument of own desires (which are experienced as
forcing their way into the person's actions) and of the needs and
demands of others (which the person believes have been thrust
upon him or her). In the assertive aspects of action, self and other
are fused within the person so that the person cannot know if he or
she is satisfying own needs or others' needs. Simultaneously, as the
person accommodates to others — shapes own actions to account
to the needs and demands of others as these are imagined — the
person is unclear whether he or she is accounting to the true needs
and demands of the others or merely to desires projected onto oth-
ers.
A major difference between healthy relationships and those
based on the delusion of fusion is the intensity, or force, of the in-
fluence exerted by the participants. In healthy relationships, each
participant responsibly asserts and accommodates with minimal co-
ercion and manipulation. It is sufficient influence to openly dis-
cover one's own desires and others’ needs and demands and to
share these discoveries in a mutually communicative fashion. In dis-
torted, confluent relationships, each participant is actively ob-
scuring his or her own responsibility while asserting and "“accommo-
dating" with strong coercion and manipulation. The coercion and
manipulation may be intentional, or they may be acted out yet not
experienced, that is, may be an expression of unconscious forces.
Self as Agent, Self as Agency 63

The person believes that it is necessary to presume that own and


others' desires are similar or complementary, or to insist that dis-
tinctive strong differences between self and others in this regard be
disallowed, denied, or avoided. The coercive, manipulative facets
of the relationship appear differently according to who are pre-
sumed superiors and subordinates, but the intense influences move
in both directions. In an identification with an aggressor, the infe-
rior person acts to control the superior as well as to submit; and in
projection upon a primed vulnerable other, the superior person is
heavily influenced by the subordinate as well as apparently
dominant.
These strong coercive and manipulative factors create divisive-
ness within participants as well as between them. What the identi-
fying person has taken in from the other in the identification pro-
cess is hard to assimilate. The conflict between persons has been
made into an internal confict. The molested child fights internally
about which desires he or she can safely allow into action without
again being overwhelmed by the other and without feeling guilty
from what has been introjected from the molester. The projecting
person must mobilize himself or herself to control the other,
efforts which divert from direct satisfaction of the original desire.
The child molester, because he or she feels guilty or is afraid of
being exposed, is unable to obtain deep, emotionally rich and
unconflicted sexual pleasure in those encounters that have
frightened the child and brought about identification with the
aggressor. The lack of full satisfaction causes insatiability of desires,
restlessness, discontent, edginess, and alienation.
Persons who have strong forces pulling them away from direct
satisfaction of their desires are prone to becoming agencies.
Agents, because they are less internally conflicted as well as less so-
cially abrasive, are more fully alive.
*

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Chapter 7

Cautions on Taking Psychological Ideas


into a Social Action Arena

I now turn from theory toward psychological suggestions and


ideas that may usefully inform social action. In doing so, while I
want these suggestions and ideas to be important and helpful, I am
keenly concerned to keep it clear that in social action the psycho-
logical issues are seldom primary. Social efforts are carried out in
groups and collectivities under the rubrics of political organizing,
community organizing, trade union activities, the work of manage-
rial associations, and cooperative struggles within bureaucracies.
Social action is social action, not psychological action. Organizing
workers or citizens or fellow executives is not group therapy,
I believe these obvious statements merit articulation because
from my reading of socially committed mental health activists and
my Own experience, two differing strategies for using psychological
ideas to strengthen social action seem to have been followed and to
have demonstrated their limitations. One of these lines of action,
followed over an extended period of time, has put psychological is-
sues and leaders in the foreground and has led to the community
mental health movement. This movement, like the public health
and progressive education movements, has attempted to directly
make people into better human beings, into agents, by psychother-
apeutic services, therapeutic communities, and the introduction of
ideas about mental health into schools and other small social insti-
tutions. Like these other movements, the community mental
health movement has been quite dependent upon the powers of
the existing society — for legitimation, for financing, and for social
66 Cautions on Psychological Ideas in a Social-Action Arena

respectability — and has therefore been limited in the structural


social change it even intends to produce.
Primary exemplars of ec who employed this strategy are the
social democrat Alfred Adler,! who had much to do with the rise
of the child guidance field and pitas to reform child rearing
through education, and Wilhelm Reich,” who for a time put his
ideas and energies into the service of left-wing political groups, set-
ting up mental hygiene clinics for workers and suggesting strategies
for political mobilization of German youth that were primarily psy-
chological in nature, this in the early 1930s. Adler and Reich were
towering figures, ambitious to be leaders, exceedingly talented and
widely recognized, and their very strengths caused them to place
the psychological first in actions aimed at social change. But while
social struggle needs to incorporate the insights and techniques of
the psychological world to be as effective as it can be, I have come
to believe that to work thoroughly and well, dealing primarily with
psychological functions requires that social conditions have
changed first. A social climate that encourages experiencing and
sharing intense social emotions is needed before any critical mass
of individuals will risk openly attending to very vulnerable sides of
themselves. I discuss such a social climate later in this essay,
The clinics started by Reich and Adler and the social services de-
veloped inside trade unions by Bertha Reynolds® were intended for
anyone in the population who had personal problems and was
willing to try a course of psychotherapy or counseling. Reich
aimed to reach working class individuals, Adler was successful with
parents who were socially and politically progressive, and Reynolds
reached out to trade unionists. A second strategy for the integra-
tion of the psychological into social action was foreshadowed by
their attention to persons who represented potential political allies
in radical social action. This strategy is to provide psychotherapeu-
tic and social support services for people engaged in social action.
There are now, for example, several centers in the world that cater
to individuals epaured by torture when they were political prisoners.
William Beardslee* has suggested that room be made in social-ac-
tion movements for meeting the personal needs of activists during
Cautions on Psychological Ideas in a Social-Action Arena 67

their engagement in social struggle. Friends are killed or die from


natural causes, marriages are heavily strained, unfinished business
from childhood cannot be bracketed forever. Activists have per-
sonal as well as social lives, and their personal needs require so-
phisticated attention. As the military has psychological services to
deal with war neuroses, so should there be therapies and other
support services available to political and community actors, in-
cluding leaders as well as citizens brought into action. This second
strategy for using psychological ideas has much to commend it — as
I know from my own experience in the early 1970s in several politi-
cal movements — and I would hope that any social movement that
persists over time and organizes large numbers of people would in-
corporate psychotherapeutic and support services, not as luxury,
but as a central offering of basic welfare provisions. Such services
need not lead to the fostering of unwholesome dependence or po-
litical demobilization, as some political activists fear. This is a fruit-
ful direction for the practical implementation of psychological in-
sights in social action, though in my experience it is limited in the
number of people it can serve and is therefore somewhat ineffi-
cient.
The psychological considerations I will primarily put forth, how-
ever, have a different supportive role, much like musical accompa-
niment in a motion picture. The story and characters are foremost
in a movie, while the music may set the mood, enlarge the story,
identify characters, alert the viewer to trouble coming, let us know
that help is on its way, help us be solemn, or control our attention
for other purposes. In this essay, some psychological matters may
on occasion rise to more prominence, more like the music in an
opera than in a motion picture, but seldom, in the purpose to
which I have held psychology here, is it to be considered as
sufficient unto itself. My aim is to improve the effectiveness of
political and community organizing by introducing relevant
psychological insights into these ongoing endeavors.
I can say this another way. Insofar as political organizing, trade
union work, and the like engage people in social relationships, they
touch upon motivations, resistances, and social-emotional capaci-
68 Cautions on Psychological Ideas in a Social-Action Arena

ties and habits. Every political organizer carries a psychological


theory, a conception of human functioning, that guides the orga-
nizing process. Too often in the past, the theories that have been
applied have been commonsensical in the worst sense: naive and
narrow. The costs to the organizing effort have seldom been tal-
lied, but in my experience over the years — as an activist in the civil
rights, antiwar, educational, and feminist movements and in devel-
oping organizations for the support of progressive groups — these
costs have been considerable. People whose needs are ignored
may strive mightily to continue in collective effort, but they invari-
ably burn out, become cynical, feel defeated, and utilize poor
methods of expressing angry feelings, and gradually they cause the
collective effort to become lifeless. I hope that in the struggle be-
fore us to create a just world of free and equal peoples throughout
the earth, we can use psychological sophistication and be much
more effective than we have been till now.
Chapter 8

The Angry Weak and


the Angry Powerful

"We have been asked, 'How do you cope with the apathy in this country?’ We
are stunned by the question and must reply, "You must be hanging out with
the wrong people.'"
Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert!

When political organizing is being discussed, it is common for


someone to remark that most ordinary citizens are rather apa-
thetic, that there is abroad a strangely quiet acceptance of a bur-
densome fate. This tendency — of many peasants who support the
dictators who oppress them, of the unemployed who believe they
are the ones responsible for doing something about their unem-
ployment even when they do not hold themselves at fault for this
unemployment, of workers who vote for right-wing political candi-
dates when these candidates are openly scornful of working people
and their efforts to organize on their own behalf — is a confusing
tendency, one that doesn't make a great deal of sense. At the least,
it violates ordinary common sense that people should admire and
support the very persons who are main instruments of practices
that hurt them.
Alan Buss has commented that this tendency among the prole-
tariat has been a major problem for the theory and practice of
Marxists:

"Thus, the failure of orthodox Marxism was due to its ignoring the psycho-
logical importance of bourgeois ideology in reducing the revolutionary poten-
tial of the proletariat. What was needed now was a social psychological the-
ory to explain the hidden, covert, or subjective forms of domination that had
emerged. In other words, overt repression and exploitation had been re-
70 The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful

placed by more subtle mechanisms of psychological control brought about by


the internalization of capitalist irrationality. The exploited now accepted the
exploiters and their own exploitation. What was required was theoretical
analysis, and an gven more powerful and radical critique than Marxism was
able to provide."

Of course, those who are burdened by vicious social policies and


practices do experience profound, often intolerable rage, but it is
hard for them to focus it. For example, Schlozman and Verba, in
their studies of the unemployed reported in Injury to Insult,? re-
mark that there is a good deal of anger in the unemployed but
there is no focal explanation of general unemployment to mobilize
and concentrate that anger so as to make it useful in social and po-
litical confrontation. On the same subject, John Garraty has writ-
ten:

"The Polish autobiographies revealed still another aspect of the political pas-
Sivity of the jobless. Lazarsfeld and a Polish sociologist studied them care-
fully; they remarked on the ‘inert’ aggressiveness displayed in their accounts.
The authors frequently manifested their rage and a desire for revenge put of-
ten directed these feelings at their fellow sufferers, i.e., at themselves."

In another context, the civil rights movements of the 1960s gath-


ered up the anger that blacks had personally internalized or alter-
natively directed at their fellow blacks, and turned that anger
against racists and those who defended racist practices. As the civil
rights leaders mobilized and organized in the ghettos and small
black communities in the South, the crime rates of blacks venting
their antagonisms upon each other diminished directly and sharply.
Frantz Fanon® described the same phenomenon in Algeria when
the uprising against the colonizing French took hold. However,
these socially useful translations of anger from self-destruction to
the creating of positive structural changes are the exceptions.
Usually, the anger is reflected back upon the self by those who are
oppressed.
I interpret the more usual happenings by placing them in the
context of the delusion of fusion. When such major disrupting
problems confront a society that the social scene is confusing and
The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful 71

overwhelming to the citizens, the trend to fusion takes hold in the


psyches of those most immediately affected by the crisis — the vic-
tims and, also, society's leaders. Identification with the aggressor
and projection upon a primed vulnerable other become wide-
spread. When unemployed people or abused children or op-
pressed ethnic minorities or battered wives are in the presence of
those who dominate them, or when they are approached by politi-
cal organizers or clinicians who wish them to confront those who
are dominating them, they identify with the aggressor, become pas-
sive, self-negating, guilt-ridden, wishful of submergence into the
desires of their tormentors. This is a lack of outrage that surprises
observers. It is a committed passivity, a holding in check that de-
rives from great fear of the destructive urges that arise in relation-
ships involving the aggressor. Because these destructive urges oc-
casionally break through, we have conflicting pictures of an angry
and apathetic citizenry.
When the unemployed and others in their oppressed position
are neither in the company of those who tyrannize them nor in a
situation in which they can expect to have to deal directly with their
exploiters, they are likely to live out the other side of the equation,
to project upon a primed vulnerable other. The classic stereotype
of this is the working man who cannot vividly oppose his employer
for fear of losing his job, who gets drunk and comes home to beat
his wife and children; but there are also many milder versions.
Whenever the oppressed mistreat their spouses, children, neigh-
bors, elders, and others who cross their paths and who are in the
role of weaker in the relation, they are projecting this way. In a
broader context, we see oppressed persons and whole groups dis-
play racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism in dealing with others
among the downtrodden. They do so precisely because they act
under the delusion of fusion and, as is always the case to some ex-
tent, identification with the powerful aggressor is paired with pro-
jection upon primed, vulnerable, weaker others.
When we are faced in our social and political endeavors with
lack of outrage where outrage would be expected and appropriate,
we do well to look for the committed passivity that is a sign of iden-
72 The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful

tification with the aggressor. This may appear as protection of the


aggressor by the weak, too ready an assumption of helplessness,
avoidance of the matter of domination entirely, or some attack
upon the persons who diagnose the need for political action. And
where we see these or other indications of committed passivity, we
will usually also find exaggerated hostility with a displaced quality
signifying that there is projection upon a primed vulnerable other.
We can thus make ourselves aware that rage is indeed present and
that it is misdirected but, like all rage, potentially available for pro-
ductive use, I believe this insight to be a practical contribution from
theoretical psychological study. Although it is a long way from such
an insight to the gathered and energized use of anger in social
struggle, as political activists we will get assurance from observing a
known process that we are aware of; and observing it, we can use
our awareness to help those going through the delusion of fusion
become aware themselves of their identifications and projections.
When driven by the urge to fuse, persons tend to be submissive
to the powerful, tyrannical to the weak. When political organizers
try to mobilize victims such as the unemployed to oppose the pow-
erful who are the instruments of an exploitative system, they face
two particular problems. First, they must be wary of themselves
being introjected improperly when they act to undo faulty identifi-
cations. Second, they must beware of fostering projections that are
also faulty.
If the organizers are too powerful or persuasive themselves, they
may win followers among the weak by creating new versions of the
delusion of fusion. The weak may simply shift their identification
from the old superiors and introject the political organizers. They
will not grow into selves as agents, but will transfer from being
tools of the status quo to being agencies of the political movement.
Some of the political movements of the 1960s, such as the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), recognized this and
tried to prevent any one leader from becoming too powerful. The
Green Party in West Germany in the 1980s seems to have tried this
also. Whether the specific solutions of these groups were success-
ful or not — there has been disagreement about this — the concept
The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful 73

of not allowing a leader to become so powerful that a new identifi-


cation with the aggressor develops, focused now on the political
leader, is a valid idea. In left-wing circles the problem is known by
the phrase "cult of personality," which applied clearly to identifica-
tions with Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Preventing identification with the aggressor from appearing
within a democratizing oe movement does not mean pre-
venting identifications. As Freud® showed, identification is basic to
group cohesion. Healthy identifications enable the group members
to grow and develop in their individuality while merging with sig-
nificant others. It is possible to act as agent and be se
(as Ellen M. Wood has argued in Mind and Politics’ in distin-
guishing bourgeois and socialist individualism), and still be sub-
merged within a political group. The coherence of individual effort
and collective striving is what democratic practice is about, so that
political groups that promote dialogue, communication, and reflec-
tion among their members, groups that foster challenges within and
questioning of group goals, also act to encourage healthy forms of
identification.
An important need for political activists confronting the delusion
of fusion, then, is to prevent or attend to new tendencies to identify
with any aggressor and to transform such identifications, if they do
start to develop, into healthy identifications with a democratic
group in which all members are striving to become agents rather
than agencies. Another need is to avoid projections upon primed
vulnerable others and to translate any such projections that do
exist into empathy, including empathy with one's enemies. The
victims of exploitation must not be led to victimize their
oppressors, to simply shift self-blame to blame of the powerful, to
live out the process of projection upon a primed vulnerable other
by making the powerful into vulnerable others.
Organizers who dehumanize oppressors fail to address the
problem of the delusion of fusion. In the late nineteenth century
and early twentieth century cartoonists and political agitators
tended to do just that. The rich and powerful owners of industry,
managers, and superintendents and foremen were portrayed as fat
74 The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful

cats, as greedy, self-serving, ugly, monstrous figures. There was a


certain amount of truthful portrayal in those cartoons and
speeches, since these powerful individuals had dehumanized them-
selves in becoming self as agency of the capitalist system, and it is
wrong just to "understand" people who hurt others and not hold
them responsible for their actions. I in no way wish to diminish
critical appraisal of harming persons. But those who dehumanized
the powerful overlooked the factor of identification, which made
the victims see themselves in the powerful persons, and so the
weak, paradoxically, came forth to defend rather than attack the
powerful; and the same dehumanizers overlooked the factor of
projection, whereby the weak wish to live out their rage safely
against vulnerable others, not fearfully against strong others.
The alternative to projection upon a primed vulnerable other is
empathic assessment of others in their strengths and weaknesses so
that realistic actions can be instituted and cooperative goals
achieved. Wilhelm Reich® encouraged strikers to imagine when the
police were harassing them that the policeman they saw was home
in bed with his lover or walking around in his underwear. Reich
was suggesting that in the midst of intense confrontations we do
well to humanize those we are encountering. We will not project
our own rage into them, nor are we likely to evoke their excessive
violence, if we are forceful but realistic.
But because I have attended only to the victims in the hurtful
situation, I have addressed only part of the story, of anger, the part
in which the weak redirect their rage against still weaker others —
or against themselves, that is, against their bodies in the form of al-
coholism, headaches, stomach troubles, and so forth. Also to be
observed and reckoned with are the strong members of the rela-
tionship, those who are administering the events that lead to the
harm and hurt.
If little outrage organized directly against the structural bases of
their suffering is seen among the victims in a hurtful circumstance,
much anger and readiness to rage against the weaker and against
their rivals is to be found among tyrannical persons. This seems
strange because they are the persons who presumably gain advan-
The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful 75

tages from their situation or at least maintain their privileged posi-


tion. On the other hand, given the frequency of angry outbursts
among tyrannical leaders, their relentless searching for and sup-
pression of dissent and resistance, their affinity for the use of vio-
lent force, their criticism of and contempt for their followers, and
their facility in intimidation, I also find it remarkable that relatively
little is said in the technical psychological literature and in the
writings of political organizers about this anger. It is reactionary
leaders in political circles, men and women who are quite well off
materially, who fuss and fume about taxes being burdensome, wel-
fare overwhelmed with fraud, young people being too pleasure-
oriented, enemies from without threatening us with imminent de-
struction of all we hold dear, labor unions being dangerous and di-
visive. There seem to be no end of matters large and small that
arouse the negative, angry feelings of those who are powerful.
And it is important, I am convinced, that the rage of oppressors be
observed and studied in and of itself. We must look closely at that
anger and not be too readily distracted by its justifications, ratio-
nales, effects, or purposes. For when we do look closely, we will
realize there is much to be observed.
Why is this common rage of the oppressors overlooked or dis-
counted when the misdirected and rebellious anger of the weak has
been carefully and repeatedly diagnosed? A first reason we attend
less to the anger of the tyrant is that it tends to be controlled rage
rather than helpless rage, giving thereby an appearance of ratio-
nality. While the weak feel overwhelmed by their anger and react
to it as a force acting upon them as much as within them or for
them, the powerful insist upon their self-control even in the matter
of strong emotions. The powerful do not recognize that their
anger is problematic for them because if they did, they would have
to accept that they do not fully command their social-emotional
lives. Not only do they strongly avoid any internal perception that
their anger has underlying meanings; they also shield themselves so
that others do not make diagnoses. Other people who understand
character armor will in fact readily see the tension and frozenness
associated with controlled rage — by looking at the stiffness of
76 The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful

body posture, the steely-eyed, sternly set face, the jerky body loco-
motions, or the very aggressive physical games played. But most
people do not have this kind of insight.
Further obscuring of the anger of oppressors is facilitated by the
merging of personal rage and the instruments of the social institu-
tion or social system. The powerful can wield the impressive influ-
ence allocated to the system: workers can be fired for union orga-
nizing; soldiers can be tried for insubordination; children can be
punished by their parents or teachers for disobedience; junior staff
members can be hassled by superiors around the rules or practices
of the organization. With the backing of most elements of the so-
cial system, including many of the isolated weaker person's peers,
tyrants can vent their rage and be found threatening but not be as-
sessed as themselves having personal trouble dealing with their
anger.
But the main reason that significantly less attention is directed at
the angry feelings of the powerful is that they successfully project
so much of their rage. Up to a point, people in power roles experi-
ence and express their anger, and they produce results as a conse-
quence. Then, when angry feelings pass beyond the level at which
the self-control and system supports will allow acceptable mastery,
the powerful do not feel overwhelmed; that is to say, they do not
process in their direct awareness the devastating internal feeling of
helplessness and its partner, depression. Instead, they project their
intense rage by producing helpless rage in the weak or by shifting
attention to that rage. Their psychic resolution is less intrapsychic,
as in themselves feeling helpless and depressed, and more social-
psychological, as in doing that which provokes others yet keeps
them helpless in the relationship and attending to this rage of those
they have provoked. Projection — more than identification — di-
verts from the awareness of an inner difficulty.
Finally, commentators fail to reckon adequately with the anger
of the powerful because anger is the social emotion tied to con-
frontation with obstacles, and the deep assumption holds and
guides commentators to believe that oppressors are well-off and
meet only occasional threats of frustration when rebelliousness
The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful “Tl

breaks out. Since the social system is assumed to be paying off to


the powerful, little ground for them to be discontented is obvious.
Partisans and other observers alike, then, tend naively to assume
that of course the strong are relatively happy, so that their anger
could not possibly be derived from accumulated unmet needs,
which it emphatically is.
Here we need only remember that the powerful are fused with
the weak, dependent on narrowly defined forms of social relations,
in short, living as agencies rather than as agents. This is the source
of the rage in the oppressor, and it is little wonder that there is so
much of that rage and so considerable an amount of psychic energy
bound up in controlling that rage. Despite appearances associated
with material wealth and social perquisites, the powerful are unful-
filled as persons and are consequently very angry. Thorstein Ve-
blen? described this fact many years ago. It is vital that we make
ourselves aware that the rage of the powerful, like that of the weak, is
indeed present, misdirected, and potentially available for productive
use. I believe this to be a second practical contribution from theo-
retical study.
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Chapter 9

Intense Social Emotions Are Key

Identification with the aggressor and projection upon a primed


vulnerable other are psychological tactics adopted in dealing with
relationships characterized by the appearance of overwhelming so-
cial emotions. The unfolding of the delusion of fusion in a person's
life is a culmination of these tactics that are meant to resolve or
somehow contain these intense social emotions, which spiral up-
ward and come to dominate interpersonal activities. I am referring
here to great anxiety; awesome rage, whether a person's face is
flushed crimson or drained pale; tormenting guilt; powerful self-
hate and self-contempt; deep antagonism toward another person
or persons; and the despair underlying a full delusion of fusion.
These emotions come about in the deranged social relations of
oppressors and their victims. And both the intensity of the
emotions and the fact that they are social emotions, feelings bound
up with specific happenings, must be reckoned with in undoing the
resultant delusion of fusion, or confluence, among these people.
Here a major challenge confronts political organizers as it does
also psychotherapists: unlinking destructive fusions entails the re-
vival and reworking of these painfully strong and frightening emo-
tions. In changing, the weak or the strong person must necessarily
reawaken and re-experience the social emotions themselves, and
experiencing this time must do something different in behavior and
in the social relation than was done earlier.
The profound resistance to change characteristic of persons in
oppressor-oppressed relations comes from a dim sense of the in-
tensity involved in this process and their reluctance to have these
awful emotions once again spread over their being. Perls et al. de-
80 Intense Social Emotions are Key

velop this point in an analysis comparable to that which guides my


argument. They are discussing introjection, an important compo-
nent of identification with the aggressor:

"When one looks upon the introject as an item of ‘unfinished business,’ its
genesis is readily traced to a situation of interrupted excitement. Every in-
troject is the precipitate of a conflict given up before it was resolved. One of
the contestants — usually an impulse to act in a given manner — has left the
field; replacing it, so as to constitute some kind of integration (though a false
and inorganic one) is the corresponding wish of the coercing authority. The
self has been conquered. In giving up, it settles for a secondary integrity — a
means of surviving, though beaten — by identification with the conqueror and
turning against itself. It takes over the coercer's role by conquering itself,
retroflecting the hostility previously directed outward against the coercer.
Here, although actually defeated, the victim is encouraged by the victorious
coercer to perpetuate his defeat by forever rejoicing in the deluded notion
that he was the victor!

"Though admittedly unpleasant, there is no other way to discover what in you


is not part of yourself except by remobilizing disgust and the accompanying
urge to reject. ...

"Disgust is a natural barrier possessed by every healthy organism. It is a de-


fense against taking into the organism what does not belong there — what is
indigestible or foreign to its nature .... Full remobilization of disgust for
what is disgusting calls a halt to further introjecting, but it does not forthwith
cause to be spewed forth what has already been introjected . . . . This takes
time and a transitional period of more or less frequent or chronic nausea."

Feelings of disgust and nausea are indeed a part of re-


experiencing and casting out from one's psyche elements that have
been improperly taken in and acted upon as if they were truly of
one's nature, and so it is important for people trying to help others
undo the delusion of fusion to be sensitive to these feelings.
Instead, how often we hear the phrase "I am sick and tired
of ...," for instance, without listening closely and facilitating the
experience and expression of sickness contained in the remark —
not just the words, but the nausea and bitterness that give bodily-
emotional stuff to those words. Although we hear the phrase
frequently, we seldom act in such a way that we hold psychologically
the person asserting it so as to enable the feeling behind the words
Intense Social Emotions are Key 81

to surface and be reworked. We are inattentive to the psychologi-


cal needs of the individual, and in our oversight we inhibit the
undoing of faulty identifications.

Selma Fraiberg has remarked upon how those who were abused
as children, who are prone to identification with the aggressor,
need to re-experience intense feelings. In a report on a round table
on Maternal Attachment and Mothering Disorders is recorded:

"Professor Fraiberg . . . said that although nearly all her [abusive] parents re-
membered actual abuse in their childhood in stunning and chilling detail, they
did not remember the affect of the experience, i.e., being abused and injured.
If they were only able to help the parents reach the point of saying 'Oh, God,
how I hated him when he would get that strap and lay me out and begin to
beat on me. Oh, how I hated him!’ When her group helped their parents re-
member the anxiety and the sense of terror that had come over them with
the abuse of a powerful parent, they could demonstrate the parents' behavior
toward their own children changed. Thus, she conciuded, changes did not oc-
cur with just the memory of what happened, but with the actual re-experi-
encing of the terrifying feelings involved."

In the Chinese revolutionary movement in the first half of this


century there were "speak bitterness" sessions in which women re-
lived their oppression by men and peasants recaptured their antag-
onisms toward landlords. These sessions demonstrated ways to
overcome self-negation. They did not rely upon trained psycho-
therapists, but they were based on what I would consider sound
therapeutic principles. Central to these activities was a revival in
the here and now of old situations, peasants confronting directly
landlords who had abused them, wives facing their dominating hus-
bands and asserting their pain and their demands for new, more
equal relationships. In these encounters old patterns in the rela-
tionships were often transformed; the confrontation enabled op-
pressed and oppressor alike to come into a new way of dealing with
themselves and with each other, the oppressed asserting them-
selves openly, the oppressors acting more humbly.
Jack Belden, in China Shakes the World,? illustrates this point
with "Gold Flower's Story." Belden interviewed a woman named
82 Intense Social Emotions are Key

Kinhua, or Gold Flower, for eight to ten hours a day over a week's
time and then set out to "tell her story just as she told it to me in a
flood of bitter tears, angry imprecations and emotional outbursts of
despair, frustration and hope.” First came the story of her love at
fifteen for Lipao, a boy she knew she could not marry, a story of
desire held back, of adolescent fantasy and dreams, of social cor-
rectness and personal denial. On the eve of her wedding to an
older man she hanged herself, only to be rescued and brought back
to life by her parents. And she was married the next day to a man
twenty years older than she, a man ugly and hateful.
On her wedding night, because she resisted, her husband raped
her. For three years her husband and other members of the family
beat her and mistreated her in other ways, even while she acqui-
esced and tried to please. Then her husband went off to a city to
become a merchant. He left her behind in the control of his family,
and life for Gold Flower did not improve.
Next, a unit of the 8th Route Army entered Gold Flower's vil-
lage and set about organizing a Women's Association to work to-
ward equality of women and men. A friend of hers, Dark Jade, was
elected to leadership in the Women's Association and came se-
cretly to meet with Gold Flower. "We must release ourselves from
the domination of men," Dark Jade told her. "But we cannot do it
individually, we must all stand together and release ourselves as a
unit." Soon Gold Flower shared with Dark Jade and another friend
an account of her suffering. "The speaking aloud of what had been
going round and round in her mind for so long brought a rush of
feeling such as she had not experienced since the days she had
known Lipao."
The women's group then came to her father-in-law and Dark
Jade told him, "Our investigation department has found out that
you are treating your daughter-in-law badly." He responded, "Go
away! Get out!" Dark Jade began to request that he change his
ways. He refused and again ordered the women to leave. The
group of women, who had clubs and ropes, then bound him and
took him away to the Women's Association. As they were doing
Intense Social Emotions are Key 83

this, Gold Flower experienced fear and called out to the women
not to hurt her "dear father."
He was held a prisoner for two days, and then, on the third,
there was a general meeting of all the women in the village, who
were to decide what to do with him. After a cadre from the district
spoke eloquently about the plight of women and Dark Jade spoke,
a bit more clumsily, about life in the village for women, Gold
Flower's father-in-law was brought before the women and asked to
tell of his bad treatment of Gold Flower. "I have done nothing," he
said, trying to bluff his innocence; but Gold Flower was persuaded
to. denounce him and cite the details of her mistreatment.
Intimidated, the father-in-law confessed his sins and vowed not to
repeat them.
Gold Flower experienced now not only her suffering but hope as
well. She became a leader, helping other women to reacquaint
themselves with their pain and to challenge those who had domi-
nated them. She worked to help young couples marry freely and
for love, as she had not been able to do. She wandered in the fields
at harvest time, matching boys and girls, encouraging them, ar-
ranging meetings in the homes of friends so that resisting parents
would not interfere. But after a time, and it was a happy period for
Gold Flower, she realized that not until she settled affairs with her
own husband would she be really free.
She lured her husband home. On his return, her father-in-law
complained to his son and told of his travails and of Gold Flower's
new attitudes and behavior. That night she fought verbally with
her husband about their whole life together, determined even to
die rather than give in to any more brutality from him. They ar-
gued deep into the night and fell asleep exhausted, without making
love. The next morning Gold Flower sought help from the
Women's Association. Dark Jade and fifteen other women went to
Gold Flower's home. They told her husband that he would speak
of his treatment of Gold Flower or he would taste their fists. He
tried to shrug them off. They tied him with ropes and took him and
locked him in a room of the Women's Association. At a meeting
the next day, to which Gold Flower came, the other women urged
84 Intense Social Emotions are Key

him to confess to mistreating her, and when he refused, they beat


him. Under their blows he finally confessed to mistreating Gold
Flower and promised never to do so again. Then he was allowed to
go home, and Gold Flower was instructed to prepare food for him
and take care of him.
Although her husband appeared chastened, that night when they
were alone, he reasserted his dominance. They fought again.
Then, tired from all the events, she allowed him to make love to
her, but this served only to bring to her awareness the depth of her
hatred for him. The next day she vented her rage upon him; he
responded with attempts to beat her. She ran back to the Women's
Association, the women of the village were summoned by calls
through a megaphone and came prepared to tie him up again.
With Gold Flower in the lead, forty and more of the women in the
village ran to find him, but he had already fled. He was forever
after that out of her life.
This impressive story that Jack Belden has recorded is one that
was repeated many, many times in the Chinese Revolution. Cen-
tral to this and the other tales is a re-experiencing of rage, fear,
anxiety, and a confusing love and compassion for one's tormentors
that always seems to accompany identification with the aggressor.
Gold Flower not only denounced her father-in-law and husband.
As one learns from Belden's full recounting of her story, she pro-
tected both of them as well. She alternated between attacking and
denouncing them and lovingly trying to bring them into new ways.
We know this seeming paradox well in respect to abused wives
throughout the world. The reowning of their loving feelings to-
ward their abusive mates is never easy, never simply undertaken,
yet without the vividness it brings, whatever changes these women
need to make in their lives cannot usually be accomplished. This
emotional fullness of hate, compassion, and love side by side is
typical for people with faulty identifications they want to resolve.
There is even more to be dealt with in the way of social emotions
for people undoing the delusion of fusion, since there are harmful
projections as well as identifications to be mastered. Although the
clinical literature is less specific in describing the feelings that come
Intense Social Emotions are Key 85

up in the course of correcting faulty projections, the clues are there


in the psychopathologies of people who make much use of this
manner of avoiding their own lives. Centrally, as persons undo
their projections, or "take them back" or "reown" them — as they
acknowledge parts of themselves they have attributed to others —
they will re-experience in profoundly upsetting ways feelings of
suspicion, distrust, and lack of safety that the process of projecting
was mitigating. Such persons will no longer say, "They deserve my
suspicion and mistrust, but instead will acknowledge, "I am suspi-
cious and mistrusting in my insecurity."
Along the way to this kind of recognition, there may even be a
transfer of these social emotions from enemies to friends, that is,
from members of one's outgroup to members of one's ingroup.
Feeling that friends are not to be trusted, that one's familiar envi-
ronment is an unsafe place, that those who profess their love and
admiration cannot love one, is deeply disturbing, frequently pro-
moting the sense of the uncanny. It is eerie and disorienting to dis-
trust just those people one has been relying upon as caring, de-
pendable friends. Yet when such affects exist, they must be lived
out if faulty projections are to be undone. This is true even though
the fact that they must be engaged poses serious challenges to so-
cial and political organizations dedicated to fundamental social
change. For example, as Gayle Graham Yates has noted:

"Susan Brownmiller writes of the enemy within in which she places the blame
for women's jncapacity on their own suspicion and distrust of each other and
themselves."

The delusion of fusion exists only in the context of social rela-


tionships and so can be rectified only in social relationships. Be-
yond this, mastering an intense social emotion, as must be done re-
peatedly in undoing the faulty identifications and projections that
lead to this delusion, is better done when the person experiencing
the feeling is with others. Whether the individual's companions
share the same emotion and by this commonality stimulate its re-
vival and make it less awesome, or are just available to protect the
individual from living out extreme guilt, self-hatred, rage, or some
86 Intense Social Emotions are Key

other difficult emotion in a destructive and self-limiting way, they


can make possible the bearing of unpleasant affect as part of the
process of harnessing the emotion for new behavior.
Although sharing anger may amplify the tendency for strong
rage to become helpless rage, it may equally well lead to productive
collective action in which the anger is directed inward actual frus-
trating or oppressive restraints. Sharing guilt, similarly, may lead to
fundamentalist, punitive religion, but it may also lead to a sense of
community responsibility and forgiveness, forgiveness of self as
well as of others. Projected self-hatred in the form of outgroup
hatred — e.g., racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, antiprogressivism — is
a group-sustained process and can be undone when shared group
norms are changed. Plain old self-hatred and self-contempt can be
alleviated, once known openly and collectively, by the discovery
that many others feel exactly the same way, as we witnessed in
women's consciousness-raising groups when their attitudes toward
their bodies were opened to the light of day. Each person in turn
can be nauseous, suspicious, or panicky if secure in a collectivity
which tolerates intense emotional life and devotes collective wis-
dom and energy to enabling the revival and reworking of traumatic
past experiences.
Political and social movements in our society, possibly emulating
bureaucratic norms, have been remarkably sterile in respect to
finding ways to allow and work with the intense social emotions
that appear in activities promoting social change. As William
Beardslee has observed, activists in the civil rights movement sang
together when they felt vulnerable, even created group singing rit-
uals for that purpose, but they did not cooperate as well in mourn-
ing their defeats or dealing with the deaths of their fellows. They
failed here to integrate the effects of social struggle on their pri-
vate lives; like the system they opposed, they left individuals to
their own devices. Beardslee presents the ideas of Reverend Cald-
well, a movement organizer, on this subject:

"In many people's lives in the Movement, there came a time when support
was needed, and in some cases there was no support. To be more specific,
while a person was trying to understand himself, maybe he turned to his
Intense Social Emotions are Key 87

childhood for support, to make himself strong enough to deal with what was
happening to him. Maybe he didn't find it there. He needed somebody to
help him put it together, but there was no reinforcement from the predomi-
nant society or his family. A person in the Movement during those times was
most likely just out of adolescence, suffering from the wounds that adoles-
cence leaves. Maybe something in the Movement was not going fast enough
for him or maybe his livelihood was threatened. He had a crisis because he
didn't have the resources or the reassurance that he needed. If he was not
able to deal with that particular crisis, it had a domino effect and shattered
his image of himself. Many people left the Movement because of that.

"A crisis also came in many young guys' lives in the Movement when they felt
that all they had done was in vain. . . . My analysis of it is that they weren't
able to regroup and devise new ways of living at that point. I advised people
to find a way to take care of themselves while there was still a chance."

Engagement with deep psychological issues in the process of po-


litical action is neither a frill nor a luxury, neither digressive nor di-
versionary. I do not believe that social change is to be achieved by
the reconstitution of character among all citizens via therapeutic
(or religious) endeavors — changing people one by one, or chang-
ing families and the rearing of children. I am convinced, however,
that efforts to achieve political change of any substance arouse ba-
sic problematic personality tendencies, such as tendencies to in-
troject faultily, project unsoundly, and retroflect what deserves to
be directed outward, and their arousal entails intense emotional
experiences. These tendencies and some of the emotions they
bring up serve as defenses against or resistances to social change,
which suggests that change can occur only if the tendencies are ac-
knowledged and methods are created for attending to them.
Beardslee describes the positive side of social actions that incor-
porate the undoing of the delusion of fusion as experienced partic-
ularly by black activists in the civil rights movement:

"A... Major theme in the people's descriptions of what sustained them is a


new consciousness of their own worth and of their power to bring about
change. The whole of the segregationist culture had as its goal the passivity
and acquiescence of Blacks: any action might threaten the status quo. In-
volvement in the Movement was involvement in action, action which broke
the pattern of ingrained acquiescence and acceptance, There was a great joy
and sense of accomplishment in this. Taking action, not being passive, was
88 Intense Social Emotions are Key

the visible expression of this new consciousness. Moreover, all of the workers
had become angry, many enraged, by their own humiliation and oppression.
... Taking part in the Movement was a positive way of dealing with this anger
and rage. ...

"What is remarkable about the workers is that they were not overwhelmed by
their rage and they did not lash out blindly. Just as the capacity to grieve and
keep working was a necessity for the workers, so was the capacity to be angry
and feel outrage, and at the same time put those feelings into action toward
the goals of the Movement.

"In reading over the histories, it is clear that the historians [activists] under-
went inner psychological change.

"What is emphasized by the experience of the civil rights workers is the im-
portance of relationships with others, at stages other than childhood, in en-
abling people to change. The intense relationships with others, which for a
time superceded those even within the family and were among the most in-
tense that the person had experienced, were a necessary part of the process
of change.”

Recognizing that decisive political action requires and, as Beard-


slee so clearly indicates here, creates intense personal experiences,
I would distinguish three contexts in which they will take place,
each of which has a special contribution to make: 1) collective ac-
tion in which there is direct contact between oppressed and op-
pressor or representatives of the oppressor; 2) ingroup activity of
the people acting in common cause, especially activity preparing
for contact with the opposition or reflecting upon contact with it at
some time in the past; and 3) individually working through one's
inner life as it has been affected by participation in collective action
around one's role as oppressed or oppressor. Transformation of
one's way of being in the world can take place in each of these con-
texts, but only when the transaction or introspection does not re-
peat the established patterns of submission and tyranny.
In the direct contact between the dominating strong and the
weak, anger that once led to helpless rage and submission or to
controlled rage and domination can become the anger of complex
and integrated self-assertion and can become connected with true
perception of the other's anxiety and defensiveness in such transac-
Intense Social Emotions are Key 89

tions. In these new angry encounters between persons in the weak


position and those in the strong role, guilt and self-hatred may be
washed away in the tides of collective support of the self-assertion.
Persons may get fully in touch with their anger, find ways to use it
productively rather than helplessly or in overcontrolled fashion,
and begin to recognize the distinction between their own, naturally
arising needs and desires and those that have been taken on for the
express purpose of managing the oppressed-oppressor relation.
Each person comes to his or her individuality and chooses to act as
part of a group in interactions that now achieve socially defined
goals happily for all. The delusion of fusion is broken.
Developments in clinical practice and theory point up the impor-
tance of lively direct contact for change in human life. From
psychoanalysis comes the theme that the transference and its
interpretation are central to therapeutic change. The patient lives
out with the analyst, here and now, the patterns of behavior and _
chains of thought that distort his or her life, and this time — if the
analyst interprets well — they have a different course. This time
they are worked through to mutual satisfaction and then let go as
they were not earlier in the patient's life. The transaction with the
analyst is transformative. In existential therapy, reliance is similarly
placed upon the encounter between client and therapist, not upon
solving the client's problems outside the therapeutic setting, and
the authentic meeting of client and therapist is deemed to be the
vital factor. In family and marital therapy, it is thought to be best
to have the participants actively engage each other in their typical
disruptive modes so that these modes can be altered here and now,
which is more likely to lead to far-reaching corrections than is
restrained discussion of the disruption.
Change takes place 1) when relationships recapitulate the condi-
tions prevailing when the delusion of fusion first developed; 2)
when the recapitulations are lively, present, concrete, and impor-
tantly felt; and 3) when new and different resolutions of conflictual
relations bring immediate, self-evident, surprising satisfactions. It
is obvious fact, not promise, not wishful hope, when persons effec-
tively assert and define themselves in collective engagement. To
90 Intense Social Emotions are Key

return in a vivid way to approximations or equivalents of the cir-


cumstances that produced a self-denying or self-limiting solution
and resolve them differently now has often been found necessary
for the alteration of habitual patterns of resignation and exploita-
tion. Gold Flower, whose ultimate step in transformation was her
confrontation with her husband, clearly illustrates this process.
From the vantage point of the oppressed, the intense social
emotions that must be aroused for transformation to occur are
precisely those that were conducive to the establishment of
identification with the aggressor: anxiety, anger, guilt, and self-
hatred. Workers become again afraid that they will lose their jobs,
and their anxiety becomes intense. Medical students fear they will
be failed in school if they openly oppose their instructors. Strikers
know deep anger and bitterness when confronted with scabs or the
police. Ethnic groups turn against each other with a hatred that is
best understood as the projection of self-hatred. Followers who
fight with those in authority find themselves unaccountably guilty.
And those on the underside continue to exaggerate the rationality,
the self-possession, the power and assuredness of those on top —
another form of self-hatred. All these experiences appear and
reappear and are the stuff that must be worked with in trans-
formation of oppressive relationships.
The transformation that will follow from the successful manage-
ment of these intense social emotions in encounters with the other
side will this time result in acting as self as agent rather than insti-
tuting the emergency pattern of fusing with the other. The trans-
formation will include changes in the ideas and beliefs of the weak
about the strong — they will be more acutely aware of and attentive
to the particular truth about the strong, less susceptible to myths
and appearances. At the same time, those who have been domi-
nated will arrive at new ideas and beliefs about themselves, about
their strengths and possibilities, their participation in their own dis-
empowerment, their capacity as individuals to act cooperatively in
new ways. The revival of intense social emotions in contacts be-
tween the oppressed and oppressor risks a repetition of identifica-
Intense Social Emotions are Key 91

tion with the aggressor, but at the very same moment it opens the
opportunity for personal growth and social change.
By simply reviewing what projection upon a primed vulnerable
other does for the powerful, I can predict what the weak will learn
from them in transformative encounters. Take, for example, the
common tendency, known from Hitler and Stalin through Reagan,
for leaders to try to get common folk to focus on an enemy out-
group rather than on the current internal problems of society. The
leader is projecting self-hatred and guilt in such an endeavor and is
encouraging followers, through their identification with his or her
leadership, to project theirs also. Even if we know of terrible
childhood experiences endured by such leaders and that these may
lead them to have great doubts about themselves, and indeed to
feel guilt and self-hatred, we follow their projections by imagining
that such confident people could not be self-hating and guilty.
They don't act as we do when we feel those feelings. Of course
they don't; that is what projection is about. In transformative en-
counters, as when Senator Joseph McCarthy was subjected to in-
tense public scrutiny by representatives of the people of the land,
the weak — here the citizens living in a fairly authoritarian social
scene — discover a disparity between how real the threat is in fact
and how the threat has been pronounced by the leader. The com-
munists of the world were not about to take over the United States
government as McCarthy had been screaming. Projections were
being unmasked and identifications with an aggressive — indeed
sadistic — leader undone in the McCarthy hearings.
The use of scabs, informers, repressive police, and the military by
dominating persons oppressing the weak can be seen not only as
the application of force but also as a factor promoting projections
by the weak. Projection is often the result of lack of support. One
projects negative qualities of one's own upon a person or group
that might be expected to be supportive but is not. Here, the
groups being used, after all, are themselves oppressed people.
They have chosen, however, under the influence of their own iden-
tification with the aggressor, to fuse with the oppressor, to become
instruments of domination, and they have forfeited in the process
92 Intense Social Emotions are Key

some degree of their own development as agents in their lives. The


unaccepting oppressed — those acknowledging they are in the
weak position and trying to change that — need to perceive and to
take into account the faulty introjections that help make it possible
for these others persons to act as agencies of the oppressor. If the
struggling weak merely blame, scorn, and hate these intermedi-
aries, they will forget that they too have identified with the aggres-
sor in the past and indeed are presently trying to undo such identi-
fication. In thus dehumanizing scabs, informers, repressive police,
and/or the military, they will disown their own tendencies to iden-
tify with the aggressor. Instead of recognizing themselves in these
adversaries and thus accepting in awareness their own proclivities
for submitting and identifying and so probably learning how to
overcome these, they will passively discharge these proclivities via
projection upon these people on the other side. As an example of
how the psychological processes involved here affect actual social
struggle, repressive police and military forces and scabs generate
anger and hatred directly because they frustrate strikers and other
agents of social change, but there is an added intensity to the anger
and hatred, a sign that those being repressed are warding off con-
sciousness of their own wishes to retreat and submit.
In direct confrontations between the weak and the strong, the
weak can learn two distinct lessons concerning anger. First, they
can discover that the strong are trying to turn the anger of the
weak into helpless rage so that they will become ineffective in their
struggle. Using whatever power they have — greater strength, the
power of their authority in an institution, the force of their own
threatened rage — the strong work to insert the feeling of help-
lessness into the anger of the weak. Watching this use of anger as
a power mechanism will strengthen the weak in their self-
regulation and thus enable them to become more like agents in
their endeavors. It will help them to tame their anger and use it
forcefully.
Second, the weak can become aware of the desperate need for
control of their own anger that characterizes the strong, along with
their projection of that part of it they can't control. Then the weak
Intense Social Emotions are Key 93

will begin to humanize the other, in two distinct ways. First, they
will start to see needs and desires as separate — for example, "This
boss of mine's needs are not my needs and his oppressive anger
does not have to become mine." Second, the weak will start to dis-
cover that powerful people are also insecure, are pushed by anxiety
they cannot fully master, fears they pretend do not exist, doubt
within themselves. Leaders, kings, and dictators are hardly as ra-
tional, self-satisfied, clever, and productive as they are imagined to
be. Hitler came to be seen as an indecisive leader who periodically
made hasty, rash decisions. Ronald Reagan came to be known as a
passive person. The people on top are simply people, a few among
the many.
Here follow some things the oppressed may learn about them-
selves in transformative contact with oppressors:
While the oppressed will continue to see themselves as victims of
domination in a faulty system, they will also see that they are con-
tributors to that system, that they play a part in their own victimiza-
tion. Then a new compassion for self, a nurturance of self in one's
weakness, a forgiveness of self for one's vulnerability, a support of
self will unfold and enable the oppressed to be less hampered in
their self-assertions. Accepting openly not only that they are weak
but also that they help make themselves weak, that part of the
strength of the powerful is what they give over, permits the op-
pressed to choose to apply that strength to their own welfare and
comfort. The support they supply to others can be redirected to-
ward themselves. Acknowledgment of participation in one’s own
domination can serve a curative purpose; it need not lead to devas-
tating self-blame.
Concomitantly, oppressed people are likely rsdiscover that they
carry excessive guilt. While there is "real guilt”® in the sense that
they have participated in their own domination, a guilt which is re-
lieved by self-forgiveness, there is also the guilt taken on by turning
anger back upon the self when one fears the consequences of living
outwardly the anger. This is an important part of the guilt of the
first stage of identification with the aggressor. It is diminished and
the oppressed person relieved of its burden when he or she be-
94 Intense Social Emotions are Key

comes aware of its origin and redirects the anger toward its original
target.
The oppressed person also becomes aware of self-hatred as an
unawares introject, as a taking on of the influence of the oppressor.
The remarkable extent to which self-hatred leads weak persons to
subject themselves to self-criticism and to self-abuse and attenu-
ated suicide — by means of drugs, alcohol, and accidents — will be-
come clear and the urges in this direction less insistent.
In self-assertions in the context of dealing with oppressors, op-
pressed persons learn not only the needs and desires that are active
within themselves, but also that they have been willing to avoid
defining these in their identification with the aggressor. The fusing
of needs in the past is contrasted with the individuated and self-ar-
ticulated needs of the present, and pride in ownership of own
needs comes forth.
Similarly, in the interplay of angers, oppressed individuals be-
come aware that they have contributed to the helplessness factor in
their own anger. In their anxiety or their great haste to resolve the
conflictual situation, they have underestimated their own capacities
and opportunities and in this way made themselves helpless. Their
helplessness wasn't all produced by the dominating other. Di-
rected, productive, controlled but not overcontrolled rage feels
good to the angry person, whereas helpless rage is quite unpleas-
ant. Discovery of one's part in becoming helpless is liberating.
In transformative relationships between oppressed and oppres-
sor, there is increased tolerance for anxiety, ambiguity, and am-
bivalence. There are tension and doubt, confusion, contradictions,
risk, error, and imperfection in all intense experiences, and the ca-
pacity to bear the weight of these without reverting to faulty identi-
fications and projections enters a person's consciousness and ex-
cites and rewards the person.
Compassion for the oppressor comes too in the transforming
transaction. As an oppressed individual gains self-mastery, the real
other becomes more vivid as a human being with his or her own
frailties and drivenness. A healthy form of identification and a
healthy form of projection, empathy, enable oppressed persons to
Intense Social Emotions are Key 95

undo their idealizations (positive and negative) of oppressors and


learn about their particular humanity. This is coming to love one's
enemy, not in a shallow, moralistic way, but with a deep and sor-
rowful understanding. The opposition to oppression continues, but
the individual oppressor is separated in the mind of the weaker
person from the system of domination that hurts all participants.
Not only oppressed people are transformed in direct encounters
between themselves and those who dominate them; so too are the
dominators. New awarenesses appear for them as well, aware-
- nesses associated with the undoing of projection upon a primed
vulnerable other, paralleling those experienced by the underdog
who is rising to equality. Here follow some of those new under-
standings, first in respect to self, which is harder to understand for
the dominating person, who has relied heavily on projection and
control of others, then in respect to others, who have been greatly
misperceived in the processes of oppression.
The dominant persons become aware that they have been func-
tionaries. They have paid the price for power by fusing with the
system, by becoming agencies while imagining that they were
agents. On the one side, oppressors begin to develop sensitivity to
the fact that they are instruments of an oppressive system. They
experience discomfort performing those acts of the system which
damage the weak, and they come to see that they as well as the
weak have been victims. No longer seeing themselves merged in
the system, they can see the system for what it is — an oppressive
arrangement of social relations. On the other side, oppressors be-
gin to rediscover their own needs and desires as distinct from the
inclinations fostered or demanded by the system in which they have
submerged themselves. They learn that their true wants are differ-
ent from what they imagined them to be.
Oppressors experience and work productively with their guilt,
which once they mainly saw in its projected form. Their self-control
had tended to hide their guilt from themselves. They come to ex-
perience real guilt and the regret that goes with it in respect to
those they have oppressed, and they reform and experience for-
giveness, their own and that which the downtrodden regularly pro-
96 Intense Social Emotions are Key

vide to tyrants who reform. They also become aware of existential


guilt, in that they see how much of themselves they have negated
or failed to realize in the operations that were implementing
domination.
Those who have been the strong in power relations become
aware of the depth of the self-hatred involved in their control of
unwieldy desires. The distaste they regularly feel for internal pro-
cesses that are hard to handle can be quite intense, which is one
reason why the strong are typically reluctant to use psychotherapy.
Now they experience with a new intensity hatred for that part of
themselves which has been self-controlling. When we remember
that a person who is self-controlling is also one who is controlled by
self, we can comprehend this hatred. It is a feeling on behalf of de-
nied desires, hatred of the rigidly self-controlling part of one's func-
tioning. And now also hatred of other unruly desires that the per-
son has avoided experiencing directly by projecting them becomes
anger at self-victimization and a new determination to be true to
one's own wishes.
The full experience of suspicion, distrust, and feeling unsafe in
the vital contact is aroused and is lived through without devasta-
tion, adding an appreciation of one's capacity to be self-supportive
in the midst of high tension. The feelings of distrust and suspicion
are seen to be what the person brings from the past and may not
necessarily refer at all to dangers posed by the oppressed — "It is I
who am suspicious," not "They are out to hurt me.” The depen-
dence of the oppressor upon the oppressed for dealing with his or
her own psychological problems is consequently lessened, and
feelings of relief and self-confidence emerge.
In place of controlled rage there may temporarily appear help-
less rage, a stage on the pathway toward owning the full extent of
the anger that oppressors carry. Dealing with the helpless rage and
surviving it leads to a useful taming of anger.
Like the oppressed persons who are collaborators in the trans-
formative relationship, the oppressors develop an increased toler-
ance for anxiety, ambiguity, and ambivalence, and in addition gain
understanding of and compassion for those on the other side — the
Intense Social Emotions are Key 97

oppressed. Again, healthy identifications replace unhealthy ones,


and empathy suppl«nts unawares projection, so that the strong
come to see the weak and themselves as joined in common effort
and more alike than different. The vitality that characterizes rela-
tionships of equals in close contact is allowed and appreciated.
Among the more particular awarenesses about the oppressed that
take hold when projection upon a primed vulnerable other is mas-
tered are the following:
The shift of responsibility to the oppressor by the weak is an ac-
tive step as well as a submissive response to power; the oppressed
are actors in allocating responsibility and in divesting themselves of
power. Their giving it over is, indeed, an act born of a series of
painful emotions starting with anxiety and helpless rage, and is thus
not under their cool, rational control, and yet it is an act: a choice
and decision are involved. Crucially, the weak legitimate authority,
as Elizabeth Janeway” argues, and thus can also pull back or with-
hold that legitimation. The weak, who seem to be only victims of
their own fate, are understood to be more powerful than they
themselves believe.
The weak, though they sometimes appear willing victims, are
submissive ambivalently. Even when they wish to be unthreaten-
ing, their needs push them toward self-assertion, and their as-
sertiveness then contradicts their efforts to be self-negating. Fur-
ther, ready submissiveness shields a great deal of rage. White
racists talked about the contentedness of blacks until there was a
lifting of too ready submissive tendencies and the long-term strug-
gle for equality was revived; then the rage that lay behind the sub-
missiveness came clearly into view. Along similar lines, oppressors
become aware that the oppressed are not genetically lazy and in-
competent; rather they have been selectively irresponsible. !° Un-
der the pressures of perceived domination, the weak become lazy,
live by a different sense of time, cannot delay gratification, and so
forth. Without those pressures, however, they seem like re-
spectable and responsible folk. The weak too use power, and this
is observed and appreciated when oppression is overcome.
98 Intense Social Emotions are Key

Oppressors discover that when the weak are relieved of guilt and
self-hatred and when they are self-forgiving for being party to their
own victimization, they are safer, less likely to seek revenge upon
their oppressors.
When the helpless rage of the weak is developed into produc-
tive, controlled anger, the feelings of anger from the weak that en-
ter into transactions appear less threatening to all, and can be un-
derstood, respected, even welcomed by an oppressor. Tamed
anger is less likely to arbitrarily erupt upon the oppressor and can
be useful in moving all collaborators in the new relationship to new
achievements. Tamed anger helps identify present needs, helps
move people toward collaboration, and keeps relationships lively.
Oppressors begin to experience the weak as tolerant of their
own anxiety, ambivalence, and ambiguity, and this lifts the oppres-
sors’ sensed burden of excessive responsibility for them. And
events confirm the new situation: the weak no longer call upon the
strong to save them from fear and doubt or to relieve them of their
hostility, but instead become responsible for handling these them-
selves.
Finally, the strong discover that the separate needs and desires
of the weak are interesting, social, exciting, and informative to
them in their own living processes. How the underclasses manage
their lives is impressive, given the hardships they must deal with,
and when these skills are applied in transformational relationships,
the aesthetics and craft of such management are wondrously edu-
cational to oppressors, who have believed they have nothing to
learn from the subdued.
I have been sketching some awarenesses that can be expected
when contacts between the powerful and the powerless result in
the undoing of the delusion of fusion and corrections of faulty
identifications and projections that support this delusion. These
awarenesses are products of transformative encounters between
oppressors and oppressed, and it is wise to remember that while
there are many, many interactions between them, only a few of
these are transformative encounters; the remainder are either con-
tinuations of the oppressive conditions or neutral task-oriented
Intense Social Emotions are Key 99

dealings without any exploitative ingredients. Transformative en-


counters are few and far between and usually result from consider-
able prior preparation. On occasion spontaneous actions are trans-
formative, though close scrutiny of these may show considerable
accumulated fantasies and imaginary scenarios among the protago-
nists.
Preparation for contacts that are transformative is less likely to
occur in the frequent usual interactions between oppressor and
oppressed — where the participants are heavily burdened by the
mechanisms of the delusion of fusion — than in peer groups, where
it is possible to experiment with building trust, developing motiva-
tion for change, and creating the capacity to be aware of what de- .
mands attention. In the peer groups of the oppressed (one thinks
of unions, the civil rights groups with their church or political
bases, antinuclear groups, students as a body vis-a-vis teachers,
tenant organizations. and families as well) and in those of the
oppressors (boards of directors, country club groups, "citizens"
groups, Chambers of Commerce, and again families), the anti-
cipation and exploration of possible encounters goes on all the
time. More often than not, such preparation is unplanned and
unsystematic. The oppressed, traumatized by their oppression, are
preoccupied with their oppressors, indeed, fascinated by them, as
Hallie has keenly noted, ! and in their attempts to work through
their pent-up rage, their "unfinished business,” their need to repair
their self-esteem, or simply their confusion about what is hap-
pening to them, they are ever imagining possibilities for turning the
tables on their exploiters. In their peer groups, they seek support
for bearing the tensions of being dominated, but they also consider
ways for changing their life circumstances.
Less noticed but equally active is preoccupation with the weak in
the circles of the strong. I have already pointed out that
oppressors are dependent upon those they oppress for dealing with
their own psychological problems, and I have noted their
intrusiveness upon the lives of these others, their inability to stay
clear of these human beings they hold in great contempt. It is a
further ramification of this preoccupation that oppressors are often
100 Intense Social Emotions are Key

to be found talking about their dealings with those whom they


dominate as if rehearsing for encounters. They too have
“unfinished business" and seek to resolve their delusionary con-
dition time and time again within their peer groups.
Inside the very peer groups themselves, however, problematic
patterns of confluence, faulty identification and projection, guilt
and self-hatred, helpless and overcontrolled rage, and divisive anxi-
ety surface anew. One source of these patterns is external pressure
applied to the group of one's peers. Unions are hounded by indus-
try and government, and in turn unions challenge management;
change-oriented political groups are harassed by police forces; civil
rights organizations are intimidated by racist coalitions and in re-
sponse fight back and become threatening in their own right.
These pressures are very real, and they induce stress in the peer
group, stress which is regularly followed by activation of the defen-
sive maneuvers leading to the delusion of fusion. Indeed, the inep-
titude and downfall of many social groups can be traced to divisions
within them that parallel, even imitate, the divisions between the
social group and its external opposition. Even when external pres-
sure is not actively being applied, its frightening anticipation is evi-
_ dent in peer groups.
A second source of the problematic patterns in the peer group is
history and tradition. In a large social system that is governed by
patterns of domination and submission, the subsystems mirror the
larger whole; the organizational principles of smaller groups are
heavily influenced by the most prominent principles in the larger
group. If the workplace is organized in an authoritarian manner,
the families of workers and management both are likely to be run
in an authoritarian way; if the military is primary among national
governmental functions, educational institutions are likely to have
a militaristic cast. And the rigidity needed for the maintenance of
oppression leads to rituals, proprieties, rules, fashions, and tradi-
tions within the peer group which have a continuing life of their
own. For example, the unvarying hours of work for parents in a
family lead to unvarying routines and rules about meal times. The
rigidity from the workplace spills over into family life.
Intense Social Emotions are Key 101

A third source of the problematic patterns is the character struc-


ture of the members of the peer group. This has been so deformed
by experiences of domination and submission that they bring with
them dispositions to function by faulty identifications and projec-
tions. Indeed, their lives have been so colored by domination and
submission that they believe these are the normal ways of relating.
There is thus little facility in handling anger within the ingroup or
in affirming self rather than hating self for having needs that bring
one into difficulty.
In short, every peer group reflects the dynamics that transpire
between oppressors and oppressed because the members of the
group carry over their accustomed methods for managing anxiety,
anger, and guilt and self-hatred and the disowning of needs that
might be provocative. There is antidemocratic tradition in labor
unions; splits between blacks and whites destroy the unity of the
civil rights movement, a unity forged in dangerous common strug-
gle; feminists who are angry with all men divide from feminists who
are intolerant of any sexism including that focused upon men as an
undifferentiated grouping; domination and submission flourish
within the ranks of the well-off. Every peer group in an exploita-
tive system is bedeviled by the delusion of fusion.
Accordingly, inside each peer group in a system of oppressors
and oppressed, a dialectical situation arises: the group serves as a
support system for individuals, and the group threatens to institute
its own form of oppression. The tension of this dialectic, whether
at any given time the group is actually being supportive or oppres-
sive, makes of the group a potential training ground for undoing
the delusion of fusion. Because the tendencies to recreate oppres-
sion within the peer group appear over and over again, the impetus
toward the delusion of fusion is a regular event for the members;
because the group is supportive, indeed exists because it has taken
on the responsibility of sustaining its members, the undoing of the
delusion of fusion can be carried out in a relatively safe environ-
ment (A peer group that wasn't supportive wouldn't really be a
peer group.) The struggle to clarify the confluences, introjections,
and projections that are personally and socially harmful can pro-
102 Intense Social Emotions are Key

ceed in the relative security of the peer group, and through that
struggle individuals can change themselves while simultaneously
preparing to engage in transformative encounters between oppres-
sors and oppressed.
The slowing down of the quick-circuiting process is helped along
by the relative security the peer group provides; by contrast, rapid
transition from spontaneity to anxiety to anger to guilt and self-ha-
tred to full identification with the aggressor or full projection upon
a primed vulnerable other is likely to occur when destructiveness is
expected in social relations. The group can help members who are
trying to slow down and change themselves. For instance, to come
to realize that one's desires are confounded by introjections or
projections is quite disorienting. One's sense of self is shattered,
and even though it was a false sense because the self was fused, it
gave one some stability. The peer group offers a new stability.
Similarly, people are more willing to own their guilt and self-hatred
if they feel safe, secure that others will not abandon them, remove
support, or condemn or belittle them, secure also that they will not
destroy themselves in their self-hatred. It is no simple matter to re-
cover and forgive guilt and self-hatred, and a sympathetic, tolerant,
and receptive group can provide support of this process.
At the same time, for the peer group to serve its transformative
functions, attention must be paid to the various ways in which the
delusion of fusion manifests itself in dealings with external groups
and in internal affairs, including the influence of the character
structures of the group's members. The full range of social-emo-
tional confoundings will have to be brought to the surface and
worked with. There will be occasions to deal with anxiety and
anger as well as with guilt and self-hatred — anxiety and anger
caused by the opposition or due to the presence of oppressive
tendencies or merely differences of a strong nature within the
ingroup. By this reading of what is necessary for the ingroup to be
a transformative influence, it is not the case that the ingroup by it-
self is peaceful and placid while encounters with the opposition are
stormy and unsettling. If the ingroup is merely comforting or sim-
ply quiets social-emotional storms, it acts to further the delusion of
Intense Social Emotions are Key 103

fusion rather than transform it. Only when the group is able to
provide for the working through of the social-emotional experi-
ences associated with the undoing of faulty confluences is it also
able to prepare its members to act in politically productive ways
when encountering persons and organizations not of the group.
All the lessons that can be critically important to basic change in
the struggles of oppressors and oppressed can be learned within
the peer group. Tendencies to divide anxiety unevenly and to cre-
ate contrast between helpless rage and controlled or projected
rage; guilt and self-hatred from faulty introjections as well as moral
judgments and hatred of others from projected guilt and self-ha-
tred; reliance upon the other for the determination of one's desires
— all these appear within peer groups. Similarly, new awarenesses
I have described as characterizing the outcomes of transformative
encounters between the weak and the strong arise inside peer
groups too, as when helpless rage is made into useful anger, pro-
jected guilt is taken back, responsibility allocated more in line with
reality. The needed lessons can be learned, however, only if the
group is alive and receptive to working with the personal concerns
of its members, if the inner psychological and the interpersonal so-
cial-emotional factors are considered to be important and pertinent
political concerns.
Attention is most profitably given to these issues at times when
they rise to lively importance in the group process. When anxiety
fills the room or anger flashes through the group, when a peer
group member is vividly expressing self-hatred or guiltiness is
clearly present, the group can pause in its work and devote itself to
making sure that the emotion is handled in such a way that no
member weakens himself or herself and no other member becomes
more powerful, things which happen in a group when social emo-
tions aren't being faced and dealt with clearly. One function of
good leadership is to promote such attention and encourage this
kind of psychological work, but anyone in the group who is attuned
to these issues — such as a member who might be influenced by this
essay itself — can take it upon himself or herself to bring the group
to deal with them.
104 Intense Social Emotions are Key

Now, every organizer knows that it is vital in political struggle for


there to be solidarity within the ranks of allies, that divisiveness
makes for vulnerability when dealing with the opposition. How do
I square this need for solidarity in the peer group with the need for
active and lively social-emotional contestations? Does not solidar-
ity depend upon cooperation, congeniality, loyalty? Should not the
group be as free from strife as possible? What political wisdom can
there possibly be in having intense, contentious relationships un-
fold within the group?
The answer to these questions is that support and security in the
group do not mean peace of mind or calm interpersonal relations;
support and security mean bases of trust and care from which the
difficult work of undoing delusion can progress. It takes trust in
others to allow oneself to experiment with ways of being angry with
them, and it takes also the actual expression of the anger for the
trust to be meaningful. When one has, fearfully, tried a new way
with anger, or tried an old way and let it be changed by others, the
solidarity with those against whom the anger was directed can be-
come deeper. To be angrily self-assertive in a nonblaming way
rather than helplessly frustrated and blaming often leads to com-
munion with the other toward whom one's anger has been directed.
Or when one has been self-controlling in anger and enabled by
others who feel confident and self-supportive to let go of the con-
trol, here too new bonding often happens. To explore one's guilt
and not be condemned but find new acceptance and forgiveness
ties one more closely to those who know the truth about one. Co-
operation, congeniality, and loyalty are functions of difference and
its resolution, rather than of the absence of difference.
In political groups that are successful, provision is made for psy-
chological understanding and work on personal issues as prepara-
tion for transformative encounters between oppressors and op-
pressed. The interpersonal factors are foreground, not back-
ground, and not luxuries. Gold Flower's growth depended upon
many discussions with Dark Jade and other women about her
shame and humiliation and her fear of opposing her husband and
Intense Social Emotions are Key 105

father-in-law, and, not to be forgotten, depended upon her loving


care of these men who mistreated her.
Here is another example of such accomplishment from the area
of brutal political repression. Cienfuegos and Monelli describe as a
psychotherapeutic instrument the testimony of individuals tortured
by the Chilean military after the overthrow of Allende:

"People who have undergone a brutal, humiliating, and degrading experience


often find it difficult to speak of the subject. They are afraid to cause pain to
loved ones, and they also fear being devalued for having gone through such
an experience.”

In such cases, these writers note,

"The mere idea of remembering the experience produced fear and anxiety,
but at the same time ‘telling’ was the only possibility for release from painful
and humiliating memories.

"The therapeutic effect of the testimony is mainly linked to the relief of anxi-
ety and depression resulting from the traumatic experience. . . . The testi-
mony acts by restoring affective ties, by orienting aggression in a constructive
manner and by integrating fragmented experiences. . . . The communication
of the painful experience, once considered impossible, is achieved when pa-
tients become aware of the therapist's interest and, consequently, their own
ability to tolerate such horror.”

Cienfuegos and Monelli also refer to former political prisoners


in a nontherapeutic context:

"Those who had the opportunity to talk spontaneously to others about their
pain and torture, later felt comforted by the receptivity and understanding of
fellow prisoners. Later studies have demonstrated that political prisoners
sentenced to long periods of imprisonment left jail in better emotional condi-
tion than those who served shortsentences that left them little opportunity to
share their feelings with others.”

These quotations suggest the political usefulness both of dealing


with intense personal experiences inside the peer group and of in-
dividual working through of one's inner life as it has been affected
by oppression; and Cienfuegos and Monelli illustrate how psy-
chotherapy may help in the latter process.
106 Intense Social Emotions are Key

In thinking on the relevance of psychotherapy to political orga-


nizing, I am mindful of programs that have been developing in re-
cent years in industry, employee assistance programs in which
counseling for troubled members of the organization enables them
to continue to work and contribute to the organization, and I want
to elaborate on my statement in Chapter 7 in favor of psychothera-
peutic services for social activists. I want to suggest that every po-
litical grouping which engages in serious social struggle should have
its own therapeutic teams. These specialists would be available for
crises, as they have been for soldiers in wartime in the prevention
and treatment of war neuroses. They would be on hand for en-
abling grief to be worked through. People can sometimes handle
grief and other personal problems by themselves, but if they can't,
they should have this help available to them. Specialists who pro-
vide such assistance could pick up whatever fallout occurred from
intense interpersonal encounters within the peer group that failed
to carry to completion the issues that had been raised.
But therapy for individuals under the auspices of the political
group need not be directed only at transitory or situational up-
heavals. It can also usefully be made available for the personal
growth and development of members who have been primed for
significant change by successful transformative encounters in the
ingroup. The most complete slowing down of the quick-circuiting
processes associated with the delusion of fusion can take place in a
psychotherapuetic context. Here the sorting out of own needs and
introjected or projected needs can occur with the greatest safety
and support. Here the ego functions of introjection, retroflection,
projection, and demand for confluence can be studied and made
awares as processes. Here the subtleties of anger and anxiety can
be seen most keenly.
The focus of such therapy would be guided by its larger purpose
of enabling individuals to participate more and more successfully in
transforming oppressive social relations. It would help them work
through their inner lives and interpersonal relations, especially as
affected by previous participation in collective life around condi-
Intense Social Emotions are Key 107

tions of oppression and as relevant to future engagements around


these matters.
Given my belief that effective political action involves intense
personal experiences, I consider it only responsible to develop
therapeutic services that are readily available to activists and that
are positives in the eyes of their organizations — services that can
be valued and used without shame, and that will be for growth as
well as management of trauma, yet modest in their promises and
secondary to political purpose.
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emma

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pn nt Bea Dey lomeas of member who } +
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a

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Chapter 10

The Quick-Circuiting Process and


the Delusion of Fusion

I have been saying that a quick-circuiting process existswhen the


delusion of fusion is in place and characterizes|the interpersonal
social-emotional act
activityOf ah individual. This means that the per-
son experiences rapidly and in furn spontaneity, anxiety, anger,
guilt and
self-hatred (or their projected versions), and then settles
into trying to merge her or}his own desires with those of the other’
or others in the relationship. The delusion can be corrected if the
quick-circuiting-is-slowed_ down so that the personfirst. ‘becomes
aware of each social emotion and then learns to Xpress s|itmore
productively orgive itup for a a lin
livelier emotion. In this process, af-
ter the person has basically worked free of efforts to merge desires
with the other, guilt andself-hatred become focal; when guiltand
self-hatred are
are experienced directly, fully, and not too rapidly, then
self-
f-forgiveness becomes possible and the retroflection, or turning
back upon the self, of anger can be dispensed with; when projected
ee Se

guilt and self-hatred in the_ form of blame and contempt for the
weak are reowned and re- xperienced as Own guilt and self-hatred,
also fully and slowly, then again self-forgiveness ismade possible; if
anger-can-be-known_and held inpersonal experience long enough,
then better deployment of it in social relations where it is pertinent
can be realized; if persons can
can a
accept their anxiety and stay with it
. on the way to preparing themselves fordanger, then ‘they t are
are also
onthe€ pathway tto transforming theiranxietyback into the excite-
ment of spontaneous encounters.
110 Quick-Circuiting Process and Delusion of Fusion

Reacquaintance with social emotions and alternative use of


them necessitates that the quick-circuiting process be slowed down
considerably. Oppressed and oppressors alike can be said to live
too-hurried_an existence, while they are-actually engaged in main-
taining the status quo. This is another paradox: hurrying, scurrying,
rushing ... to
maintain what is.
The process of quick-circuiting the social emotions can be modi-
fied in a group
through two different approaches. The first focuses
awareness On the process itself and its speediness. People who are
confluent in oppressive social relations are helped, by the leader or
another member who is attunedto social-emotional processes, to
become aware of the miniscule moments_of-anxiety, anger, and
guilt and self-hatred that regularly follow the unexpected sponta-
neous impulses that arise in them and threaten to-enter-their be-
havior. Simply by pointing to successive signs of emotions, the
leader or other knowledgeable person can lead persons to recog-
nizetheir flickers of anxiety, the ever-available touches of rage that
rise up and_are squashed, those flashes of guilt that course through
their lightly known consciousness. This makes awares the quick-
circuiting process itself. Then attention to howrapidly
thepersons
experience theseMany Blan how speedy and
a unlived their lives

ae Pied em

them to become-interested-in their own processes — a vital step in


recovery from oppression.
The second approach to slowing down quick-circuiting, and un-
doing thedelusion of fusion, is to make awares in its own right each
of the phasesof the whole social-emotional experience that culmi-
nates in the delusion, beginning with the final phase, in which per-
sons are confounded as to whether the desires that activate their
behavior are their own or amixture of own and other's, and work-
ing backwards step by step toward spontaneity. If we can enable
individuals to know and to own the depth of their identifications
with the aggressor and theirprojections upon a primed vulnerable
other without their feeling Le ae that they will
be alive to their guilt and
self-hatred; and if we can find means to
ee aaa ri Se ee ee
=
——
Quick-Circuiting Process and Delusion of Fusion 111

fester awareness of guilt and self-hatred


along with forgiveness and
commitment to change, we can anticipate that these persons will
again become angry; and so on back through anxiety to natural
spontaneity.
Since all/groups are heterogenous, we can expect _that_in_any
group seekining to go through this process together, some members
will be involved in working through one social-emotional phase
while others are working through another. For instance, some will
be ready to see the confounding of own and others’ desires and
available for dealing with their projections of guilt and self-hatred,
some will for a long time need to sort_out what_they want and how
what they thought they wanted was burdened_by
their accommo-
dating to others' demands, some will-be-exploring-new-ways_ to use
their
eir anger inconfrontations with their allies and with their oppo- _
nents in the oppressive situation. It is no simple-matter, therefore,
for a eas to-undo the_ delusion of fusion by.working fromthe fi-
nal phase back to spontaneity in social relations.
(ne key to Beene the whole ‘process-work is|to continue toat-

viduals' own osnes are confounded with introjected_ andLame


desires; then they can focus upon confusing guilt and self-hatred
while continuing to acknowledge tendencies to merge desires; then
they can turn their corrective attention to new experiences and
uses-of anger while still working with _introjected_and_projected
standards causing confusing guilt and self-hatred and with the ten-
dency to compound and confound what individuals identify as their
needs and desires. By always devoting some time to the deeper
phases, even when mostmembersofgroup the |have moved away
rom the fusion ofdesires a
and the introjections and projections as-
sociated with guilt and self-hatred, the group assists those still
struggling withthese issues and fortifies against_regression_into’a
fused condition those who have moved on toward becoming
agents.In 1this work each of the phases is still attended to as a
discrete phase, which in ‘itself is-a-means for slowing the-quick-
-eircuiting tendency.
112 Quick-Circuiting Process and Delusion of Fusion

In the chapters that follow, I expand on the theme of undoing


the delusion of fusion. I take up in TEVErse |order the stagesof the

distortions
ons of functioning that are found in them. First, Patten to
the full delusion-of fusion_in which oppressed and Oppressor.con-
fuse themselves. about-whose.desires are being tended to. Then I
turn to problems withidentification. Next, I have suggestions for
working with faulty projecting activities. After that, there is mate-
rial on ‘being aangry— how to transform ineffective angry ways into
effective ones. Then, before concluding this work, I take up anxi-
ety and making it useful,
Chapter 11

Working with the Full Delusion


of Fusion

Oppression is maintained when the wea the


strong in social
relationships obscure their own ego boundaries and fuse with each
other, or enter into unhealthy confluence. Playing either tyranni-
cal or submissive roles, persons avoid defining clearly_for_them-
selves and for others what they need and-want, especially as their
wants might differences-with-others.
cause They steer shy of clear
definitions because the appearance ofdifferences would mean that
they would have to take-responsibility for their_actions, stand be-
hind them, be vividly
self-assertive, risk isolation.
Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman describe the situation of-un-
healthy confluence this way:

"Persons who live in unhealthy confluence with-one-another.do-not have per-


sonal sonnet TE, OFcoUne, B a common blight marriages
of andlong
friendships. The parties
to such confluence cannot conceive of
any but the
Bias see iner-citerence otoptsion.ce attitude Ifa discrepancy iin their

uine ap teneniercecagiccbg idisagree. No, they must either restore the


disturbed_confluence by whatever means they can orelse_flee-into isolation.
The lattermay/emphasize sulking, withdrawing, being offended, or-in-other
ways putting thebrunt upon the other to.make up; or, despairing of restoring
the confluence, it may take the form of hostility, flagrant-disregard, -forget-
ting, or other ways of disposing of the
th other
asan
object of concern.

"To restore interrupted confluence one attempts to_adjust-oneself-to the


other_or the other to_oneself. In the first-case one-becomes-a-yes-man, tries to
make up, frets about small differences,needs-proof_of total-acceptance; one
effaces_his own individuality,
propitiates,and-becomes
slavish. In the other
114 Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion

case where one cannot stand contradiction, one persuades, bribes, compels
or bullies. ACS Se ee«esUe

"When persons are in-contact;-not-in-confluence, they not-only_respect their


own and other's-opinions,tastes,-and_responsibilities, but actively welcome
the animation and excitement
that come with the airing
disagreements.”
of

We do not usually think of marriages and long friendships as


being oppressive relationships, yet unhealthy confluence appears in
them, and when it does it makes them similar in tone to the rela-
tionships we call oppressive. The difference is that spouses and
friends are more-able-to-change-than people in these other rela-
“tionships when resentment of unhealthy confluence becomes pro-
nounced.
The cure for oppression in a peer group bedeviled by unhealthy
confluence can be stated with surprising-simplicity: the cure—is
democracy in social relations. The democracyI have in mind more
than permits group members toexpress their wants in the manner
of one person,
one vote, however; I am coming out for democratic
social practices that are guided by sophisticated psychological under-
standings and that encourage group members to explore their-own
wants and to discover what these are. It is not enough that each
member have the right to enter her or his own desires into the gov-
erning deliberations and resolutions of the group, because that as-
sumes that each individual knows well what those desires are.
|Keown clearly one's own desires isprecisely what is missing in
‘| unhealthy confluence, thatis,under thesway
ofthe delusionof fu-
sion. Thus, democratic social relations which will undo the tenden-
cies to the delusion of fusion that maintain oppression will be social
and discovery of individual
relations that promote the examination
desires, the
searching
and studying by each member into what are
true desires and what are introjected and projected desires, wants
that are untrue to self. er -
I want to say this another way. Democracy that can correct ten-
dencies to the delusion of fusion depends upon-creative endeavor,
creative not onlyin the special ways that different persons with dif-
ferent desires influence each other but also creative in the process
Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion 115

by which members of the democracy are facilitated in becoming


themselves through self-discovery as well as self-assertion.
A concept from the clinical literature concerning parenting of
young childrenis pertinent to this formulation of democracy. It is
an idea articulated most clearly by D. W. Winnicott when he talks
of the mother
as a "holding environment" for the child. As Winni-
cott explains, a mother with her infant is a holding environment be-
cause the infant is importantly merged with its mother and in the
process of building
on its nature while separating intoa distinct
human being. The mother is a source of consistent provision from
the environment, not a magical scsource, not one that knows too well
the infant's needs and ‘provides2sfor them, but an empathic source,
one that is responsive to signals and indications from|the‘infant.
The limitations of the mother are as important as her powers, since
from the limitations comes the necessity for the infant to articulate
its own needs and fromm her powers comes the provision | for satis-
faction of those needs. The mother as holding environment
"contains" the infant while it is becoming aware of itself and its
needs-and-capacities, enabling the infant to become a separate
other peers then the mother acts to foster gratification of the in-
fant's needs.”
A democracy functioning as_a Poking §
environment is a group

eet tae ince Socila wgrouptthatfinds the> means


n
to satisfy these. Its members tend to merge with one another both
in_healthy confluence, when a group goal has been reached and
members are finding their individual satisfactions through the
group goal, and ii unheaX Confluence when members blur their

bility. The ue Sate PeeTee them, ‘and


offers satisfactions to them as they define themselves in their sepa-
rateness_and uniqueness, and ithelps them to-overcome unhealthy
confluence by supporting them in expressing themselves authenti-
cally. Such a democracy encourages thedialectic of union and di-
versity,_building unity-from~diversity and_ also building diversity
from the communion that is attained.
116 Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion

Cheryl Hyde has stressed the importance of such a supportive


environment. for women activists engaged in community
organizing:

"Knowing that others-care-often-comforts an-individual when confronted with


derogatory comments, hecklers, etc. Fears and-concerns can be addressed
within a supportive environment... .

"Women stressed that a_'safe' environment was_essential to t developing [the]


interpersonal sides ofr organizirig..A ssafe environment is_one in which trust,
respect, equality and validation ofan individual's experience takes place.

Donna Warnock, in an interview about organizing the "Women's


Pentagon Action,” similarly referred to the need for "providing a
safeplace for
women
SEMESTER emotions” and

"So I said "Look, why don't we just figure out how we feel about all these dif-
ferent issues that we want to address, and then try to group these feelings to-
gether and move through them and within each one deal with the issues that
are appropriate to these feelings. I know some of the emotions that come up
for me are grief, anger and power.' That really got us rolling. As soon as we
decided that we were going to develop the thing emotionally we realized how
significant that was and that this way-each individual-could
find her niche.”

In discussing efforts to ameliorate the nasty "post-traumatic


stress disorders” that have plagued veterans of the Vietnam War,
Donald R. -Catherall has described a similar—kind of holding
environment:

"Dealing with the effects of trauma is largely asocial_process and occurs in


the natural
pyres taleile peoplelive.... The groups constitute a so-
cial| context that can provide a sense ofof community fofor thesurvivor-~A facili-
tative
tative social context contains two elements: 1) a consistent ntsystem of value
values
and
and beliefs in which the survivorcan move through aprocess ofself-examina-
tion; and 2)a Sufficiently stsupportive aaffective environment such that
at the Ls
vivor can infeel safe engaging in the process of self-examination and grieving."

A second contribution from clinical work that is important to a


democratic group interested in undoing the delusion of fusion is
Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion 117

understanding of the crucial importance of attending toprocess in


group interactions. As Irving
D. Yalonrhas said:
"Process focus isnot aeone ofpe possible procedural Orientations; on

interactional groups. Onesso often heart wordsFto the. following effect: ‘No
matter what else may be said about experiential groups....one cannot deny
that they are potent— that they offer_a_co
experience
mpell foring
partici-
pants.' The process focus is the power cell of these groups; it is precisely
because they encourage process exploration that they are potent experiences.

"Process commentary undermines arbitrary authority structure. Industrial


organizational development consultants have long known that if a_social
structure openly investigates its own structureand process, power equaliza-
tion_takes_place. Highpower individuals are not only more technically in-
formed but also possess organizational information which permits them to
influence and manipulate. They not only have skills which allowed them to
obtain a position of power but, once there,havé sich a central | place in the
flow of information that they are able to reinforce their position.”

Most helpful for correetion-of


the the-delusion offusion, then, is.
for people to find themselves in a holding environment that per-
mits attention to internal states and to interpersonal
. processes.
This ismost easily accomplished in a therapy context, in which the
therapist isa very personal holding environment for the client. It is
next most easily carried out in peer groupss of political and social
actors, since central to the groups’ functioning is their commitment
to serving the needs of their members. It is with the most difficulty
carried out in the context of active opposition between Oppressors
and-oppressed, since in this context process commentary is -espe-
ciallyhard
Set to amen eet eg cee who must be in con-

the oppressed, who-are-


sellin cna ckd umiuled ty the strong
who dominate-them. Groups can develop ways to make their mem-
s bet ble to suppor r in their difficult hours of
confrontation with the other side. Generally, however, a full
holding environment has to be developed-away from-active _Opposi-
tion.
118 Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion

Gayernments are meant to be holding environments. Govern-


ments are community systems intended to hold people and to pro-
vide settings, such in which theycan unfold in their indi-
viduality as well _as_accomplishtasks-that-take_many_to_aclachieve.
That modern governments
do not fulfill this obligation well is
merely a reflection of the fact that they are not very democratic.
Within. thefuller holding environments that people do manage
to create, the practices that will counteract the delusion of fusion
centerupon a certain kind of inner experience. Writing specifically
about the patient in psychotherapy, Hellmuth Kaiser has described
it clearly and succinctly:

"Fhree_mental-activities — very ordinary activities, indeed — seem especially


conducive to producing this fateful inner experience: first, and perhaps fore-
most, . . . Making a decision; second, . . . reaching-a-convictionby thinking;
and, third, . . . wanting something. At least it looks as though whenever one
of these mental functions is about to appear in sharp focus within the pa-
tient's attention, whenever the patient comes close to having it driven home
to him that it is he himself who is going to make a decision; or that the convic-
tion in his mind is really his, originated by his own thinking; or that it is he,
and he alone, who is wanting something,ee
a oer tenet
larology rolls

the pieture.

"Of course, what is necessary to make the inner experience of deciding,

| decisionPETE a routine decision expected and ‘approved by thepatient's envi-


ronment; the conviction reached by the patient's thinking is not supported by
authority;.or, in the case of ‘wanting,’ what.he wants must be something-he is
not>tsupposed or not expectedtowant.”

These, of course, are exactly conditions


that a_group fighting orga-
nized Oppression
¢ comes up against.
Erving and Miriam Polster have direct suggestions for working
with unhealthy confluence which can be used when individuals are
making decisions, reaching their own convictions by thinking, or
discovering and expressing what they want:

"The antidotes to [unhealthy] confluence are contact noi neate e and ar-
Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion 119

ple. He myst learn that he can face the terror separation


of from these peo-
ple and still remainative- ——

"Questions like, "What do you feel now?' you-want_now?'


"What do or What
are you doing now?" can help him focus onown-directions.
his Dealing with
the sensations which result-from these-questions prevents him from buying in
on a standard dream package which may or may not suit his needs. Stating”
his expectations aloud, first to his therapist, perhaps, and finally
to the person
from whom these satisfactions
are demanded, can_be the first stepsinsorting
Out covert attempts at confluent relationships.

"By attending to one's own needs and articulating them, one can discover
what his personal, unique directions may be, and he can get what he wants.
He does not haveto strike a bargain
with some appeased power; he becomes
an independent agent, in touch with where hgwants to go and how he might
go about getting there under his own steam.

My final suggestion for working to counter the delusion of fusion


comes also from Kaiser, whose whole theory neurosis of is drawn
around the i this delusion. He learned through his painstak-
ing observation and speculation that open communication was the
key element in the struggle against the delusion. On the one hand,
starved communication was the basis of the delusion of fusion; on
the other hand, the delusion of fusion acted to keep communica-
tion at a minimum. The problem militated against its solution. This
was the "vicious circle” that was the foundation of neurosis, he said.
In turn, the essence of psychotherapy (and thus of a democratic
group that facilitates the undoing of unhealthy confluence.) is to
engage inrelationships that are different from many relationships
inthe following way:
"The crucial condition which makes all the difference
between psychotherapy
which helps, and alleged psychotherapy which doesn't, is that the therapist
does not withdraw psychologically.

The failure of political


and social groups that have been trying to
introduce democracy into social institutions is that the members

tense struggles that e them. They have withdrawn


and so lost
open
ta
eeecommunication, partly because of social conditions that are
~
120 Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion

are the PaaS ana i deep dela OrHee anger,


guilt, self-hatred, resentment, contempt for others, and the like.
These feelings have led to,and been somewhat | suppressed by, the
delusion of fusion.
Persons under the delusion-of fusion hold on to it tenaciously in
efforts to avoid these-painful feelings. And then, after this stage, it
isno easy matter to stay with others even in a benevolent holding
environment while trying tofaceupto, and win freedom from, such
feelings. But it isvital to-de so, if one's groupisto-win-its struggles.
When a group successful
is in undoing the deepest level of the
delusion of fusion (the fullest identifications with the aggressor and
oefullest projections upon : gts vulnerable other), the reward

eat_Some_ reward! And beyond the revivalof guilt and self-hatred


lie a
anger
er and aanxiety. No wonder that, knowing this intuitively,
persons Cling tothe unhealthy ties of fusion.
But a new elementcan helpfully enter our understanding at this
point, and it will also need to enter our practice. There are regres-
sive and progressive forms of the appearance of guilt_and self-ha-_
tred. When rage is being turned back upon the self, the appear-
ance of guilt and self-hatred
is aregression; it represents a deep-
ening of the process by which the delusion
of fusion is created, a
move from person as agent toward person as agency. When a per-
son is recognizing and_affirming-his-or her ownneeds and undoing
unhealthy confluence, however, the appearance_of guilt and self-
hatred marks a reversal of the quick:circuiting process and a pro-
gressive move toward the person's acting as agent on her or his own
behalf. When the person can be shown that experiencing guilt is
an achievement worthy of praise and encouragement because the
\ Person has been avoiding responsibility for his or her own behavior
\and is now acknowledging this, the conditions are present for the
\it nwa that is so essential to mature functioning. Regret
and that forgiveness become-healing ingredients iin the growth pro-
cess.
Chapter 12

Noticing and Changing Faulty


Identifications

When people come together in groups and act with common


purpose, they are guided by their identifi cations with one another
or with the goal rsuing coll c-
tioning depends upon Say An Bayt coats within the
group. After all, at its core, identification-as-a psychological expe-
rience-exists-when an
some-common
individual shares quatity with
another-person. That common quality may be a personal attribute
— a way of walking, a manner of speech, a manner of dress, an in-
tention or purpose, a value system — or it may |besocial
a charac-
teristic such as allegiance to a group, felt ethnici
identity,
or submis-
sion to a particular authority. Thorstein Veblen! importantly
relied on the concept of ¢mulation — to copy or imitate with the
purpose of equaling — in his social theory, thus setting identifica-
tion as critical
establishment
to the of social-classes and theClass
system and, ultimately, to the whole makeup of society. Much of
Freud's social theory” also_is grounded in identification and its
various forms. To be like another, to share commonalities with
another, to have another as an ideal to be admired and copied — all
speak to the notion of identification.
In groups, the pattern of all the identifications present is so rich
that in order to notice an identifications with the ag-
gressor r, we need to make acareful -distinetion- between these faulty
identifications and healthy ones. What must we look forin making
this distinction?
122 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

To my way of understanding, there are two major differences be-


tween healthy identifications and these others — one an internal
factor, something
that goes on in the inner psychic life of the indi-
vidual, the other an element of social relationship. I have been
stating that identification with the aggressor_is.an internalization of
domination such that-a- person becomes self-dominating — replaces
his or her own values with those of the aggressor and tries always to
allow
allow only those needs into action which areacceptable to the ag-
gressor. This is a self-conquest ai aimed atavoiding the other. The
conflict
mnflictbetween
between persons isobscured bybecoming aconflictwithin a
te person.
srson. In
In that internal conflict, part of the person is lost or sacri-
ficed.
ced. Insofarasthe identification withthe agereswoe sapere the
aggressor's demands or wishes or values for those of the identifier,
it eliminates or holds down the identifier's own demands, wishes, or
values.
Healthy identificati the_opposite direction. In-
stead of regulating one's.esa ondalaterace SP is
required from_the-outside, instead of being in the shadow of the
other, in a healthy identification process one articulates one's own
needs independently or with others acting as a holding environ-
ment, and subsequently ¢discovers commonalities with others. The
social relation
n is
is aacooperative connection ‘among individuals acting
as_agents, each with needs and values which are openly revealed
and entered intoa negotiating process. Self-regulation_involves
specifying one's desires and values, organizing one's diverse needs,
and paying attention to others in the situation.
Internally, then, identifications-with_the_aggressor lead to self-
conquest, while healthy identifications lead_to-self-articulation and
self-discovery-or--invention. In the interactive sphere, the. faulty-
identifications serveas defenses against relationship which threat-
ens tobecome intolerably full ofconflict;
their aim is to create dis-
tance, a kind of psychological breathing room. Paradoxically, what
actual ope GeaTasyorr andthetoss-of_access
to oneself. In a
group, identification
with the_aggressor arises when rage among
group-members_is_so_great that they feel likely to
to destroy each
other; the identification takes hold when both the weak and the
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 123

strong individuals are constrained to remain in therelationship de-


spite these murderous impulses. The weak adopt identification
with the aggressor so that they minimize the depth of personal con-
tact between themselves and_the aggressive. strong. people in the
group when some form of contact is inevitable. The weak believe
that if they take on themselves the standards and values of the
strong, if they reshape themselves in the image of the strong, they
need not then be intimately controlled by the strong; they will have
distanced themselves, they believe deep down, from active social
domination. But they actually will have internalized that domina-
tion.
Healthy identifications, in contrast, Reape ne
with ot without ants to obscure
their
separateness
essential and differences. In healthy identifica.
tions, the individuals in a group expressthe needs and-interests that
guide their behavior, and when there isoverlap
an of needs and in-
terests, or eesn _a common goal can be
be seen
seen |to serve different
interests, the identify with one another ypera-
tors. TheSree ea eeay binge thietnietaberstlosex to-
gether, lessens the psychological distance between them, and, even
when they have very different desires, the possibility of satisfying
hrou
effort_prom
themselves-t and_contact
cohesion oint
otesgh_j
among the group members. ax G
The following example portrays an ambiguity below which can
be either identification with the aggressor or a healthy identifi
identifica-
tion. A.meeting was held inwhich health care activists were
wetrying
to educate union rank and file about issues of occupational safety.
In good democratic fashion, after an introduction addressed to the
whole assembly, small groups were formed so that the union mem-
bers would be actively involved in talking about their unique situa-
tions. Members met in clusters in corners and other niches in the
meeting hall and formed their own circles.
In one of these small group discussions, it was not long before
one union member, a small, balding, middle-aged man, began
forcefully stating the arguments for the safety of working with
formaldehyde that had been made earlier by management people
124 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

when they had been confronted on the issue by the union. It


seemed clear to observers that the man was accepting these argu-
ments that had originated in management, and he was putting them
forward as sound and appropriate positions. Here is the identifica-
tion: a union man at a union meeting identifies himself with a man-
agement point of view.
What was ambiguous to other members of his circle, what would
determine whether the identification was faultyorhealthy, was
whether he hadrecahed hitsectniauce otwianaeenients position
regarding a potentially dangerous chemical by his own critical study
of the matter or was somehow automatically identifying with man-
agement. Had he systematically and autonomously evaluated the
facts, or was he primarily responsive to the authority of manage-
ment and taking on faith its view as descriptive of the facts? If he
had SONGS BIT keeeeee of what management
had given out, he was showing a healthy identification, a matching
of his opinion, formed when he functioned as an agent, with the
perspective of managers construable as thoughtful others. If he
had merelytaken in whole, swallowed without chewing, almost as a
reflex, the orientation o “anagement, then Heswas displaying an
identification with the aggressor. —_——
It was not considered relevant at that meeting to pursue psy-
chological functioning, so we observers in his cluster were unable
to determine whether this union member manifested a faulty or
healthy identification. Time was not allotted for such thoughtful
attention, and being psychological in one's concern was not an ac-
ceptable way of being in the group. As a corollary, the immediate
rejections by some others in the discussion group of what manage-
ment had offered to resolve the issue could not be checked out as
to whether they were faulty projections or healthy, accurate read-
ings of reality.
Suppose that the cluster had taken up and analyzed the identifi-
cation patterns of the man who was putting forth management's
position on formaldehyde and had discovered that he had identi-
fied with the aggressor. In the process he would have been encour-
aged to relate the method by which he developed his position,
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 125

where he had gotten his facts, how he had worked withthem, and
soon. Suppose that he was clearly sincere but_had little of hisown
to say about the issue, that he had_obviously swallowed manage-
ment's views whole, and, further, that ashetalked itslipped out by
the way that he feared he b if he opposed
management. Then some of the group might have discussed his re-
action to the situation with him openly and straightforwardly but
without hostility. But I would bet that some would have criticized
the manwith-elear contempt ordisgust. They would have feltthata
company man, a fink, was in their midst, and they would have con-
demned him roundly.
Such condemnation would be ac-
knowledging psychological i i i tion, and it woulde
probably also be a projection upon a prime ble othe
of us in the meeting possessed some hidden tendencies to identity»
with
aggressor,
the and could have usedpromanagement
the promanagement
m man's
behavior todivest ourselves ofresponsibility for those tendencies 0
ae
by condemning him. The display of disgust or contempt — strong
emotions indeed — rather than compassion for a frightened man
would have been the giveaway of group_members who took-this
route. In the futu nsive
rather than open, as well, for the interesting reason that they, hav-
ing tendencies to identify with the aggressor like all the rest, would;
feel condemned in the very act of condemning their colleague. I
cannot stress enough the importance of ac Besiegectie \
striving to undo the ifications, projections, and so on py
that afflict their behavior. The general principle of psychotherapy
that one accepts the person while helping to sort out the healthy
ee ee cate Sina bebing metre
cast off the neurotic ways, is.vital applying-clinical
in insights to so-
cial action.
After itis established in a group that an identification with the
ee RPL a
that identification and the process of introjecting that invariably
goesWithi-ean-begin. Afiststep
p in
in this
thieffortIs
i to bring”the
faulty identification int
into the
person'sand the ace ages 'saware-
Ti
126 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

ness, to notice it and make it conscious. Here are some signs that
point to problematic identifications:
- Frequent speedy agreement
- Lackofcriticism ingroup activity
- Frequent use of "I should"
- Behavior without conviction or appetite for it
- Compliance without interest orenthusiasm
Speedy agreement with a proposal put forward by someone else
can be appropriate if the proposal clearly will help satisfy an inter-
est or goal that the person who agrees has already formed and per-
haps has been independently pursuing. Usually, however, it takes
time for a person toregister what-is-put_ forward, to-study-how the
proposal may facilitate the satisfaction of some needs and limit the
satisfaction of others, and to judgewhether there is enoughin it to
merit ap l and agreement. Thus speedyagreement, especially
when Seiatiesir ‘been insisted on by theother, will usually
mean_that-consideration_
of these matters has been aborted. And
frequent speedy agreement will almost always mean that the
agreeing person too readily takes on as his or her own that which is
decided by the other — an identification with the aggressor with
plenty of introjection.
It is an old story in the struggles between those who are commit-
ted to preserving the status quo and those who foster change that
the conservative side argues for efficiency and decisiveness while
the |progressive side ¢callsfor democracy even if it is to be time-con-
suming. Similarly, it is an old story within change-oriented groups
that there are some who are in a hurry and others who are patient,
and the ane Garg eae NCS ‘wishfor quick
agreement with few questions asked and much obedience demon-
strated,asign of faulty identification, versus those who wish for the
change to be accomplished in the slow, painstaking, thorough ac-
tivity which involves all the members in learning what they want
and in saying that to the collectivity.
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 127

iticism and pro iti self-critical


attitudes and approaches within a group also indicates, as well as
stimulates, problematic-identification. Criticism_is
the hallmark of
difference, challenge, and_ negotiation, all of which are basic to
healthy—identification. Criticism in the group assures that indi-
sienlessaill i i lv he hei :
avoid their responsibility tobethemselves while the group is doing
its business. When ikel that at least some
members are doing these_thing
———_
hat persons are
taken seriously and are deemed worthy of comment and observa-
tion, are valued and needed by their peers. In a group seeking
social
criticism-is-especially
change, important to the sorting out of
what are true needs and what_are needs taken up-in-identifications
with an aggressor.
There is also, however, hypercriticism — that criticism which
comes quickly as a reflex response to assertive behavior in others,
which.does not allow ideas and emotions to percolate before judg-
ment is made, which often is a put-down or indicates rejection of
others, which can reflect a gen o depreciate. Hyper-
criticism is hardly a sign of healthy identification. On the contrary,
this ready and rapid negativism is regularly_a defense against identi-
fication, a refusal to hold in awareness for thoughtful examination
another person's idea or suggestion lest one be tempted to agree
with it and to that extent at least identify with whoever has put it
forth. Paradoxically, rapid criticism of this kind is much like the
firmly closed mouth of a small child someone is trying to feed — a
refusal to taste. ;
Interrupting a speaker, whether in a meeting, a discussion group,
or informal conversation, is a form
hypercriticism.
of Not-allowing
a person to finish herthought (it happens more to women than to
men) is like disagreeing rapidly without open confrontation.
Both being hypercritical and interrupting can also-_be-defenses
against
introjection: not letting something intoone's psyche be-
cause one might swallow it-whole-and-would notknow -how‘to di-
gest itor get it out. In this connection, making sure that individuals
are permitted to present their own ideas fully, without interruption,
128 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

is a method for preventing introjections. If people are expressing


fully what they have to say, they-generally-wil-net-push their audi-
ence_to_introject-what-they-say. On the other side, their audience,
freed of the push, will get more to think about and will move to-
ward thinking about the presentation, testing it, discriminating
among its contents, and move away from swallowing or rejecting it
whole.
Social attentio Squency of interruption in a group is a
useful
setul_ device.
Gey I know a couple who decided to watch closely how
they treated each other when they were in company as well as
when they were alone. They agreed to announce regularly for a
period of time every instance in which one of them felt interrupted
by the other. They also committed themselves to each asking if the
other was finished before they began to speak when there was any
question about the matter. It was not easy for them, nor for those
of us in their presence, but it revealed remarkably how frequently
they interrupted one another, and it led them to increased patience
with, and awareness of, each other. Their practice became infec-
tious so that others who saw them in interactions began to do the
same thing. Awareness
interruption-beeame
of patterns of vivid in-
deed — and nervous-making too.
~Use_of the phrasé_"I should” suggests that-conscience is being
taken into account in the making of behavior. A person who says "I
should" is likely to be asserting, "If I follow the values and standards
that I hold, I shall. ..." A person's frequent use of "I should" re-
sponses in group activity means that she or he keeps values and
standardsin the foreground of experience rather than in the back-
ground where they usually operate. Most of the time in social in-
tercourse we do not drawdirectly upon ourfundamental values to
regulate our relations;; we reserve focus upon |
tthese.values for spe-
cial events.
ever 's which _have_long-term_implications, as when we form
close frie
friendships, marry, or commit ourselves to protracted, dan-
gerous common struggle. When values are in the foreground with
frequency,concern about differences
in values must__be“lurking
about, concern
lest there be even minimal divergence that is unde-
tected. This is precisely the condition
that holds for the weaker
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 129

persons in oppressive relations; they are concerned not to have


values and standards that violate the preferences of the stronger
person or-persons. Frequent _use of "Ishould" by-anyone indicates
that the values guiding behavior aare introjected values. For an op-
pressed person, these introjected values_typically-do_not_accord
with those_the-person would have created if only her or his own
needs and desires had been taken into consideration. The person
is saying that she or he is acting in accommodation to an other
rather than according to own wants, is sacrificing self for other. An
identification with the aggressor is in play. SETS
The distinction between persons who afe moralistic, who are
very judgmental, who Se ee and
wrong,persons-whe-aré-ethical,
good and bad, and who, without
judging others, conduct
themselves with social concern and propri-
ety, is another-distinction-between_persons living by-faulty_identifi-
cations and those living by healthy ones. A man who is prudish
because his parents punished him for his sexual curiosity, that is,
who introjected their reproaches, is likely to be on the lookout for
those adolescents who are finding their sexuality so that he can
judge them and heap reprimands upon them.
Finally, when we see behavior without conviction or appetite for
it or compliance without interest or enthusiasm, w bserving
actionthat
from_the-desires_of
has minimal drive the actor. Ordi-
narily, a person feels rising excitement stemming from desires and
is moved into action_-when something in-the-environment_is soon
after
ter perce
ceived asavailable forgratificationof thedesires; or a per-
son is stimulated by by the i i eeds. are
tapped and the action follows. When the individual is moved by ex-
ternal
ernal forces without _inner-desires'—being—mobilized, we have
identifications_of_a faulty sort and behavior without conviction.
The motivation does not receive the amplification that attachment
to desires would promote. The individual
moves on the energy of
someone else-and not at allonthe-energy ofne needs pressing toward
satisfaction. A group member may start to carry out an un-
interesting task such as stuffing envelopes for a political rally on
the urging of a leader but, without added inspiration, soon become
130 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

listless and distracted, thereby showing compliance without


enthusiasm. In many social groups a few people end up doing most
of the work because others drop out after being asked to do things
that lack intrinsic interest, and these others only comply and live on
the energy of leaders for a short period of time.
These various indications of faulty identifications are_not_diffi- _
cult to observe, but in our social groupings we have not paid much
“attention to the psychological functioning of ourselves and our
compatriots. Making ourselves our—fellow_actors
and aware: of
these identification patterns is part of the process by which we can
begin to undo them. It happens also to.
make-interpersonal rela-
tionships more interesting.
In addition, group leaders and eate a culture that
| discourages actions that e courage identifications with
‘the aggressor. It can be group-norm,
made a for example, tha e-
| havior_appetite—is_to_be-watched_and-even—distrusted.
without
When interactions among members _0 itement,
when individuals seem_to_be going through the motions rather than
investing themselves intensely, when people are lethargic-from fa-
tigue, when boredom sets in, group processes can be fostered that
enable members to nourish each ot es,
tO cease
from goal-directedness and turn to replenishment, to look at what
is happening and find ways to invigorate each other.
Sometimes a simple acknowledgment that there is inascendance
behavior without appetite suffices. For instance, it is often success-
ful in the
classroom, when students are bored or preoccupied and
not attending to what is going on, for the instructor to call for a
break or to stop the instruction and ask where people are. This
calls upon class members to check into themselves, to discover
their needs, and to affirm their individuality in the midst of collec-
tive endeavor. Persons who have lost contact with one another or
with the group as such are brought back into connection. Social-
action meetings can be kept shortenoughtoengage members fully.
Group-dynamics can be regulated, as in the occupational safety il-
lustration,
sO that-large groups break into small groups to engage
all members
a in active
Se participation; lectures
pect: can be replaced by di-
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 131

alogue, sermons given up in favor of Quaker-style_individual par-


ticipation, in which all members are encouraged to speak their
thoughts.
In the forming
identifications,
of no group phenomenon _is_more
important than leadership behavior and style. From the time of
Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,> group
cohesionthrough identification ler,)has been known in
thetechnical literature as an essential component of group life and
collective behavior. The leader who is on the side of promoting
healthy identifications gives voice and presence to what is hap-
pening among members who may not be in communication with
the rest of the membership so that all will becomeaware of all that
is alive in the group and can identify with what meets their own
needs. This leader
conditions_that
also creates foster individuals'
self-expression_and articulation. This leader then does not take
credit for utions, but praises and _amplifies \
an what they
have given to collective life. Similarly, this leader does not disclaim
errors and
subordinates_shoulder
let blame. In short, the leader
who is likely to-promote-healthy-rather than faulty identifications
practices democracy.
The leader-who-does not practice demecracy, but on the con-
trary isself-aggrandizing — for instance, does take credit when it is
due to others — promotes faulty rather than healthy identifications
with himself or herself thechiefamong them being idealization
The “cult of
personality,” with its attribution of godlikeness to the
leader, and the abasement-of self and_of other-group-members in
deference to the glory of the leader are_signs-of idealization. It is
identification gone awry, in that this kind of elevation of leaders
diminishes the responsibility of bers, obscures the contribu-
tions of the many, and suggests lowliness orweakness of the aver-
age participant in the group.
A clue to dealing with such harmful practices lies in E. Y. Har-
burg's ditty
"No matter how high or great the throne,
What sits on it is the same as your Own."
132 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

The way to prevent _or correct idealization is tohumanize the


leader, to reveal him or her to all group“members
nm _not_only in
strengths but in weaknesses, tosl
showfailuresas v
well as successes
and let each membertake fro at w na
fide,attractive,and useful in the member's life. Setting social
norms and practices up so that the leader cannot obscure and the
members cannot avoid-netieing the leader's_timitations is part of
this. When students empowered
are to critically appraise a
teacher's competence without fear of retribution, they are encour-
“aged to
to note how the teacher can improve, and they_usually-find
things that need improvement. While it is valuable for the leader
to be gently glorified with recognition and praise when he or she is
developing group process in a good way, in order that the collective
life of the group be exalted, it is also
necessary that the leader be
treated as a person, not any kind of god, for idealization will ulti-
mately destroy a group.
In the early days of his work, immediately following-the Russian
October revolution, the renowned Soviet—educator Anton
Makarenko illustrated the democratic_leadership-in-his
power_of
work with severely delinquent adolescents — young people who
roamed the streets in bands, acted entirely outside organized soci-
ety, and promised to be trouble to the new society. As he described
events in his The Road to Life: An Epic in Education,’ Makarenko,
making up his treatment plans as he went sie transformed an

he exemplified and
d developed in his colleagues anc
and his charges.
Makarenko es
led eae upon the young people

the ‘surrounding v
villages who
who c
came1etto _ask him to punish hi
hischarges
for their invasions and pillaging, defending his people against the
townsfolk even when they were taken to task for clearly delinquent
acts. When he went to deal with higher-ups, Makarenko took with
him, as observers, selected members of his group of delinquents,
whocould-see-for-themselves-that_he
manipulated, lied;exagger-—
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 133

ated, beseeched,
and otherwise did what-had to be done to obtain
basic necessities for their community in a time of great scarcity.

ures as well his


as successes. He ican
in their games and took his
lumps as well as handed them out; he acted in their plays.
They weren't changing, weren't ‘trusting, weren't letting him help
them. He gave up in exasperation and aa and came close to
committing suicide, only to be piven-c : yy some of the
young men beeen ean totinieMtand Wool mich he bared
for them. After this; he.created s
small groups within the community
in which leadershi tated_among
all members. Each
could have a turn as leader. oe commun ity flowered. —

tioning in the early days of his work is all the more poignant be-
cause he was morenaturally quite autocratic and militaristic, hating
the "progressive education” that-was-dominant-at
the-time-in his
controlling ministry, and because these authoritarian qualities
eventually came to dominate the community. Makarenko insti-
tuted in the community a much more authoritarian leadership style,
and predictably, faulty identifications in the form of idealizations
resulted. He was idealized, the community itself was idealized.
Eventually itwas ruled by the secret police. Yet in_its early days
the com had a leadership that hum -and lifted
up chil-
eee SESeis Sc paid AiligiielyiSubled:
More recently, Steve Burghardt illustrated the democratic _ap-
proach to leadership through the words—of—a—Brooklyn group
worker who told him about what had developed in her social ser-
vice agency after clients we staff created aparents’ group whose
purpose was to fight the osing-of.a neighborhood school:

"You know, this last year fighting to keep the school open has actually been
one of the best in terms of getting closer with clients and clients becoming
more a part of the place. We all set up the parents group together . . . and
together tried to work on strategies for keeping the school open. Since they
were.the ones who could prove the benefits of the program and of the school,
they had to have a real voice in things, and so they were always viewed by
themselves and us, as being as powerful as any of us in what happened. They
also saw us in action and under stress, and saw a lot of nervousness before
134 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

meetings, our own tensions and fears—— there was real equality on that, let
me tell you. .

"Our group and individual


work seems to be growing better . . . people hold
back less. They refer to themselves and their problems, but they are starting
to connect some of theeir_problems |to larger issues, too . . . they seem to be
less uptight about us and what we're doing — they trust us more, I think. The
ieee is a lot more honest, aalot more painful, but they don't seem-to-worry
y. I've been1under a lot more pressure
on my job . . . and yet I love some parts of it more.

I turn now from group processes


that are useful inpreventing or
undoingidentifications with-the_aggressorby members of a group
and attend to guidelines andconcerns when focusis
i upon an indi-
vidual whose experience is seen to be importantly shaped by intro-
jection. Because being with an individual who is under the sway of
introjection can be tricky and undoing or inhibiting the process iis
——s can offer onlysome _basic-themes to be kept in mind.
es e are themes that guideatrained therapist, and I do not ex-
pect group members to "therapize" their comrades; yet the themes
are also clear enough and sufficiently coherent _-have
said about group process that they may be useful to readers of this
essay. Most of the ideas that I will present in the next paragraphs
have been culled from notes taken when listening to the Gestalt
therapi ore Fro.

First, the aim incounteracting aperson's introjecting waysof


shaping experience is to enable the_person_to risk experiencing
~|-what wasinterrupted bymeansofintrojection. Thus, the person
was once excited, striving to meet his or her desires the-envi-
in
ronment, then ran
an into
into conflict
conflict about those
thc | desires, and then in-
trojected the standards of the other_in_the conflict. If the intro-
jecting is now undone, there will be a revival of the excitement,
plus
isanxiety, frustration, and anger, and, it is to be hoped, this time
thé person will
will stay with the experience, exert his or her capacities
mor€ completely,
and achieve an experience
which is quite satisfy-
Se

ing while at the same time he or she is becoming more self as agent.
Second, two distinct aspects of faulty-introjection
can be isolated
and attended to.One of these can be labeled "right now introject-_
ee ee
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 135

ing.” In the ongoing processes of group activity, the individual


can
be seen to be introjecting — taking on an idea, an emotion, a ges-
ture, a Mewpoiny fitout making ithis orher own; complying pre-
maturely; or avoiding choosing, deciding, believing -his-or-her-own
thoughts. The secondaspect
of faulty introjection can be called
"living now the influence of past introjections.” The individual is
acting on the basis of inte t_were originally
someone else's, and now._the person acts-asif they were his or her
own. if the union member adopted management's position on the
safety of formaldehyde because he felt he would threaten his job
were he to oppose management and he felt this way because some
relative long ago told him time and time again that those who com-
plain get fired, then presenting management's views as his own was
a case of living now the influence of past introjections. When a
woman is acting as her mother insisted she should, she also is most
likely living now the influence of past introjections. If I dosome-\|
thing
only-becauseI
should, I'm surely living now the influence.of)
past introjections.
A ‘series of tactics which promote
person's-acting
a as an agent
may counteract right now introjecting. For a start, it is ee
tohave the person experience
in the present doing something tha
seems like introjecting,
not by telling the person "You are intro-
Be gia ee sorter eeratione Just to tell
someone that he or she is introjecting runs into the paradox that
you seem to want the person to stop introjecting by introjecting
your interpretation. This is like antidemocratically demanding that
persons act democratically. A better approach might be an obser-
vation like one ofthefollowing, depen ding on the situation.

- "You seem to agree without being convinced; are you aware


of that?" /

- “You appear to like this idea very much; what don't you like a
about it? Is it hard to dislike it?”

- "Our leader's statement is wise; let's see if we can also know


its limitations."
136 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

- "Let's share what we appreciate and what we don't appreciate


about each other.”

- "Before you agree to do it too quickly, give some thought to


it; are you aware how quickly you were ready to accept this
task?"
- "What would it be like to say no in this group?"

- eS Ee about what is going on?”


In trying to have a person
trojecting, it is wise to take little steps. What is-critical is not what
the outsider can observe,but
utwh
what the person can hear. Learning
to experience oneself as giving over one's role as agent is sensitive
and scary-business which can only take place in a context of respect
and thoughtfulness.
Not to shame is especially important when relating to persons
who habitually introject rapidly, because such individuals are easily
wiped out byhumiliation. This, after all, happened to them in the
past. A parent, a teacher, or other powerful pena whe“knowit
all" demanded introjection — was intolerant of disagreement and
shamed t ne into taking in what he or she was putting
forward. Authoritative behavior that brings about introjections is
often
ften« of ablaming, shaming nature. Persons who rapidly introject
would rather internalize the
conflict than feel the pain of humilia-
as a

tion. Avoidance ofshaming and sensitivity too feelings of


o humilia-
tion have highpriority in overcoming introjection«
and thus oppres-
sion.
When a person is right now introjecting, it is helpful to-encour-
age his or her "no function”:

- "Do men want that?" :


a

resol — atta

- "Is that enough for your needs?"


Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 137

A too ready and unconvincing "Yes" can lead to the next observa-
tion:

- "You seemed to say that without checking itout with your-


self.”

At bottom, this involves not only the observer's taking the.individ-


ualseriously, but the individual's starting to sohatahse his
his or
or her
Own process with interest and res
other theme in attending to sere actions is-discourag-
ing "mer justment,” that adaptation to the environment which
gives power and force to the ext nal and disempowers or dimin-
Sree TeLinrecnel’ Adnatirent-Tor adaptation, is double-sided.
There are demands orattractions
from the environment that must
be answered to, and there are one's own needs and desires that
must be met. Introjection highlights the former and hides the lat-
ter. Countering introjection, consequently,-calls for a balancing
act, a revival of " a puttin eeds, one's
person, one's requirements, one's preferences into-active play in
any relationship with the outside. Someone who is too adjusted to
circumstances needs encouragement to throw in these ingredients
and stir up the pot as a means of undoing introjecting proclivities.
Although such a person is likely to meet the encouragement with
anxiety or annoyance, that will have to be accepted if introjecting
patterns are to be changed.
The aim in dealing with a person who is living now the influence
of past sake
me aware that it is the voice of someone else which he or she
has
taken on, and move the conflict that flourishes within back to a
conflict
with the environment. If conquering oneself with the stan-
dards or beliefs of another has served to alleviate a serious inter-
personal conflict, one fraught with destructive urges, then the_un-
i the self-conquest will revive that conflict. The difference
i time will be tha € person-ean be helped to-manage. the ccon-
flic uctively in relation to le who are in hisor herr present
environment, being angry, assertive; andscared-in-a-way t that does
t lead to helpl tion.
138 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

Living now the influence of past introjections is essentially expe-


riencing as part of oneself that which belongs on the other side, in
the environment. Thus, contacting introjectproceeds some-
what as in the following dialogue:

A: "I shouldn't be aggressive.”

B: "Who told you that?"


A: "Well, I was punished by my father for hitting my sister and at
school for roughneck play at recess.”

B: "Oh, that belongs to your father and teacher: Let's see if it


_belongs to you. 4

The goal
is to ow what they want, what they believe,
who they are now, and to enable them to realize that they haye
more scope and possibility than their "shoulds" permit. They must
peer their eh Sones however, and they.must hhear the

they are ‘a ishthe effect of their introjects upon their cur-


rent way of being.
At a training session for psychotherapists an exercise on revising
introjects was carried out. Trainees paired off and gave each other
lists of "I shoulds” and "I shouldn'ts.” After they had developed a
catalog of their dominant introjects, person B in the pair was, in-
cted to help person A undo an introject— contact it, speak to
i find wave
ys to
te soften
sullenit,
idestractue
destructure it
Ieee
so that anything in it that
had been and continued to be useful could be kept as a standard
while what was not useful could be discarded. The trainees became
engrossed in the exercise and went at it with enthusiasm.
After roles had been reversed and the exercise repeated, so that
each trainee had been helped to undo an introject, the ‘trainees
were asked to describe their experience in the exercise. R.L. said
she was surprised to find that she became angry. This should be no
surprise to the reader, by now, since the act of ntrojection was
to quell rage in the basic progression intoi ion with
the-aggressor-presented_in-this essay. R.L. had, in effect, gone
Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications 139

back to where she was at the time she introjected and had
contacted an emotion she could use now. B.T. said she did not feel
anger, but rather fear. When I asked what she was afraid of, she
said she feared she would be as abusive as her father had been to
her as he molested her when she was a child. Her introject, his
is tion against revealing or otherwise reacting to what_had

ee on was still inhibiting 53 inhe al life. A different


reaction was described by B.R. She fought to hold on to her
Oo le
acknowledging that she
ized
_others'
internal
had commands. KS. said he recognized a
feeling-of-loss and the givi nother who had died and
whom he had carried inside himself during intervening years. The
mourning,
however, seemed incomplete, and K.S. not free of
values not his own but introjected from this important other
person. The latter three_reactions can_ be seen_as holding on to th
Pe ee sees reat icici hetua ne
excitement, frustration, anxiety, and anger itsquelched. They may
also be seen as continuing investment in-introjecting as a way of
containing the present, whether that be avoiding separateness of
self and other (K-S.), holding down assertiveness (B.T.), orormerely
mer
not becoming a discrete, risk-taking, creatively adjusting human
being (B.R.).
In noticing and acting to change problematic introjections,
groups must be alive to all the emotions that accompany_theun-
doing of such introjections including disgust and nausea. It needs
constant reminding that individuals identify with the aggressor
when they feel weak and helplessin can-
not-avoid. Accordingly, when these persons begin to recover from
the darkness of their participatory-submission, theywill re-experi-
ence_their
sometimes-as-simple-helplessness,
weakness, sometimes
a least some dis-
feeling childish, sometimes in despair, always with a
gust and nausea. They will ne ndpersonal
support. If a group makes such support available, the group will
become sophisticated in respect to the undoing of introjections as
it attends to the psychological processes experienced by members.
140 Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

It is my hope that in the course of social-change activities it will


become more-acceptable-for
individuals to openly reveal
the unset-
-tling_and strange sensations that arise with the dislodgment of in-
_trojects, and groups will more and more become knowing,-sup-
portive, and benevolent holding environments. The processes both
of introjecting and of undoing introjections will be of interest to
members as they learn about themselves and their compatriots.
Chapter 13

Discovering and Undoing Projections

In attending to a person who is projecting, it is helpful to keep in


mind that people outside themselves only those experiences
of their own-which r_unprepared to master inter-
nally. If they could maintain and handle the tensions of their rage,
for instance, they would have no cause to disown their rage and to
find it coming upon them from exter igures. Persons are un-
SNE oer eeomne ae Pe unless we per-
al_ happenings as _¢
densome. Reaiubadne thiis makes it easiertoempathize with a
person who is projecting. Projectors often fail to generate such
empathy because they gain power via their projections and they
pope ete Diicis assel containe) ofsell’salistied and not in need
of our compassion.
Sometimes the perception of what is too burdensome is emo-
tionally cheap. In long-established power relations ‘ips, for exam-
ple, where one party is always in command, he or she may have the
psychological capacify_tomanagé_thé internal_social-emotional
convections
of the
relationship, but the primed vulnerable other is
conveniently available and it seems to the commanding one on the
face of it easier to project thangrapple
to with the feelings. In such
instances a_kind of intrapsychic and social laziness prevails. More
often, however,the individual who is in the position within the re-
lationship that permits_or_facilitates projection ispersonally. quite
disturbed—by—thefeelings that are aroused by certain encounters,
and projecting these social emotions can make it seem like the
other is carrying the wei “ht they impose.
142 Discovering and Undoing Projections

In order_to overcome this inability or unwillingness of the person


who is projecting to manage internally the aroused social emotions,
others must enable this person to feel capable and desirous of sup-
porting the emotions. He or she needsto be supported | and helped
to create a sense of self-support so that self-managementt
of anxiety
Or. elplessness will seem possible
and promising, indeed desirable in some way. A person is unlikely
to take back and experience directly as his or her own a feeling
which has been projected onto an other unless theperson has a
sense of inner ene nd strength and social safety. Accordingly,a
asic requirement in-modifying projecting ‘maneuvers is isto increase
the support felt by the projector. This support is needed whether
this person isan oppressor, a troubled memberees fighting
oppression who is, say, trying to feel some power by projecting on
another weak person, or someone-not-_personally_involved at all in
struggle between the strong and the weak.
een do I mean by support? Following Erving and Miriam Pol-
ster,! I definesupport
as any element or collection of elements, in-
ternal or external, that makes for the ability to proceed with a
\sense of integrity through an experience that is novel. That which
preserves-and-encourages-a-person's-felt-integrity ini the presence
of new and thus challenging conditions can be taken as support to
that person. I have said that projection upon a primed_vulnerable
other, in common with identification with the aggressor, isinstalled
——_—__——_ —$—$—$—$—$—

chen is aan the apparently unbearablei d


supported. Reviving in awareness old
situations
in which the social
emotions were indeed
overwhelming from lack of adequate sup-
port in theencounter and1 this time providing the needed bolstering
and assurance that integrity will be preserved
is abasic strategy for
undoing Basle upon primed iter: eat

were eget aitaei oe children and who ee eir own


children, referred to in Chapter 9. As she noted, when they were
small and mistreated, they hated their parents but could not live
Discovering and Undoing Projections 143

<out their hatred; neither could they carry-it-with


them and still go
about_living, so they retroflected it — turned it back 1 em-
selves — and it seemed to disappear, only to return, among other
places, in their projections upon their children when they became
parents. In discussing her work, Fraiberg suggested that with sup-
port from therapists these parents were enabled re-experience.
to
intensely their hatred of thei
eir own abusing parents, along with the \
anxiety and terror involved inbeing abused, and that withthis re-
es ae able to giv n |
their own children and their abuse-declined.” This, it seems 2 me,
is a basic model for undoing projections upon primed vulner
vulnerable
others. =e
Anyone who has tried to overcome prejudice when it is; overtly 7
expressed in relationships will be able feos Misses od
trying to undo this form of projection by reasonable argument. or
objection. A common example is the making of racist or other
prejudiced remarks at family gatherings such as Thanksgiving din-
ners. Many holiday gatherings of families, oddly enough, bring out
projections upon other social groups as a signal of familycohesion;
that is, one or more family members try somehow to base ingroup
loyalty on jokes or directly hostile remarks about a favorite out-
group. These comments may be antiblack, anti-Semitic, anti-
Catholic, anti-Polish, anticommunist, or anti- any other despised
group. Those members of the family who do not have the preju-
dice being aired find themselves uncomfortab use they don't
ant to
want to uupset the family but-also-don't want-tolet-the-negativere
marks go by unanswered. Fewpersons-deal-with
of these their dis-
comfort successfully. Some-simply_hold theirthoughts inside and
feelmiserable, discontented
themselves_and_angry-with-their
with
prejudiced relatives. Though this isfertile ground for undoing
projections, tho sewho speak uptend-to-use-ineffective methods:
they usually speak rationally to the unreasonableness.of racism, for
instance, to its inaccuracy, to its socially harmful effects; or they ex-
-Press_outrage——and-demand_that_family_members-not-make_racist
remarks in their presence; and they—usually-end—up frustrated,
helpless,
and feeling guilty.
144 Discovering and Undoing Projections

Here is an illustration from a twenty-eight-year-old woman who


has been active in the peace and feminist movements:

"My father and-unele-are-raeists and sexists. They have often made provoca-
tive comments about women, for example, such as "Women should learn
their place and stay in the home.’

"[ used to argue-with them, butthat only made them doitmore, anditfrus-
trate d deal. So I have learned to deal with their comments by not
me agreat
reacting when they are provocative. I am_angry with them, but I want to re-
late in a famil with them. Over the-years_th
way y have begun
eyto quiet down
on-these-issues. They know how I feel and what my positions are, and they
are not going to influence me to believe as they do. I think they are becom-
retolerant.
ing a2 bitnmore

"I can do that-in myfamily because I relate to them over time and I want to
be_on decent terms with them, but Ifind it hard to do the same thing with
-strangers—With
them, Tget mad and end-up feeling awful.”

The key to i failures in dealing with the projection inracism,


sexism, judice is the eS eT the_person
projecting. ByA
not
recognizing and attending to thle_anxi
nxiety and
rage and s behin diced b
beh; rt, those who
try to contravene it lack a foundati _influencing the preju- _
diced person. If they p 1 ir-efforts without providing the
necessary-support, they inevitably do find the rage, but they come
upon it in an unhappy way, because now it is directed at them. In
turn they become angry and the interplay of identification with the
aggressor and projection upon a primed vulnerable other moves
onto a new stage, even characterizing the relations within one's
family if that is where the issue of prejudice has arisen. The person
who has tried to fight the prejudice but has failed to do so effec-
tively becomes identified with the aggressor through suppressing
anger and internalizing the social conflict. In the example above,
the young woman, after being frustrated and made angry, stopped
reacting openly when her father and uncle were provocative; she
quieted down and tolerated their racism and sexism. Internally, she
joined these men's aggression against her for challenging these
traits. She aggressed against herself by stopping her angry feeling,
Discovering and Undoing Projections 145

which was a form of identification with them. Thus, in relation to


her father and uncle, she came in a sense to live out the dictum
that "women should learn their place and stay in the home."
At this point the reader may be forgiven for feeling some rage as
well, since my argument suggests that the weak must support the
strong who oppress them if projecting by the strong is to be un-
done. Women who are oppressed by men, blacks who have been
put upon by racist whites, Indians who have been mistreated and
maligned by the majority American culture, children who have
been abused by their parents, poor people who have been de-
graded and hurt over and over by the wealthy, students who have
been mistreated by their teachers — these are all to support those
whom they are opposing? How dare a serious and sincere thinker
suggest such a course of action! What nonsense psychological
thought brings to real social struggles!) Away with such specula-
tions and recommendations!
I ask the reader's forbearance so that the full argument can be
realized. I too was stopped by what seemed to be the logic of my
argument. But I am not about to ask that those who are suffering
the most obviously be called upon now to shoulder even more re-
sponsibility. I would simply be joining in the oppressive endeavors
if that were the upshot of my considerations, and my whole pur-
pose is to labor toward the ending of exploitation and oppression
for all involved in such relationships as I have been describing.
Clearly, those who are the weak in the relationship, those who
have identified with the aggressor, are already supporting the
strong. It is this very support that is the mark of their oppression.
They do the work demanded of them, they protect the batterer
from discovery and community control, they nurture those who
dominate them — is it not remarkable how much nurturance is in-
volved in the life tasks of those who are oppressed? They provide
the physical, material, and spiritual support required by those who
are projecting for the maintenance of their personal welfare. As
Harriet Lerner has said in discussing the relations of men and
women:
146 Discovering and Undoing Projections

"Sure enough, those old dictates to 'play dumb,’ ‘let the man win,'or ‘pretend
he’s boss' — are out of vogue. But their message still remains a guiding rule
that lurks in the unconscious of countless women: 7he weaker sex must pro-
tect the stronger sex from recognizing the strength of the weaker sex lest the
stronger sex feel weakened by the strength of the weaker sex. We learn to act
weaker to pep en feel stronger and to strengthen men by relinquishing our
own strength."

My conclusion is not that the oppressed should take on more


supportive activities; they should rather change the manner of the
support that they render. And they need to find ways to support
and oppose at the same time.
_ The support to be given to the strong is not support of projec-
tions themselves. The weak must not accept strong people's pro-
jections, absorb them through identification, encourage them
through behavior communicating that they, the weak, are not a
threat. Instead, they must — and can — discover the fact that the
strong are projecting
p and both support the strong and oppose the
projecting
ng activity in such a way that it is not needed. What is re-
quired for this is to elicit the experience from which the projecting
comes. As the experience is remembered and elaborated, the con-
ditions for the projection become clear and the possibility of
meeting them differently arises. The strong projector affirms the
experience; a weaker person trying to get rid of the projection con-
firms the experience and provides a truer, more grounded sense of
its meaning, allowing for a new management of it, including the
undoing of the projection.
Such a process can be realized in a psychotherapist's office much
more readily than in the direct encounter of oppressed and oppres-
sor because in the office there are an established base of trust and
a common task of promoting the welfare of a person who, while
seemingly weak as client or patient, is projecting like a powerful
person. This is not to say that it is an easy task in psychotherapy to
have persons find and undo their projections; on the contrary, it is
not at all easy, which is one reason so little has been written about
it. But it is nonetheless considerably simpler to help undo projec-
Discovering and Undoing Projections 147

tions as therapist than it is as a weaker person in contest with a


stronger.
The idea that the strong who are dominant from projecting must
be supported if their projecting is to be undone takes me back to
the beginning of my writing this essay. As numerous others have
been, I was then perplexed that those who are exploited and kept
down very typically can be found to be supporting those who op-
press them. In the course of writing this essay, I think I have come
upon the wisdom of the oppressed. Their support for those who op-
press them has a function beyond self-preservation and the avoid-
ance of responsibility — the function of attempting to provide the
grounds for the strong to give up their projecting endeavors.
Of course, the activities of the weak in this respect are not all
wise; otherwise we would not speak of oppression, but of mutually
fulfilling human relationships. In fact, the support that the weak
offer is in general provided at their own expense, by means of self-
denial and the loss of their own inner guides, their will, and ulti-
mately their sense of their own needs through fusion. The different
support that is required for the undoing of projections involves
self-affirmation. The task is to affirm self in the face of a projec-
tion and to oppose the projecting while supporting the person who
is doing the projecting. AFFIRM SELF — SUPPORT PERSON
PROJECTING — OPPOSE PROJECTING PROCESS.
These actions are carried out by the weak in transformative en-
counters with the strong. Why do not the weak more regularly im-
plement such a program in their transactions with the strong? The
answer, I believe, is that they feel their weakness, their isolation
from means to improve their lot, their threatened condition; in
short, they find themselves in a situation in which they are lacking
support. There are situations in which an individual may be the
object of a hierarchical or tyrannical projection and not feel threat-
ened; one is the situation of an able therapist working with a client
who projects. In social situations also there are occasionally indi-
viduals who have a firm sense of self and are able to preserve their
integrity in exploitative encounters even when they are in a weak
position in the social relationship involved. These are the excep-
148 Discovering and Undoing Projections

tions, however; more commonly, even relatively grounded individ-


uals will respond to hierarchical or tyrannical conditions with fear
and uncertainty. This is the psychological state to be expected and
thus one not to be denigrated. It should be predicted, made awares
to the individual experiencing it, and shared among those in the
community who are similarly affected.
The felt weakness of persons in the weak role in a relationship is
triply | difficult because some of the weakness is from the objective
circumstance, in that the strong have access to social powers; some
is personal, in that each of us carries a sense of our own frailty
through all the moments of our lives; and some is projected from
_ the strong onto the weak. This latter aspect is often critical to the
whole division of power. The combination of intolerance for their
own weakness of those in the strong role and excessive acknowl-
edgment of weakness by those in the weak role is basic to power
relationships, and this combination is fundamentally the definition
of projection of weakness.
~ To find their way Out of this morass, the weak need to find their
own support as they try to support in a self-affirming way the per-
son orpersons_projecting. That support is most likely to be found
in community, in collective caring and tending. It is an old and
established political understanding that the strength of the weak iis
in their_organization. Labor unions, community organizations, and
political entities have long relied on the solidarity and unity of their
members. What is now needed is anunderstanding of solidarity
and unity that promotes support in the collective-via sophisticated
= egehaNSpc TERNS fobani is happening in the member-
ship, that is, inside each member and between members, and what
is happening between the collective and those whom it is opposing.
What I am suggesting here is that social and political organizing
seems to have had all the right instincts in its focus upon
collectivity
integrate_psychological
buthas failed to insights into its
efforts. The- psychological
wee
insights most needed, I believe, are
those I have been detailing in these pages — awareness of
introjections, projections, the tendency tofusion, flight from anger
and anxiety, helplessness in rage, excess responsibility in
‘Be Be SS Se eS eee —— —
i relation-
a = 2
Discovering and Undoing Projections 149

ships, and others. Feeling


supported in a group, even with one's
strangest, most private, or secret fears right there with one, is basic
tobeating or avoiding projections oneself there_and to helping
undo them in the other members. With strong psychological insight
presentin-the-group, it becomes more possible to question one's
fearsaloud — "Why am I so anxious in this meeting?" — and to
question other_group members both honestly < and intelligently in
efforts to undo their projections — "What is it about the manager
that makes you so angry?"
Relatives or friends or other associates of strong and powerful
people can work to undo their projections. This may not be simple
for these life partners ofthe strong to try, since they tend also to be
persons given to projection in the circumstances involved and are
likely to be trapped in their identification with the projector, but
the possibilityisthere. Consider again the family together during a
holiday gathering. When racist or otherwise prejudiced remarks
are made by their parents on these occasions, young adult children
seem to see themselves as helpless or inadequate to the task of
confronting the slurs in a productive manner. They fear to chai-
lenge, and later argue often that they want to preserve family har-
mony, that it is useless to try to change their parents, that they have
tried and failed.
Yet they. ee were eee tn sim tiaapinn:
tions. What might
they do to carry out the formula of AFFIRM
SELF -- SUPPORT THE PERSON PROJECTING — - OPPOSE
PROJECTING PROCESS? They might assert that theysee things
differently and inquire€ into
into what
what their father_or_mother_experi-
ences in respect to those who are littled:

"What is it like for you, Mother, to be in a black community?"

- "Dad, what_happens
to you when you-are-with someone who
seems to be sympathetic to-communists-or-who-is_openly so-
cialist in
commitment!
° ° ° ° 9"

= n
Have you been mistre“atedbysomeonewho is JJewis h?"
150 Discovering and Undoing Projections

Being clear about one's own position— interested in and ac-


cepting of others and their experience yet able to differ with their
beliefs and convictions— is sometimes much easier than we are ac-
customed _to_thinking. What is called for is curiosity about the ex-
perience of another and | humility ir
in one's approach to-reality. Also
called for is freedom from the urge toward fusion. Willingness to
stand alone without fear of isolation and be an agent in social rela-
“tionsiscentral for the Overcoming of projective processes.
After affirming oneself and offering support to the other person,
the next order of business is to bring into awareness the fact of
projection. Some signs of problematic projections are:

- Frequent use of the impersonal


“it”

- Frequent use of "you should," "he" or "she should,"


or "they
should"

- Easy blame
of others

- Avoidance
of one's own-part.in negatively valued events

- Asense of being watched

- Excessively
admiring-others-fer-doing-well
what one can_do
well oneself

- Assigning the e i -te-external forces

A person who uses the impersonal_“it"


with frequency is tending
toresponsibility
disclaim for his actions or hersprojection.
by Perls
et al. have articulated this most clearly:

"The prevention
outgoing-motion-and-initiative,
of the-social-derogation, of
‘aggressive drives, and the “—- disease of ai oo and self-conquest
have led to a language in which seldom
the self does or expresses anything;
i ‘it happens. These res:
restrictive measureshave also ledto a view of the
tid as completely neu tive' and unrelated to our concerns;
and tO institutions that take over our functions, that are to"blame" because
Discovering and Undoing Projections 151

they ‘control’ us, and that wreak on us the hostility which we so carefully re-
frain from wielding ourselves — £s if men did not themselves lend to institu-
tions whatever force they have."

They recommend an experime t both shows the presence of


projection in "it" statements and Suggests a way to recover what-has
been projected: ae

"Transiate, as if they were in a foreign language, those sentences,jn-which. ‘it’


is subject and you are object into sentences in which T'is subject.”

For instance,

"It is hot in here and making me too drowsy to talk about our struggles with
authority"

might become

"I feel hot and drowsy as we talk about taking responsibility in our struggles
with authority.”

Or,

"It seems to me that your ideas about dealing with projections are naive"

might become

"I don't like your ideas about dealing with projections.”

The examples I have just used are mine. The reader will find it

encourage attentio as a method for sensitizing oneself to


the prese rojection. Members ofgroups that are alive to
social acti the riment_recommended by
Perls et al. to fi irOwn ac-
tions and reactions by-all individuals-in the group. When too many
"it" statements are heard during discussion or speeches, a call for
152 Discovering and Undoing Projections

the translation
of these into "I" statements
would be appropriate
and useful.
In the same way thatintrojection
i ection is expressed by-"I should’"do
such and such, projéction
iscarried forward,es ‘ally projection
of guilt and moral preoccupation, through "he" or
"she should,” or "they should” do such and such. When one or an-
other of these phrases becomes common in discourse or is the or-
ganizing principle for_a_group's purpose, projective processes are
sure to beoperative. For example, antiabortion groups believe
pregnant women should carry their fetuses to term under all condi-
tions; antiwelfare individuals argue that people on welfare should
work no matter how difficult and painful their life situation; and
middle-class folks think poor people should be tidy no matter how
degraded they may feel. Projection
is active in each of these in-
stances, as
aswe
we can often see-not-only-from _the_use
but also from intense emotional investmentin matter_at-_hand.
the
The other side of "they should” is blaming "them." No STOUP is
blamedmore thanthevictimsofoppression, asWilliamRyan?® ably
demonstrated. The phrase "blaming the victim,” which he coined, is
essentially interchangeable with "projecting upon the weak" or my
"projecting upon a primed ~aainerable
vu other Toblame is
i to place
the responsibility for a someone; both elements, allo-
cating responsibility and finding fault, are key to_the projection
process at work here. Whether the fault in the picture is a moral
one, tied to some "ought" or "should," or simply a human limitation
or casual error, if it is hard to carry, it can be seen in the other and
the self can be freed from its weight. Easy blame of others, thus,
nalties for any fault are severe.
» When individuals typically avoid acknowledging their own part iin
ne events, they are similarlyengaged in projection.
The self-righteousness that is so common both among the-well-off
and among those who are attempting to coun itation is a
prime manifestation tendency-to-avoid-one's
of this own part in dis-
valued activities. Many powerful people cultivate the tactic of
seeing and pointing out limitations in others but reserving for
themselves freedom from open negative evaluation, and this tactic
Discovering and Undoing Projections 153

becomes an underpinning of their projection tendencies. This is


the case with those ose Whagheeheprite feedback in return-
ing students' exam papers but refuse to accept evaluation of their
own performance as teachers from their students. These teachers
don't get information from those they've been controlling, leaving
an empty place inthe relationship which they go onto fillwith
projections. :
A sense-of beingwatched inahostile way
is.a
signofprojection
activity. To be admired and looked at positively is desirable, but to
be spied upon, to be scrutinized closely in the search forweakness
or blameworthiness, is not. Focus upon being watched this way
may be an indirectself-criticism-thatis
expression of not-_bearable.
If I am basically severely judgmental about a characteristic people
have and find that the characteristic could rightlybe associated
with myself, I may refuse to hold criticism of it in my consciousness
but be tempted to find that criticism in other people: they are
watching me to find this thing that at some level I know to be
there, and when they find it, they will
use their knowledge
malevolently. =
Projection is not
associated_with_negative
only phenomena.
Anything that serves to lighten the load of responsibility
that on
feels may be connected toprojective processes. Thus, persons ma
excessively admire others for doing-well-what_they-can do wel
themselves. By admiring others this way, they seduce these
persons
to carry forward activity that they like seeing and-to bear responsi-
bility they do not wish to own. Persons
who make themselves weak
by abasing themselves before those they fear use projections
such
to create glorifications of the figures
they fear. A similar diversion
of responsibility from self t0 others occurs when people assign the
energy behind events to external forces rather than -to-themselves.
I have been discussing various signs of projection. When one of
these signs clearly appears in a participant in a social relationship
and _the
person_is made aware that he or.she is projecting, the un-
doing of the projection has begun. Awareness of the ligpresent
oi procesoper-
s.
fe dindo
of the und
ation of projection is a vital component
jection
: berecogni
Sable oo
154 Discovering and Undoing Projections

is done and whatt in the world or inthe situation is


i promoting the
projection.
The how of projection can be illustrated by typical aspects of
racist behavior. Persons who are racist do notlook closely at those
they discriminate against, and this lack of
pertinent visual contact
promotes projection. Racists frequently say, "They all look alike";
such a view can only come about from not looking closely. Within
the black community, within the Asian-American community,
within the Hispanic community, people vary tremendously in per-
sonal appearance, and not seeing this variety can come_only from
not looking or not looking closely enough to individualizethe per-
son. The extreme, as we know it from housing and school contro-
versies, is to) avoid directt personal enc
encounters with those one is
prejudiced against.t. Never encounter
encountering fosters_never _seeing,
which fosters projection. ae
At a symposium on feminist therapy I witnessed the practice of
undoing projections. Five black feminist therapists conducted a
workshop in which they asked the group to look at them closely
and to answer aquestions,
series of such as which of them would be
preferred as a therapist, which of them was most typical of black
people in general, and which of them theobserver would wish to
have as afriend. The very-task of looking closely and responding
to particular issues quickened-our
sense of stereotyping and projec-
tion.’ Their procedure pertained directly tohow projection is put
in place. Every psychotherapist knows that lack of eye contact be-
tween epee therepe is ground | for Projections by the client

sini: =“underestimating o1 one's own kinesthetic_sense when re-


lating to persons who seem strong and graceful.
—Proj ections are. almost never _all_ wrong; there is usually some-

projection,1,
and indealing with projections, it is helpful to find what
it is. Care must be taken to locate truths about victims that are
harmful to them — their part in the projecting process. The truths
may thereby be made better per se and/or may help in the undoing
Discovering and Undoing Projections 155

of the projection. Are American Indians physiologically extremely


vulnerable to alcohol and thus ripe for alcoholism? If so, they —
and other Americans — need to know it. Are some or all Indians
also more communal, more tribal, than the majority culture, and
less competitive? If so, anyone who has to deal with the prejudices
of projecting representatives of the majority culture needs to know
it. If someone is generalizing from the smells of a group of per-
sons, deriving from the food they eat or their anxiety in relating, to
project bad character or general nastiness or unpleasantness onto
them, knowing the truth about the smells may unlock the projec-
tion.
Along the way, Sete RB -BON toPiammeneither he.vic-
tims or theperpetrators of projection. Apart from the fact that not—
all real factors that enable
projection are negative, the finding of a
truth being used by the projector is likely to be helpful only if that
truth is taken up in a supportiv than a blaming framework.
Wasoing projections isnoteasy,and I do not wish to give the
impression that it is. I have already referred to the problems, such

the person or persons who have been projected on, so that the
helper doesn't know that positive assistance has been given or what
to do next. At such a point the antiracist or antisexist actor in a
family will see that she or he has aroused difficult emotions and will
be tempted to retreat. Other feelings I have mentioned earlier as
surfacing when projection is being counteracted are suspicion, dis-
trust, and a sense ofbeing unsafe, including sometimes
asense of
being among enemies even when among friends. These feelings
are not easy to own, nor are they simple for even a well-disposed|
observer to see and accept, which means that neither the project,
ing individual nor the person acting toundo the projecting process
hasan immediate sense of comfort. ———
In the antiracist effort, when a projection is being undone and
anger, anxiety, or distrust is aroused, with luck and much support
156 Discovering and Undoing Projections

the powerful feelings are recognized, accepted, and dealt with, and
the rupture in social relations is not allowed_to-proceed. In the
place | of what threatens to bea full revival of destructive-urges is
. put ci
caring and acceptance. Is this not the essenceofwhat Martin
Luther King, Jr., was able to do during the high days of the civil
rights movement? He-resurfaced-the fury-of-the-racists in the
country
ways-to-calm-it-while-building-
and found community be-
tweenoppressor and oppressed. He was engaged
in loving the en-
emy. The oppressors could not but see the
humanity
of the blacks
and white
yhite supporters opposing them, but they
angrythat-their
were
position was being
threatened. King did not back off or allow his
own fear to turn into helpless rage, and the criticalal moments when
this was transformative were pr
was greatest. When policemen turned blasts of water from fire |
hoses and dogs upon people demonstrating in a peaceful manner,
the_excess of their fury was vividly clear to the whole-nation-and to
the_police aswell. Since their power was not being challenged,
only their irrational views and actions, these—authorities_slowly
came to take back their projections. Others, equally racist, who-
saw the extraordinary contrast between the behavior of the nonvi-
olent marchers-and the the-police_more_quickly-undid
response_of _
their projections. Both-the-pelice-and_the-others then began to
treat blacks moreequitably.
As this example suggests, nothing underscores more than the
ndoing of projection the_assertion that the process by which the
hetusion of fusion-is-_rectified
involves enabling and tolerating per-
sonal experiencing of intense, fearful, and strange social emotions.
Chapter 14

Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

",. . the warm pleasurable (and angry) destroying of existing forms in per-
sonal relations often leads to mutual advantage and love, as in. . . the break-
ing down of prejudices between friends. For consider that if the association
of two persons will in fact be deeply profitable to them, then the destruction
of the incompatible- ‘existingforms they have come with is-a-motion_toward
their more intrinsicselves — ineswill be actualizedi inthe coming new figure;

transfer to the iberatng agentsoe.The process of mutual destruction is


probably the chief proving ground of profound compatibility. Our unwilling-
ness to risk itis obviously a fear that if we losee this weshall have nothing; we
ey ese food to none; we have become habituated to scarcity and starva-
tion.

"In general, anger is 2 as ion; itunitespersons because it is. ad-


mixed with desire.”
Perls, Hefferline, and Good-
man, Gestalt Therapy: Excite-
ment and Growwih in’ The
Human Personality

When adult persons in an oppressive relationship are made fully


aware-of their introjecting and projecting activities and the guilt
and self-hatred that are interwoven with them and all these are re-
duced_in power so that they no longer control relationships, the
next emotional experience_forthesepersons isnot joy, but rather it
is rage. They meet_again
once-so_intense_it
anger seemed itmight
be_literally-annihilating; at that point it was-suppressed, though far
from fully pushed down; now it becomes figural again. Persons who
have carried
throughthe_-weak-role_in-social_relations know a new
upsurge-of great anger at their oppressors, and those who adopted
the strong role once again experience great anger at the oppressed,
for being
not quite manageable — and now indeed at the whole so-
158 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

cial system for not quite providing satisfactions—it-seemed to


promise. ~Thenext ext task in 1 the process ¢of normalizing relationships
that have been oppressive is to turn-all thisanger into warm ange
ar
which releases _the"more_intrinsic selves"_of the_participants an
produces love. The task is not to discharge-or-dissipate-the-anger,
as if it were a familiar but now unwelcome interloper iin psychic life
and in social relations, but to bring it into experiences thatbond
rather than-divide the_persons.
In the passage quoted abové, Perls et al. assert that this can be
done — angry persons can destroy existing forms in_personal_rela-
tions and still unite with the other persons who arethe-objects of
their anger. Although angry encounters sometimes_create-emo-
tional distance between the actors, they may-also-serve to bring
people closer together to mutual advantage. Let me underscore
this point, with which I agree: being angry.can_rewardingly unite
personswho are in conflict with.one-another. This is easier to ac-
complish in socially equal relationships such as friendship, invoked
in the quoted passage, than in relations between socially advan-
taged and disadvantaged people, but it is possible in the latter also.
An exercise in expressing anger that I have used in small class
and study groups and that can be tried informally by as few as two
people illustrates how anger can be uniting. Persons in the group
are asked to separate into pairs, one person being A and the other
B. Then A is instructed to act angrily toward B in a blaming way. I
have found that though group members may not know each other
at. all, they are generally quite willing to project their own angers
and reactions to anger into the situation and carry out the exercise
with conviction and liveliness: "You did this terrible thing to me...
."""You are troublesome, because . . . ." A may blame B for a spe-
cific act that A can creatively imagine, or not specify an act but
blame B for "causing me all this pain and difficulty." Then roles are
reversed for a time, so that everyone has the experience of being
both A and B. Then in the group individuals relate their experi-
ence. Usually what I have found is that persons in the B role either
distance themselves — for example, look away, try to get on with
their own business, or just look through A — or retaliate with
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 159

blaming assertions of their own. In either case the distance be-


tween A andincreases,
B becausein counterattacking, Bpushes A
away.
Then A is asked to act angry again, but this time is instructed not
to blame.B, but to make only "I" statements. "I do not like to be ig-
nored," "I was angry when you did that,” and so on. Typically, now, |
B becomes angry
in return,
but also and
A B find themselves talk-|
ing sincerely
and intensely to each other, hearing each-other and
developing empathy for each other's experience. This mode of
being angry makes for-contact-between-the-persons_rather
than
separation. These results are common-and
clear, even in such a
situation as this exercise in which people are being artificially
angry.
In the first part of the EXEICISE, when B is avoiding A's blaming

perceived.—_B-blames-A-so_as not to introject — not to take inand


accept the blaming that is coming from A. Considerable anger
among those who are weak is in the service of this time not intro-
Jecting what isbeing puut upon them by those who are strong. In the
second part, doesn'‘t-get-mobilized_to-withdraw
B or otherwise de-
fend against blame, because-no blame-is-coming from A. Instead, B
falls into the "I" mode of speaking also. The result is an exchange
between two people who share the responsibility for their anger-
fed relation.
Thus far in my investigation I have focused upon divisiveanger,
the helpless anger of weak persons and the overcontrolled and
projected forms of anger of the strong. I have done so because the
of interest to me-have been the destructive
personal relationships
ones of the weak and the strong. Now, however, I am looking at _
the anger that surfaces when their introjections and projections are
undone. Thisispotentially | a positive and constructive anger, be-
cause of the situationnow of the people who bear it. People who
have thrown off introjections-and projections thave-a sense of being

their anger
rerdirectly and openly; and for people to be able to dothis
has great positiveimportance_ in_our world. Alice Miller” has
160 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

strikingly suggested how great and how positive. She has persua-
sively argued that the child whoispermittedto)experience feelings
of anger and express them to an adult, and is respected in the
adult's response, isthe child who does not become violent. She
calls for dealing with angry children not by domination and repres-
sion, but by hearing them, allowing them-to-know their own needs
and angry feelings freely, and making these significant partsc
of the
relationship between adult and-child. She also documents, the-cru-
elty and child abuse that are associated with not permitting such
qwnership and expression.
Approaching the subject from a different perspective, James R.
Averill has studied anger and aggression systematically, and he has
concluded thatanger is often constructive. For him the motives of
constructive anger include asserting independence, asserting au-
thority, trying to-strengthen-a relationship,-and trying to get some-
one.to.do something for you. And each of the motives he lists can
be seen as pertinent to the situations we are addressing.
How, then, can we be brought to disregard the parental admon-
ishments, so in contrast with what Miller recommends, to not show
anger which many ofus were subjected to
and learned so well to
comply with? How can we use this usually forbidden or unwel-
comed emotion and at the same time be listened to by others and
accepted by them? Because our parents insisted that. anger is
childish, disrespectful, unsocialized, improper,-we-as-adults almost
always find that situations-marked-by-overt-anger-make-us-feel un-
comfortable and.that to-express-our own-anger-would-be-inappro-
priate. Yet there is something attractive and inviting-about acting
angrily; we feel it would be wonderful to be able to accept with
comfort the anger we often find in ourselves.
Averill helps in this regard when he notes that
"on the sqciocultural level, anger functions to uphold accepted standards-of
ae etic Nene
conduct." Sioa

should avoid becoming angry, there are Sree ee pees


Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 161

reasonable person is appropriately. angry-and allowed to _be_angry.


Especially when-anger_is_in the service of maintaining the social
systemas it is or the accepted standards of-conduct isit-permissible
to be angry. Thus, anger seems to be permitted to the upholders of-
curreent_power relationships and not to others. Butwe can read —
this conversely, too: _ having the courage to mobilize and utilize
anger can be empowering, since by doing so, one puts oneself in
the stance of defining standards
of conduct.
In his biography of John L. Lewis, Saul Alinsky,‘ the political or-
ganizer, has presented examples of Lewis at his finest as a labor
leader, and among them the following account of one episode in
Lewis's career stands out in respect to the power of well-controlled
anger. In the 1930s the C.I.O. was being built through struggles
with big industry, and victories had been won with U.S. Steel and
G.M. Alinsky notes that

"Lewis cea won collective bargaining with U.S. Steel without a


Strike..

and bested General-Motors,


and then was called in to deal with
Chrysler Corporation, in early April 1937. There was a sit-in at
Chrysler. Lewis liked and respected the head of the firm, Walter
Chrysler, whom he called a "just, decent man." But

"This time it was the humane, warm-hearted Walter Chrysler and his hard-
boiled, anti-union production
boss, K.T. Keller.”

Also present for the company was Nicholas Kelley, general coun-
sel.
As the negotiations proceeded, Keller, speaking hardly at all,
sneered across the table, looked disdainfully past Lewis, stared in-
sultingly at the other C.I.O. leaders, and in general infuriated them.
So Lewis decided to break | down this man. By the next day Keller
had made all the union people uncomfortable and conscious of his
aloofness, with grimaces that unnerved many of them, though not
the "impassive chief,” who sat in complete silence. Across from
Lewis
162 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

"sat Keller with his manifest scorn becoming more obnoxious to the CIO
spokesmen with each passing minute. To Lewis and his associates, Keller's
face began to symbolize the attitudes and position of a giant corporation-to-
ward
itsemployees."

The.tension heightened. Suddenly Keller broke a silence of his


own. Turning to Lewis, with a sneer in his voice he said:

"'Mr. Lewis, you haven't said a word about this situation. Do you happen to
have any comment or contribution?’

"Lewis very slowly rose to his feet and with a.murderous stare at Keller softly
replied, "Yes, Mr. Keller, yes I have. I am ninety-nine per cent of a mind to
come around this table right now and with one fell swoop wipe that damn
sneer off your face."

"There was a dead silence inGovernor


the room. [Frank] Murphy [of Michi-
gan, who had called this meeting] hastily cleared his throat and announced a
brief recess. The Governor got up quietly, nervously looking at Lewis and
Keller. Keller seemed
to be in a state of shock. Suddenly he shook his head
and came around the table toward Lewis. Lewis deliberately turned his back
on him and began to walk over to the other side of the room. Keller followed
him, then put his arm around Lewis's shoulder. Everyone heard Keller in a
pleading voice say, T'm really not as bad as you make me out to be, Mr.
Lewis, really I'm not as bad as that. Believe me, I'm not as bad as that.'"

"Lewis turned to Keller and still with complete dignity said, "Well, Mr. Keller,
in the heat of controversy, one isbound to be indiscreet.' Keller's resistance
cracked after this episode."

The labor leader Lee Pressman was sitting in on the negotia-


tions, and Alinsky quotes Pressman's assessment of that moment:

"It is impossible to put into words just what everyone felt at that moment.
Lewis,
the man, was not threatening Keller, the man. Lewis's voice in that
‘moment was inevery sense the voice of millionsofunorganized workers who
were exploited by gigantic corporations. He was expressing at that instant,
their_resentment,-hostility, and_their_passionate-desire-to_strike back. There
just was no question
that Lewis's threat-was-not-against Mr. Keller as-a per-
son, but against the Chrysler Corporation and every other giant, soul-less
corporation in this country. It was amoment of real greatness, because
Lewis transcended his own personand was speaking
out the deep yearning of
millions to force a great, sneering, arrogant-corporation-to_bend its knee to
organized labor."
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 163

And it was a moment when Lewis was defining standards of con-


duct. nikehehat op
Then Lewis took on general counsel Kelley. As Alinsky writes:

"The next day Lewis cleared the decks ashe-demolished-Nicholas


Kelley .. . .
Lewis went on and on and on developing hisdenunciation in low, cold,-with-
ering words. Lewis continued_driving and driving into him_until_everyone
thought that Kelley was about to have a fit of apoplexy. Finally Kelley leaped
to his feet and screamed, 'STOP_IT, STOP IT; Mr.Lewis!' After a good deal
more in this vein he finally ended up by shouting, ‘Mr. Lewis, I want you to
know, Mr. Lewis, that I-I-I am not afraid of your eyebrows.’ Lewis's laughter
rolled Kelley out of the fight and Chrysler gave up.”

For a hot and angry situation


like this one to become warmly
productive, the individuals involved must stay_in_contact-with
one
another, complete their striving actions, and find somesatisfaction
of the goals they want to reach out of the conflict. Because the
persons involved may be enemies, may have old grievances, may be
fearful of each other or even of their own rageful tendencies, stay-
ing in contact may be no easy task. In the Chrysler-C.I.O. con-
frontation, as in many others, of course, it was managed. There
was heat and there was warmth. At the end, Lewis had won impor-
tant concessions from management, and Chrysler had won a con-
tract and continuity of its operations. As J. Raymond Walsh sum-
marized the outcome:

"Sole bargaining rights, strictly defined, were denied the union. But the con-
tract contained a promise that the company would abstain from all support
or agreement with any other organization which purposed to.undermine the
U.A.W. effort. Ineffect, if the U.A.W. [the auto workers’ union in the
C.I.0.] was sufficiently popular to prevent the appearance of another bona
fide union, it would remain sole bargainer for all employees.”

New let us look at a range of other situations in which anger is in


one way or another focal, to see various ways it can be dealt with in
them. Ph
An extreme situation among these is psychotherapy with deeply
disturbed persons. For example, in his book Modern Psychoanaly-
sis of the Schizophrenic Patient. Hyman Spotnitz® asserts that ha-
164 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

tred can be a therapeutic_force-of-compelling


character for- the
deeply disturbed. He says that hatred-binds
the schizophrenic pa-
tient to his or her therapist even more firmly than does love, so that
the patient-is-willing to work as long as necessary to-master-aggres-
sive and angry impulses provided that the danger that he or she will
act on them destructively is kept to-a- minimum, which is likelyin
the usual hospital setting where schizophrenic patients receive
therapy. Often the therapist will called
be upon to help the patient
discover the anger and bringit into the relationship; whichever iin-
troduces it, the
successful revival and expression of anger is central
to the treatment ofthe.disturbance, Spotnitz says.
Barbara Bender,’ who has treated-children
who were battered
by adults, comments upon a kind of misplaced
compelled loyalty tto
the batterer evidenced by such children — for example, one boy
who, when a rare angry and hostile comment came forth from him
and was noticed, pretended to be hurt rather than stand behind the
anger and take the hostility as his own. Similarly, Pennie Cohen
has noted that victims ofviolence in a family aare exceedingly loyal
to those who have hurt them, and in their loyalty-refuse tobecome
angry_attheir-violent
spouses or parents. She then proceeds to an
importanttherapeutic
aim in work with these victims:

"A final important aspect of therapy related to helping the victim shift the
blame-from-selfto_perpetrator isthe process of enabling the ex] expression of
anger. Typically, clients who have experienced childhood violence are angry
with themselves and have difficulty experiencing anger with parents... .

"It is frequently helpful forthe therapist-to-express-her/his-anger atthe


client's family—for_permittingor perpetuating the Violence. This has a
permission-giving element for the client. Permission-giving-probes such as
"What do -you do with youranger?’ are also helpful. These kinds of probes
assume that anger is normal and expectable.

When the clients are "angry with themselves,” of course, they are
demonstrating their identification with the aggressor, and when
therapy with these victims ofviolence is successful, it undoes in-
_trojections and surfaces rage that they point outside of themselves.
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 165

Klaus D. Hoppe, writing of working with survivors of severe per-


secution-by the-Nazis, tells us that ifthe therapistiswillingto be
seen by his or her patient as like the. persecutor-of the past
(typically like an SS officer),

"then the patient may transform_excessively destructive drives into construc-


tive ones.

Seeing the therapist-as-persecutor_causes the patientto bring out


old anger that would have been self-destructive if expressed in the
past,‘then to let go of it and become able to be angry and express
anger at the therapist and others in the patient's present life.
_David M. Berger, who also worked with_survivors, notices in

tion that theanger of such survivors is diffuse ratherthan object-


related and dealing well with the anger involves connecting. angry
expression with real objects, either persons the survivor is con-
nected withpresent
at or persons from the past. The main thrust
of Berger's therapy was to bring the patient back to the period of
persecution
Bes en te oneal detail af-
ter detail ofwhat was experienced and the affects that accompa-
nied the experiences.
nces. Invariably, of course, hatred of the Nazis sur-
faced in theseexplorations, and this was encouraged, which helped
the patient focus anger past and present.It was also found useful
for both therapist and patient to acknowledge that the patient.had |
identified with |the
the aggressor, and for the therapist-to-say_that: this
identification was response
a normal to asevere situation. This re-
lieved immobilizingguilt and shame. .
Some sense of how
ow difficult itisto goback toscenes of persecu-
tion can be gotten from the following exercise, which indicates it is
often hard even to re-experience a parent's anger at one as a child.
People are asked to close their eyes and remember a time in child-
hood when a parent was strongly angry with them. They are then
asked to describe what it felt like to be a child in the presence of.an
angry parent. Typically,
they don't find this easy to do; they have
trouble coming up with details. Then they are asked to comment
166 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

on whether it was hard torememberthe episode. They acknowl-


edge it was-hard. Finally, they are asked to look at whether they
have protected-the-parent-in their-remembering_and in their re-
porting. They generally begin by saying no, sometimes adding that
they deserved the parent's anger, but then comeacknowledge
to on
the spot that they have protected-their-parent._
This has a freeing
effect on them. They have acknowledged something they couldn't
acknowledge before, and this is
relieving.
A moving incident that illustrates the same theme occurred in a
class for social workers. The class was discussing a residential
set-
ting for drug-addicted_mothers-and_their children. A student who
was working there had observed a child making a switch, and when
she asked what it was for, the child replied-that-it-was for his
mother to beat him. The student was appalled at-this, but the child
defended his 1mother. Another student in the class said that her
mother had done this to her throughout her childhood and that it
was common and accepted in their minority culture. The instructor
responded by saying that it was child abuse to beat a child, whether
or not it was a cultural phenomenon. The student, who had not
only told of being beaten but also described hiding under a bed out
of fear of it, defended her mother's method of discipline quite
strongly. The next week the student did not appear for class. She
had withdrawn from the instructor and from the class. When she
did return in another week, the instructor approached her and
asked if something was wrong. She replied that she had been of-
fended by the attack on her culture and her mother, that it had felt
racist. The instructor worked with her around the issue, and they
came to a mutual understanding and to friendship by agreeing that
something could be culturally dominant and yet hurtful and harm-
ful, and that race had nothing to do with the instructor's position.
The student came_to understand that she had experienced her
mother's brutality with some terror and, at times, with some ex-
citement — an admixture of pleasure that her mother was
attending to her and some sexual arousal from the physical
experience. The instructor learned that there was some love and
_some thrill in these encounters that were primarily painful.
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 167

A therapeutic setting with which Carol Roman!! was connected


provides significant occasions for the productive unfolding of
anger. It is a residential setting for treatment of persons with drug
and alcohol addictions. Clients.are seen to go through stagesof
anger, first of an unproductive sort, laterof a valid kind. They en-
ter the program from drug-ridden urban streets and have street be-
havior in place. Rage is on the surface and is regularly called upon.
Anything may be taken as a provocation, and provocation leads to
expressions
about previous angry-making circumstances:

"If you did that to me on the street, I'd stick you. Don't push me or I'll take
you out."

As the client progresses in therapy, anger becomes more focused.


A client who is feeling angry will overreact to rule setting, but the
expression of anger
iscarefully focused
onthe rule or rule maker,
while denial of other sources ofof intense anger the client finds in his
or her
her quite restrictive living situation remains in place. In other
terms, whereasat the beginniring of treatment anger is directed at
allpeople and covers all situations, in the middle of treatment the
client points
anger at the confiningstructure of the residential pro-
gram and fires it off bullet by bullet. At the end of therapy the
client becomes angry y only
onoccasionally and at well-delineated ob-
jects for
well-delineated reasons — e.g., angry at someone for mak-
ing a noisy disturbance in front of a TV the client wants to watch.
As some of the above stories indicate, with people who have suf-
fered extreme domination such as former abused children or vic-
tims of the Nazis, the revival and successful handling of anger turns
out to have significant po
positiveresults for the victim. A similar
story istold by those who have studied the psychological side of the
civil rights movement and the women's movement. AS the psychia-

movement:

"Just as the capacity to-grieve- and keep working was a necessity for the work-
ers, SO was the capacity to be angry and feel outrage, and at the, same time
putt thoseoe uings into
into ¢
action toward the goals of the Movement. al
168 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

Similarly, in a study of psychodynamic-factors associated with the


sit-ins of the civil rights movement, Pierce and West conclude:

"In summary, it may be said that the surprising senseof power


of the sit-in
demonstrator, and the benefits that hederives from his ordeals in large part
are related-to the-way-in-which-the-experience couples genuine ideals with
psychological drives-into-an-acceptable_mode
of expression. Reinforcement
comes from identification with keyadult figures, gratifying discharge of hostile
feelings, rewards in_terms_of-status_in the group, a_sense of inner strength
through the successful exercise of self control and the realization of self ful-
fillment pRrough working and suffering to achieve a worthy goal [italics
added].” Sse

One more psychiatrist can be called upon to support the view


that successful anger is productive_of the-welfare of the-oppressed
individual. Sheldon Cohen" discusses desegregation from the per-
_spective of a southern psychiatrist. He refers to the "retroflexed
“Tage
had_built-up-over
which generations” in southern blacks, ra ge
~ which was not available to the awareness
of the_individuals. It was
_expressed in violent intraracial aggression — slashings, rapes, and
murders in the black community — and in psychosomatic illnesses
such as hypertension; but these signs were interpreted, until the
civil rights movement came_along,
as simply part-of
the life of the
- community, the way things w The marches, nonviolent demon-
‘trations, and_sit-ins-mobilized-this-aggression and directed it into
socially productive channels tothe benefit ofthe angry persons and
the movement to overcome
racial segregation.
Elizabeth Janeway develops this same theme in her discussion of
the fe
"powers
EE
ofetethe
ea
weak":
ee

"Groups of the weak, forced to comply with regulations


laid down by those
‘against whom they cannot hope to rebel, repress-their anger .... We can see
that the ability to letanger outisindeed a mark gfprogress on the way to
daring to act for-oneself, according to one's choice."

And Gayle Graham Yates, writing of the women's movement,


asserts that
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 169

"Women must learn the meaning of rage, the violence that liberates the hu-
mati spirit. The rhetoric OFinvective iis an equally essential stage, for in dis-
covering and venting their rage a;
againstthe enemy .. . women-aiso experience
the justice of violence."
their own

The predominant theme I have extracted from the thinkers I


have just been citing is the need for the recov nd newhandling
of.in-social-relationships.
anger The writers with a political inter-
est, particularly, reflect the fact that inregard to angermost atten-
tion of a psychological sort has been directed tothose who are in
the weak position in relationships and that the spotlight has not of-
ten_been put on howw those
those | in the dominant role might be enabled
to progress through new forms of anger_activity. As I stated earlier,
;believe that inattention to the rage of the strong is caused by the
fact thati controlleled to alarge degree, backed by the social sys-
tem, and, above alprojected
|, onto others, and thus is not so dra-\
matic in its appearance
as that of the underdogs. Nor is it much ‘
looked for by other members of society, since "what would those
well-off people have to be angry about?" But I also believe that

those who are identified asstrong |most of the time in relationships


— and that this is particularly tr
true inpolitics, as I shall explain be-
low.
Regardless of whether one chooses to look at the strong or the
weak, the arousal of their plentiful anger is an established political
maneuver. We canexpect
tofind intensity and rage wherever po-
liticalactivity is being organized— inside Tight-wing anticommunist
movements, among workers organizing into unions or preparing
for strikes, among women struggling for their liberation_or oppos-
ing "women's libbers,”among blacksremembering-their grievances
and readying themselves for action, among nationalists of minority
status or patriots. All thrive on the liveliness-and-immediacy of
angry feelings. Political
al endeavor and_anger-go together like mat-
riage and sex.
The usual explanation of theeverpresence-of-anger in political
life-referstogrievances, oe also needs to be stressed here that
er isa
a contactful emot <T0 be angry is to face forward to-
as
ee
c=
ee ia
170 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

ward a frustrating obstacle and engage with it, either directly or in


fantasy. The fascination ofvictims with their oppressors,so aptly
described by Philip Hallie,!” is one manifestation
of the contactful-
ness of anger. Anger is a social emotion. It brings people into
communion with others in the form of shared anger toward a com-
mon opponent or frustrating object,or itbrings them into contact
with their opponents or representatives of their opponents. Angry
people are not simply self-contained, not licking their wounds in
the privacy of their shelters. They are available
for collective
ac-
tion.
Yet the anger that-_is_mobilized_politicallyismost-frequently mis-
used. For example, among those who are activated from the weak
sideof a relation, instead of transforming individuals and helping
them reach collective goals, the rage too-often teads to further
helplessness, often via debilitating projection. When women put
all frustrations they experience upon men or when blacks see all
their problems outside themselves in whites, they all too readily
avoid their own part in the relationship_and_project-upon-the-op-
ponent. Unions who see in management all evil and-do not-boldly
face themselves and. their-own-methods-of operation as possibly
contributing to_their_union's—problems~must—invariably— attribute
weakness of their own-to management.
~~ Projection-aside, when-anger-is surfaced and the efforts to-use it
for social change are not-well-carried-out, or when groups speak
their grievances but-do-not act -upon-them, further-helplessness is
_ promoted. Here is an example of how things do not have to end ©
this way, however. In her book Despair and Personal Power in the —
Nuclear Age, Joanna Macy!* has dcloned a program with a se-
ries ofexercises which work to bring to the surface the despair-that —
people feel about aes danger and then Seek t¢
to enable partici-

the danger. Saningin the program are led to experience and.then


deal
directly and creatively with the. helpless-rage felt by the weak,
in order to counteract the tendency to submit to the nuclear status —
quo. Macy's methods have been-applied successfully inmobilizing
people-in_peace_work. First she provides exercises in"telling our
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 171

nuclear stories," in guided meditation, and in "imaging with colors


‘and clay,” in ye group members make ei and shape clay

they can Tigins and there is aa densi ritual” Rec from the
"speak bitterness" sessions in the Chinese revolutionary movement
which I described in Chapter 9. Then there are exercises seeking
to stimulate a turn from despair to empowerment. These include,
for instance, guided meditation again, brainstorming, aand "opening
pathways though movement" — an exercise in dance and nd other
movements designed to give people a stronger sense of how they
can use their
bodies.Finally, there is work on "empowering our-
selves,” dealing with how
people feel their own power, how they
imagine it, and how others empower them, as well as consideration
of how |
“to build skillsneeded for social action and how to develop
rituals for committing oneself to it. Personal experience in these
workshops has convinced me of the immense creativity involved in
them and of the emotionally intense quality they provide to life.
Beyond this, people do, as Macy prescribes, commit themselves to
one or another degree of action, as the culmination of their taking
part in the program, and go on to honor the commitment.
It is vital to the successful political use of anger that activists dis-
cover and analyze t their better and worse ways of handling it in en-
counters with their opponents. But training in productive ways of )
expressing anger is overlooked in preparations for making strong
b
“political assertions, e.g., striking, and so is making people familiar
with the grounds of negativity in angry confrontations and how it
may bring trouble, e.g., the feeling of utter hopelessness leading
someone ragefully to swat at a counterprotester, bringing on un-
friendly police action.
For those on the strong side in_a_political- encounter, exclusive
focus on the other, on representatives
the of the weak, leads in-
Biabiy in further projection: Such a process fails:to promote lis-
tening for, discovering, and-attending to the human quality of one-
selfas well
one's-opponents,
as a practice that is necessary for re-
owning of what has been-projected. In addition, unless the strong
develop awareness-of-how-angry-they. are, there is little likelihood
172 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

that they will loosen their controls over their anger and hold it in
awareness while still maintaining contact with their opponents —
thus both gaining more confidence-in-themselves-and bonding with
others, sometimes including some of their opponents — and trans-

Let me develop this last point. The.strong,with their powerful


feelings of outrage, commonly intimidate others; one way or an-
other, the others in the relationship finda means for distancing
themselves. They may cease to argue, physically leave the scene,
withdraw into themselves, identify with the aggressor, anything to
free themselvesfrom the threat of being severely hurt by the anger
of the strong; it is probably the single most important cause of per-
sons giving up being agents in relation. Unless a political en-
| counter can facilitate attention to the depth of this outrage, atten-
\ tion that maintains connection, and can find means for enabling its
expression without destroying contact in the relationship, trans-
formation of the strong or the weak in the relationship is unlikely.
Failure of the strong to deal with their controlled rage pressures
‘the relationship to disintegrate.
As is the case with projectors in general, the strong will-not Te-
vise their handling of anger without support-of some kind, and in
confrontations between the strong and the weak that support often
comes fromrepresentatives
of the weak, though it may also come
from neutral observers or collaborators. John L. Lewis demon-
strated for the leaders of the Chrysler Corporation how a person
could be angry without either projecting or _overcontrolling a
_feeling.” Such Wodchar H oneWas iheGene eee the stron
Another is their hearing and ac
acceptingthe Tage of the strong\ait
out being thrown by it ordiverted fro
from pursuing their own inten-
tions.
Acknowledgment of that anger can bring itto common
awareness, while refusal to becowed by it issupportive ofthe basic
humanity of the other— who also now doesn't have to be-terrified
of being overpowering, as in fact many strong rageful people are —
and is basic to the maintenance connection
of -in-the- relationship.
Because therevived anger ofthe weak isa result
resu ofthe undoing
ofSLO aleals their new ways
ofdealing with an
angerare_probably
SS aa = en
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 173

going to be a function of positive identifications. Three main


themes along this line come readily to mind, themes derived from
lessons learned in the women's liberation movement in recent
years. First, sharing anger with others inasimilar situation leads td
positive identifications and subsequent encouragement and sup-
port. Sécond, learning to diagnose and then refusing tointroject
the projected _anger of the powerful clears the way to healthy

"ventilate" and
dissipate
the emotion. After all, these are painful
experiences and the desire to rid oneself of their influence is pro-
found. Yet there are groupings in which people-respond to anger
in a new manner, in which the individual is encouraged to expand
Se

the
feeling
and enlarge the description — tocarry
and e
express all
the feeling, whether pure anger or anger, hurt, humiliation, shame,
eri cea aa inTheTicead teach datotheexpert
ence of others. Soon another story is told and members of the
group discover that they have a shared world and a shared fate.
From this
understanding can come_new strength and commitment
to action, since there is now an environment to help one deal with
the oppressive figure or system. Women's consciousness-raising
groups exploited this method during their early years just as union
organizers
did in earlier times and as radical political organizers
have also done.
A variant on 1such consciousness-raising |
groups is
personal coun-
seling-for- women who are preparing to go tocourt in divorce pro-
ceedings. An experienced Pitan can helpa client to testify in
such away asfoempower herself through a contactful use of anger
the-client-is-already-very-angry but
in the court process. Usually,
helplessly so. If this is the case, she can be helped to see that the
and court officers
judge wi to
vailablefaciliher expression
tate
174 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

if she focuseson-it-clearly-and tries to mobilize their sup-


anger
_of
her t from-violent reactions from her
port, and that-they-can-protec
spouse.~ She can_be enabled to see how hurt and rageful her hus-
band_is_as well. Good- counseling—willhelp—her_prioritize_her
grievances_a nd of her anger over incidents she
achieve validation
catalogs. And her examination of pastemotional traumas in the
prioritizing endeavor can help-her_expel introjects, from her hus-
band or from others in her present or past life, that may have con-
tributed to difficulties in her marriage.
Second, asimportant as sharing — and corralling — one's own
rising_anger is learning how todiagnose and keep out projected
rage, The reflex of a weak person faced with the power and the
powerful rage of the strong is to get out of the situation unharmed.
As discussed earlier, in day-to-day life oppressed people often in-
troject the substance of what is communicated by the raging power-
ful, then slip away and use it topropuptheir identification with the
aggressor. At a time of confrontation the reflex may change, how-
ever. Nowadanger
fo
for tho
those
sefighting |
theiroppression is that they
will absorb, not the matter,but-the_manner of their raging oppo-
nents, desperately_reflect itback, and thereby-be-hurt literally or at
least fail to-win-ground-in-the encounter. What they must learn in-
stead is how to-stay-in contact, observe the rage of the powerful,
and not take it on_at all. For instance, relaxation techniques can
helpsubordinates to-take-care of themselves in the presence of an
aroused
other and not.absorb his or her-anger. In nonviolent resis-
tance, going limp_typically achieves this and also quiets the fearful
anger of police
or National Guard _personnel. (Sometimes, we
know,
know, police vent their rage upon nonresisting folk, but this ten-
dency usually passes when they discover how spectators condemn
the cruelty involved.)
Groupsscan assist their-members_in observing and_ Staying clear
ofprojected rage. -Part-of-my purpose in this study is to facilitate
attention tq-projéction»as-a tactic in power relations. Shared analy-
sisof whatishappening in-the-presence-of the powerful can be
used on the spot by persons on the-underside-of.a-relation to halt
the tendency tointroject the anger of an other, and what is thus _
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 175

learned|can be reinforced later, in a group review of what hap-


pened.
My third theme from the women's movement is how good ways
oFrose angry help one. In this connection, Harriet Lerner has
written a powerful work on the nature and use Esanger from a
feminist perspective in her book Dance r. She argues
that ineffective anger, anger voiced "without aie direction and
control,” can be reassuring it may help the
to the other because it
eee ae Mawinetheacetone fusses and fumes. Simi-
ee em Spaget
and blaming
ti
wil9

when the personis not yetready to move-in any given direction.


And further:

"... those
of us-who fight ineffectively are usually caught up in unsuccessful
oe to change a person who does not want to change.”

Too often, she has observed, persons try to changec


others into per-
sons like-themselves, not different from them, and thus to avoid
being separate and responsible for self. Yet we do not in fact have
the power to) change other persons unless they wanttochange, and
our efforts to do so as often as$not
notprotect them from changing at
all. Our efforts rouse them to fight
ight|back and reaffirm t themselves asa

a "deselfing” process,5,an
anavoidance oftaking res
responsibility.and be-
ing a separate individual — an obscuring of self as agent, as I would
put it.
In my view, if ineffective anger is in theserviceof "deselfing,"
productive anger-is-in_that_of “selfing,” in Lerner's phrasing —a
making of self into agent. Indeed, productive anger—is_both the
producer and the product of a personacting as an agent. Anger is
ol having,
a feeling that we cannot control having, thoughv we may avoid rec-
ognizing that we are_angry, and like all feelings it is something we
have a right to. The first step inbecoming productively angry is to/
experience
nce or
oneself as angry and toaccept that ssomething vital and
176 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

_validis happening to one. This is not always so easy. For instance,


many men have been reared to understand that when they are un-
der the authority of someone else, they must control their angry
feelings preferably to the point of not even experiencing them. G.
C. Lichtenberg had a wonderful ironic aphorism about-such denial
of selfhood: ryan oo Se a Sa
"On K's advice, I got frightfully angry about that matter."~!

By contrast, healthy, productive anger involves firmly asserting or


protecting oneself, as thefollowing definitions off anger all suggest:

Lerner: "Anger is a signal and one worth listening to. Our anger may be a
message we are being hurt, that our rights are being violated, that our needs
or wants are not being adequately met, or simply that something is not
right.”

Carol Tavris: "Anger iis ultimately an


an emphatic message. Pay attention to me.
I don't like w: re doing. Restore my pride. You're in.my way. Danger.
me justice."
Give
Bach and Wyden: "It's a basic emotional andphysiological reaction against
interference with the pursuit of9desired goal; and an expression-of strong
concern when
wh things go wrong.

And finally, taking the self as agent into thebroad social world,

Abrahafi Masl nee) "Anger—does


notdisappear with psychological health;
ratherit
it takes the form. ness, self-affirmation, self-protection, justi-
fied indignation, fighting against evil,
and the like.”

feeling. oar to thecircumstances arousing it, they mayy findthat they


are distorting the circumstances_in_such a way that they can
sidestep-being_responsible_ for themselves in the-situation. Thus,
though it is no simple matter, it is important_ that time and
attentionbe given to clarifying the true sources ofanger, as well as
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 177

where one stands in the whole situation. This last is critical


because itleads one into-such-questions as whether one is blamin
Noe to throw up—one's hands in helpless defeat
getting ready for real changes, or spouting off and expecting little
in the way of change.
The third step in becoming productively angry isi tocommunicate
to the object of anger that one is indeed angryand what the anger
is about. This is notask-either.
easy Often,ifwe are not confusing
the issue by divesting ourselves of our responsibility, we are blam-
ing the other and arousing the inevitable resistance tofault-finding.
When we are angry with a superior in a hierarchy, we are often
scaring ourselves with the thought
that-we-will_be
severely pun-
ished or indicating to the other that we are likely to back down if
countermoves are made. Only when we can deeply own our feeling
of anger and pinpoint as well its basis communicate
can we through
Weiras as
gent
statements
SaD SSA ("I” CL statements)
Hlateincats) what
W we wish to
commu-
nicate in such a way as to maintaincontact with that other and with
the° goal toward which we are moving. This mayalso take support
from others, and it can use a strong-and clear presentation. A wise
piece_of advice from Hendrie _Weisinger about communicating
anger:

"When you direct your anger, make sure your voice level is nottoo loud and
thal
.thave’gaad
you cys epotac." nn

Weisinger also has lively advice on handling the responses to


one's anger from its target. He names a series of"blocking gambits"
that people use in response to anger — laughing it off, the put-off
(‘I'll talk about it later” or "Sue me"), retaliation ("T'll get back at
you even worse”), threats to do other unpleasant. things, denial of
having done_what-has- made-one_angry, guilt ("with tears and the
message that you are being mean and cruel", as Weisinger notes),
squabbling (or trying to, since this takes two), "Why?" (professing
not toUnderstand why one is frustrated and angry). Similarly, he
e |these gambits — "playing it again,” pro-
names ways to Overcome
cessing (talking about what is going on between you), hedging
178 Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

(appearing to give ground without actually doing so), defusing


(puting of ff further discussion until the other has-calmed down),
and cut-off (responding to the provocative statement with only a
short word and quickly getting back to
the point).2” The gambits
are means for the target to ignore the grounds for one's anger; the
counters to these are means for staying with one's anger and con-
cerns while staying in contact. For instance, if the target replies,
"You too!” one may "play it again" — reiterate one's initial angry
statement — or refuse to squabble by saying "WhetherI alsodo
that or not, this time you did it and I don't like it." One thing that is
needed here, obviously, is t rd enough oneself to maintain
tenaciously the-contact-with-the_angry-making other_and to remave
any and all frustrating
blocks he-or she may-erect.
Persons who-have-mastered-all-the steps that make for produc-
tive anger are more_able to pursue goals in determined
a wayand
more likely-to-achieve them. As part of this, they are better able to
take care of themselves,toprotect self-esteem,to assert their own
value, to defend their rights. Productive anger isa force for deep-
ened-and committed effort in the face of challenge from the out-
side.
\Groups which are_useful-in-endeavors to make awares individu-
als’ tendencies to demand_confluence, introject, or project are
groups which become able to manage internal angry encounters.
is_ability is very important for these groups when they are en-
gaged in efforts for social change. The frequent angry disagree-
ments
that characterize social-action groups are staging areas, as it
were, for_encounters with those who are not of the ingroup. To
foster the expression of
angry differences between members while
stillkeeping them incontact with one éanother and with the overar-
ching
purposes
of the group is thus_a
opportunity
major as well as
challenge-for the group.
How does a_union,_say, foster_differenc
and controversy
e and
give voice to_the_minority_while_keeping-a-sense_of solidarity?
When practices do not foster fusion, introjection, and projection,
such conflict is welcomed and handled adequately, including the
expression and management of anger. This puts the union mem-
Recovering and Reorganizing Anger 179

bers in contact with reality and each other and strengthens | their
=. oonr-—-—“— =

identity as union members — the opposite oftthe situationinmany


unions, where the union bosses "do it all" and so drive the workers
ee

away from. each other. Thus there isaafertile field ofof social-change
s

possibility in the reintroduction of emotionality | into the


heork
of ongoing groups, including emotions of great intensity such
anger and anxiety.
I have been describing here the happy side of anger, the side
which self-definition-and,-often,
is productive of of-a-bonding be-
tween the angry person and others who are the object of the anger.
I might summarize the ingredients of such useful and satisfying
anger as
follows. The angry person will be able to say:

"It
!who
is am angry.
"IBee
am angry
ee for
or me
aie and
ae may needs. My desires are important.

"Yet I am not trying to force change, to dominate those who


are the targets of my anger. Mywants are not more impor-
tant to them than their own.
Rather, I hope to bond in-mutuality-with an-equal_if the other
is
$willing, once having been informed of my-desires; or I will
take
cel care of myself if the other isunwilling.

"Lam anagent ofmylife."


When a person has become able to be angry-in productive fash-
ion, the emotion nextin line _person_is-anxiety, this time a
otential forspontaneity and excitement ifit

of children who have notbeen hurt too much — children in whom


we see excitement, joy and wonder, curiosity, and readiness for
challenge and active engagement with others. Thisrag is close
ry aa : , es
Ct a ee

rr fs PKG reybet
a4, opie pied. oy
: na
en

styJ na ei PAAR 3, ok“ange


ie
so \dibathxs Ad
i
ie ee alia Mike de 4

oy ape all Traminatingafore


Permy 58 WED Save Tater te
Vint aa EO eS: ade ts) see we Fish Oh
rae likeime~aohig Pte uate 26 part of-cims, ney BeeRocrer able. fr
hd Syedind Wann: gerne a O? Shi ton eee 3bseg
eisnliaxhaidars aes ari
; el
:an¢ Gane (aa a (hetaee
| a 7 —

retest Phun diprriettn 2) AQad 45305


Giw Lig anatoebaun dobeee mabnad
ees OGty
PHU which meobtillegol
e sedig sf aas
7 _e vi ve bi) Re AGS 1g
igh
it a)

ane iw ¢iorts tor sx jalanes. . AT

3
~ tet:
orbeltsie
aie SO
mesa
8 OBE
ar Dee PAK ee ug set auieg
1 aR
wt)siNeaeeMO oR a
AC tai oe yy a0
CE IME bow:ae 9
v4? Shige 36,408, Sivio ¢

‘hict is Se r4
aa

spreaion and mu coger et §


¥ Pee)
Chapter 15

On Anxiously Acting Assertively

Most discussions of anxiety in the clinical literature are of neuro-


sis, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, or anxiety as emotion so dis-
tressing that the person develops symptoms such as obsessions,
conversion reactions like tics, or delusions to make it disappear. In
everyday life also, people tend to see anxiety as all negative, an atti-
tude consistent with the uncomfortable feeling they have when
they are anxious. To counter this slant toward seeing anxiety as an
emotion not to be welcomed, I want to strongly affirm that experi-
encing anxiety can also be a positive matter and indeed that the
ability to experience and tolerate anxiety is a sign of healthy per-
sonal functioning.
It is not posing a new idea to say this. It is a basic idea in most
psychotherapies. For instance, the psychoanalyst Elizabeth Zetzel
has argued that such an ability is critical to the success of psycho-
analytic treatment in achieving psychological health:

"If anxiety .. . is defined as the response to an internal danger situation, the


capacity to develop and tolerate anxiety, associated as it must always be with
an unconscious conflict, is very closely related to the capacity to recognize
and tolerate the instinctual conflicts and tension that constitute the internal
danger situation that threatens. The more. . . an individual has been able in
an internal, unconsciously produced danger situation to develop and tolerate
anxiety as such, the more one finds in analysis that he is capable of facing and
resolving the conflict that determined it. Conversely, the more the individual
has tended to defend himself against anxiety, by the development of hysteri-
cal symptoms, severe psychosomatic symptoms, by the omnipotent denial of
danger . . . the less will he be capable of tolerating insight . . . . 1would like to
suggest that . . . this capacity of achieving pnd tolerating the anxiety
associated with insight is of decisive importance.”
182 On Anxiously Acting Assertively

Outside therapy also, the ability to experience and tolerate anxiety


— that ability to take into awareness and stay with the discomfort-
ing feeling that is anxiety until it dissipates naturally — is a sign of
health. The reason here is that with it a person can become and
remain conscious of a danger that his or her needs will not be met
or of a sharp challenge in the environment which must be engaged.
This important aspect of anxiety is its so-called "signal function,"
which alerts the person and enables him or her to regulate actions
so as to avoid frustration or pain or, better, achieve satisfaction in
the presence of danger or challenge. Here, then, is one broadly
applicable way of construing anxiety as a plus.
In considering hypnosis and anxiety, Brown and Fromm contrast
the normal and pathological aspects of anxiety. (I would substitute
for "normal" and "pathological" the notion of "manageable" and
"unmanageable.") They have written:

"The normally anxious person experiences optimal tension and prepares for
the challenge of learning. The pathologically anxious patient is overcome by
a debilitating anxiety state he is unable to master. These anxiety states are of-
ten attack-like in nature. The normally anxious person experiences an in-
creased arousal appropriate to the situation, such as an examination or be-
fore an operation. The pathologically anxious person usually does not know
the source of his anxiety, or if he believes he knows the cause consciously, his
perception is often incorrect. |pecause the source is unclear, anxiety is ac-
companied by excessive worry.
Zetzel* similarly distinguishes between what she has called anxiety
reactions approaching traumatic experience and anxiety reactions
that indicate initial active mastery based on toleration of this
painful affect.
Another approach to a positive perspective on anxiety comes
from Gestalt therapy theory. In this theory, anxiety is described as
the experience of having difficulty breathing during that height-
ened energy mobilization which is called “excitement.” Anxiety
arises whenever that excitement is blocked. In reckoning with
anxiety as an outcome of the blocked excitement, we may read that
phrase (following Kenneth Burke's "dramatistic" method of dialec-
tical analysis)° both as "blocked excitement," with an emphasis on
the negative, and as "blocked excitement,” with an emphasis on the
On Anxiously Acting Assertively 183

positive. In the Gestalt therapy view a person who is anxious can


be seen as blocking excitement, stopping himself or herself from
being excited, negating or limiting his or her spontaneous being in
the world, and the person can be seen as just about ready to be
fully excited — scared, hesitant, apprehensive, but blocking "in the
presence of excitement.” In the latter, positive view of anxiety, the
person is on the verge of discovering his or her needs, of creatively
adjusting in the world by aggressively approaching objects, and of
doing so with a mixture of confidence and diffidence. Again from
Perls:

"And when it comes to the moment of performance, and you're not sure
whether your performance will be well received, then you get stage fright.
This stage fright has been given by psychiatry the name ‘armety.'"

Along the line I am following, practitioners of the Japanese psy-


chotherapy called Morita therapy also construe anxiety in a posi- _
tive mode, as F. Ishu Ishiyama’ has written. Rather than help ner-
vous clients who resent and fight the anxious part of themselves to
eliminate or control their anxiety, a Morita therapist encourages
them to view their anxiety as in indication of strong desires — for
social success, for example, or for a productive pattern of living. A
Morita therapist is inclined to tell clients who are unusually anxious
that this is because their desire for life is unusually strong.
Ishiyama sees anxiety as positive in that it is a cue for action aimed
at satisfying this desire, rather than something to be fought or fled
from. In my framework anxiety can be interpreted similarly: if the
negative side of anxiety is being caught off guard and overwhelmed
or confused by social reactions to one's desires — as the playful
child experiences in the case of molestation, for instance — the
positive side is the recovery of familiarity with one's desires and the
urge to try to satisfy them directly in social encounter, even to the
point of asserting them anxiously and angrily risking controversial
actions in their service. And of course, since the other person or
persons in a relation also have needs, there is always some threat
that one's desires will not be met no matter what one does; hence
more anxious feeling.
184 On Anxiously Acting Assertively

Ishiyama presents also an important factor to be remembered by


social-change activists when anxiety makes its appearance in the
awareness of individuals who are moving toward their own goals.
The aim of the positive interpretation of anxious feeling is to help
the client stop rejecting self and stop being preoccupied with con-
trol of the anxiety. Like any emotion, anxiety is something that
happens to one and should be accepted, lived with, and allowed to
run its course as part of the person's experience. It is inappropriate
for clients to view their anxiety as something they should control as
soon and as much as possible. Better that they should be with their
anxiety, acknowledging its presence, utilizing its alerting function,
living through its tension.
When persons no longer control their anxiety, but instead expe-
rience it and attend to it, they are likely to come upon products of
earlier identifications. This is more likely, and done more easily,
when they have discovered their ways of introjecting and are no
longer so blatantly doing so. As Perls et al. argue:

",. . anxiety is roused when the voice one hears is not, after all, one's own
voice, but the other speakers one has introjected: it is mother or father com-
plaining, shouting, or being fair. This is again . . . the situation of self-con-
quest; and one is anxious because one ‘geain throttles, at the present moment,
one's true identity, appetite and voice.

In the context of social action, the voices one hears within may be
the voices not only of mother or father but also the voices of other
authorities. If at this point one is ready to challenge these authori-
ties in moving to accomplish one's goals, the self-conquest is short-
lived. Further, if a person then manages the anxiety well, he or she
is likely to discover more precisely the desires that are active
within. In general, these desires are what the voices are opposing.
One's excitement has caused the voices to say, "You mustn't,” even
before one sees clearly what is desired. If one accepts the anxious
feeling the voices bring and is able to explore and hold on to it as
long as it lasts, one will be likely also to find the side of this feeling
that is desire. A person can then ask what he or she needs at this
On Anxiously Acting Assertively 185

moment and what must be done to get it. Perls et al. provide elabo-
ration of this theme:

"The cure of anxiety is necessarily indirect. One must find out what excite-
ments one cannot at present accept as one's own. Since they arise spontane-
Ously, they must be related to genuine needs of the organism. . . . the cure of
anxiety is roundabout, involving awareness of what the excitement would ex-
press and overcoming the resistances to accepting this as one's own... ."

Staying with anxiety over time, rather than avoiding it, enables
the person to define more closely both the blocking forces — "Oh,
this is the voice of my father from long ago. I can choose whether
what it is saying is appropriate now" — and the desires that he or
she has been ready to block. Since the anxiety contains both sides
of the competing internal forces, prolonged experience of the anxi-
ety fosters awareness of both sides, and with awareness comes the
ability to choose which side will be dominant now.
I have been referring here to anxiety that is useful to the indi-
vidual and that is on the border of simple spontaneous excitement.
It is the anxious feeling experienced by persons who see themselves
as agents of their lives, not as driven by desires difficult to contain
or live out appropriately or controlled by social forces too strong to
master. To come to this kind of anxious condition, however, a per-
son must already have faced up to, and won out over, whatever
tendencies he or she has to fuse with others, to introject and to
project when threatened, and to muffle anger that is arising within;
and coming to such a victory itself involves anxiety. Thus the per-
son may already have had many occasions to experience and stay
with anxious feelings.
Consider, for example, the reowning of a projection, the learning
that something one has experienced as outside oneself is actually
related intimately to something within oneself. Sometime in the
past one projected, say, a desire or other affect associated with a
desire because it was too distressing to manage; and taking it back
again was anxious-making. Suppose a woman saw all men as
rapists. A woman who does this is doing some projecting in her ex-
aggeration. While all men do indeed have the capacity to commit
186 On Anxiously Acting Assertively

what is commonly thought of as rape, relatively few do. Whether


the woman was projecting around her aggressiveness, her sexual
impulses, her image of what it would be like to be a man herself, or
whatever, when she recognized that she had been projecting, she
again experienced feelings that were dangerous and too threaten-
ing to own. She became anxious. And the reowning of the projec-
tion depended upon her being able to hold on to the anxiety while
taking responsibility for her own feelings.
Now suppose this woman's dominant difficult feeling was desire
to be sexually aggressive herself. Having gone through the anxious
experience of getting over her projection will be a support when-
ever that desire later comes to the fore in her life, bringing a new
upsurge of anxiety and needing to be dealt with.
There can be a comparable kind of reinforcement in social-ac-
tion groups. Because the undoing of fusion, introjections, and
projections and the reorganizing of anger involves the successful
support of anxiety, when the anxiety that is close to spontaneity is
focal, social-action groups that work to help their members achieve
these changes have ways of helping them manage this anxiety too.
For any group to enable its members to attend to their projections,
for instance, the group must have found ways to contain the anx-
ious feelings that surface around projections and to permit them to
be felt individually and shared socially — healthy ways rather than
the pathologically divided sharing practices under which one or a
few members come to carry most or all of the anxiety in the group.
In the world of psychotherapy, whether we refer to psychoana-
lysts, Gestalt therapists, Morita therapists, behavior modification
therapists, or other therapists, the basis for the productive man-
agement of anxious and fearful feelings is support in the presence
of anxiety itself and whatever provokes it. Psychotherapy is built
upon the interplay of challenge, which evokes anxiety, and support,
which enables the individual to bear the anxiety directly. Behavior
therapists, for example, treat phobias by having clients combine
relaxation procedures with confrontations, either imagined or real,
with those animals, situations, or people that are frightening to
them. The relaxation procedures and the assistance of the thera-
On Anxiously Acting Assertively 187

pist contribute the support while the connection with the source is
evoking the fearful feeling. In psychoanalysis, patients free-associ-
ate in a manner such that they inevitably come upon ideas and
memories that are scary for them and that have led to repressions.
Again, the analyst, by his or her demeanor and presence and by in-
terpretations, provides support in the management of anxiety. In
Gestalt therapy the client is helped toward "safe emergencies," ei-
ther through direct here and now experiences with the therapist or
through so-called "experiments," in which the client is encouraged
to try to approach a lurking unfinished situation that is anxious-
making. The therapist might, for instance, ask a new client who
was speaking abstractly to, instead, simply say "what you are experi-
encing here now with me in this room,” sensing that this would
arouse some anxiety in this person; or a client with unfinished busi-
ness with his or her mother might be asked to "put your mother in
that empty chair" and first whisper and then shout at her about
their relationship, to experience it more richly.
Also, establishment of what is called a "therapeutic alliance" be-
tween therapist and client is a critical ingredient of all psycho-
logical therapy services. In this alliance the psychotherapist is sup-
portive by being nonjudgmental, trustworthy, willing to accept
thoughts and behaviors outside the social norms, and confidential.
These relationship factors are additional grounds of support for the
client entering anxious areas in search of therapeutic gain.
Those qualities of the psychotherapeutic relationship that facili-
tate therapeutic progress can be adopted in groups concerned with
transformative social change. For instance, a nonjudgmental atmo-
sphere can be created, a climate in which individual members can
feel accepted even in their eccentricities and inadequacies, when
they are anxious, when they are foolish, when they are doubting
and afraid as well as when they are effective and productive. Simi-
larly, members can be provided with graded challenges in which
they are pushed to act beyond what is very easy — for instance,
asked to themselves challenge authority figures they fear — but are
not pushed to levels where their anxiety will become too intense to
bear. Groups following this practice would have to differentiate
188 On Anxiously
Acting Assertively

among members in respect to how much they could carry — which


is, of course, a vital part of individualizing persons, of finding out
just who everyone is, for collective endeavor. Also, persons with
different temperaments have different ways of handling anxiety,
and this must be taken into account in differentiating among them.
But it is important that differences not be used to build power hi-
erarchies. In Chapter 3 I noted how stronger persons manipulate
the anxiety of weaker ones in the early stages of projection upon a
primed vulnerable other. Groups need to be alert to this propen-
sity and actively protect themselves against it.
On a simpler scale, groups can set out to make it acceptable and
indeed easy for members to acknowledge feeling anxiety so that
the group can give support to anxious persons. Many political
groups are unconscious of the emotional currents running through
them, especially those which are uncomfortable, and the norm is
more often to disguise and hide one's fears, anxieties, and sad-
nesses than to stay with them and accept them while they run their
course.
Groups can provide symbols of support for a person to hold on
to during times of anxious stress. One therapist I know collects
pebbles from ocean beaches, shines them, and then offers them to
clients who are facing an anxious-making event. It is a sign of his
concern and support, he says, and the clients can remember his
caring and in stressful moments can ground themselves by holding
the stones, feeling their contours, turning them over in their hands.
In some cultures worry beads are used to similar purpose. In this
country the making of the huge quilt dedicated to people who have
died of AIDS has been giving emotional support to their bereaved
ones. Not only objects, but songs and rallying cries can be used to
acknowledge anxiety and support individuals in managing the emo-
tional storm.
Important also is se/f-support in the handling of anxiety — taking
care of oneself in ways that allow one to experience anxiety while
still engaging in the tasks and activities that foster the fearful
concern. Sometimes self-support is created by withdrawal. For in-
stance, a woman goes into her own world to comfort herself. She
On Anxiously Acting Assertively 189

may have a favorite place or situation that she can remember with
calmness and pleasure, and withdraw into imagining it. Or she may
meditate, do Yoga, or play a favorite game in preparation for stay-
ing with the anxiety in the task at hand. Or she may simply pay at-
tention to how grounded she is when she is actively engaged —
sense the stability of her body, her legs holding her up, the strength
of her back, the clarity of her vision, the acuteness of her hearing.
She may ask others around for their support directly. (We some-
times forget that we can be self-supportive by asking for what we
need from others.) She may actively welcome anxiety and look for
desires hidden there. She may breathe deeply and well, remem-
bering to exhale fully as well as inhale fully, to create a rhythm to
her breathing that feels good, to sense her intake of fresh air and
that air's supportive properties.
A simple, useful, and popular approach to self-support is Her-
bert Benson's!° "relaxation response." He suggests that a person
choose a favorite word or phrase that carries his basic belief
system, whether religious or nonreligious, like "The Lord is my
shepherd" or "Peace." In a comfortable position, with eyes closed,
the person is to relax his muscles, starting from the feet and
proceeding upwards. When he gets to his neck and head, he rolls
them slightly to loosen and relax the muscles there. Also, as he
relaxes muscles upwards, he attends to his breathing, breathes
quietly and slowly, and begins to repeat silently the word or phrase
from his belief system. He then says this word or phrase when
breathing out, thus ensuring full exhaling. Most people have a bias
toward inhaling more fully than they exhale, and so they
accumulate more carbon dioxide than is healthy. This is a key
factor in the relaxation response: more relaxation comes when one
breathes out fully and keeps in less carbon dioxide. Also, it is
crucial to the relaxation response to keep a basically passive
attitude when ideas and concerns intrude upon experience, dealing
with them, if at all, in a casual and unhurried way. Otherwise one
starts thinking about them and stress enters in.
Persons who practice the relaxation response will be able to use
it as a means of self-support during periods when they are engaged
190 On Anxiously Acting Assertively

in stressful encounters. Practiced in moments of respite from


these, it will enable them to stay in contact with themselves and see
more clearly what others are doing. They will then be less likely to
introject elements of encounters or otherwise distort their own ex-
perience. They will also have more of the support that healthy
breathing, our primary active contact with the outside, gives us.
Laughter depends upon abrupt exhalation and is a release that is
commonly used, sometimes with awareness though more often not,
to overcome anxiety. Freud's theory of jokes! can be interpreted
as essentially saying that humor itself, partly through the breathing
patterns it evokes, releases us from the blocking of excitement.
Crying, especially full wailing and sobbing, quickens breathing and
forces exhalation. Humor and laughing and crying belong in the
repertoire of the individual as well as in the norms of the group if
anxiety is to be nurtured into spontaneous living. Social change
depends upon living intensely during struggle, and part of the in-
tensity lies in the fun and the sadness that are inevitably encoun-
tered. Particularly, too many socially oriented groups are too seri-
ous too much of the time. A fine lesson from psychotherapy is that
being able to deal with profound and scary issues in life depends on
also having happy times in the work that is done.
When individuals and groups are able to anxiously act as-
sertively, they are in the realm of spontaneity and unwilling to ac-
cede to the constraints and bargains that constitute the clinch of
oppression. They are living out their own lives, agents of their be-
ing, more masters of their existence than before. They are on their
way. They are vulnerable as well as strong, influenced as well as in-
fluential, full of initiative as well as reactivity, joyful and sad, uncer-
tain and committed.
And now, I must begin to bring this essay to its culmination by
turning to the question of who takes charge of social transforma-
tion — the oppressed, the oppressors, or both in combination?
Chapter 16

Who Wants Social Change, Who Starts


It, Who Supports It?

A common view holds that change in an oppressive social rela-


tionship or social system is desired by the oppressed, the underside,
the underclasses, the weak; and correlatively, change is resisted by
the oppressors, those who are on top, who are privileged, who are
the strong. The argument is often made, also, that it is the weak,
never the strong, who start revolutions and who support them. Ob-
viously, say many who hold this view, those on the upper side of the
relationship gain the benefits of the system as it exists more than
do those on the underside and all follows from this evident reality.
But in fact, as I noted in Chapter 5, both the oppressors and the
oppressed are reluctant to change the social structures that exist.
They create the social structures and relationships that are oppres-
sive together, are fused in them, and depend on them to contain a
good deal of destructiveness and even violence that their very cre-
ation builds up. Thus the common view presented above may be
called into question. At the very least, matters aren't as simple as
that, and never have been, so that some radical thinkers from Marx
onwards who accepted this view have been confounded by the
"false consciousness" of the oppressed that keeps them from readily
becoming revolutionary.
Let me pose some related considerations about the situation and
reactions of the well-off which come from the line of thought I
have been developing. To begin with, if the rich are doing so well,
why aren't they happy? Why is there so much alcoholism among
the power elite, so much drivenness, so much attachment to
192 Who Wants Social Change, Starts It, Supports It?

nonessentials, like "pinstripes on one’s Mercedes,” as a Phila-


delphia lawyer once put it? The answer, in my view, is that in an
oppressive system in which the strong and the weak are fused,
there is systematic oppression of those at the top too, not only
those at the bottom, and as a group those at the top also are
miserable, to which they react by still trying to get all the
satisfactions the system seems to offer them.
Most well-off people look all right until one is privileged to hear
how they experience their lives. Most society matrons' marriages
seem reasonably good until one hears details. Most high bosses
and executives look as if they prospered from the system that has
elevated them until one closely scrutinizes their everyday lives and
sees their conformism. Most men in sexist relationships seem
pleased with their dominance until one looks at the sadness in their
eyes and the way they carry their bodies around. These are all
people with whom matters are not what they seem on superficial
observation, indeed are often the very opposite of what appears on
the surface.
By why is a close look needed? If being the strong in an ex-
ploitative relation is not wonderful, why don't we all see that easily?
The projections of those who are not on top are operative in the
illusion that an oppressive system can work well for the strong: "If
I were in that position, I'd be fine!" Another factor is the force be-
hind the projections of the strong. After all, they achieve strength
dramatically through their projections — of their rage, their anxi-
ety, their unacceptable desires, whatever difficult emotional expe-
riences they have — which are introjected by the weak. In pro-
jecting, they are indicating that they are intolerant of dealing inter-
nally with, and of taking responsibility for, their social-emotional
processes. The maintenance of their projections depends upon
their keeping others from facing them with the need to own these
processes that are so difficult for them. They become successful at
keeping any diagnostic assessment of their functioning quite at a
distance. Not diagnosed, they are available for being idealized, and
beliefs in their happiness reside in the idealizations.
Who Wants Social Change, Starts It, Supports It? 193

So far there are no clear signs here of those on top wanting so-
cial change. But certainly some and possibly many powerful per-
sons, overwhelmed by failures of the system that they presumably
control, passively or directly reveal either an unwillingness to carry
On business as usual or helplessness, weakness, and inability to run
things. Either kind of withdrawal from responsibility and domi-
nance may be a significant factor in encouraging the weak to orga-
nize and assert their desires and demands. It may very well be that
revolutions do not arise except when those in power somehow
communicate their unwillingness or inability to carry on the way
they have done in the past. Barbara Ehrenreich! has written a
book presenting the thesis that the feminist movement arose after
men in great numbers had begun to tire of the demands to be re-
sponsible and dominant that were placed upon them in a sexist so-
ciety and had begun to withdraw from fulfilling these demands,
which were oppressing them as persons. In the Great Depression
of the 1930s, the rise of social legislation may have been correlated
with the demoralization of the powerful men in industry. A hint of
such a process is contained in the story of John L. Lewis and the
Chrysler Corporation negotiations. The Gorbachev era in the So-
viet Union may importantly represent withdrawal from a position
of power of a top faction of national leaders unwilling to continue
supervising exploitative political and social relations — a historic
event that might lead thinkers to consider more seriously the possi-
bility that many on top are not happy to stick with things the way
they are as long as they themselves remain where they are.
At any rate, withdrawal of the powerful in an oppressive system
from the processes of domination is a step that destroys the fusion
between the strong and the weak. It is a beginning to claim oneself
as an agent rather than as a functionary in the system, even if a
highly placed and seemingly favored functionary. But it is not
enough of a step to enable the strong to participate fully in undo-
ing the clinch of oppression. For this they need to withdraw from
being oppressors and to undo their projections. By reowning and
resolving their guilt and their self-hatred, their rage and anxiety,
their mistrust and prejudice, the powerful may become more real
194 Who Wants Social Change, Starts It, Supports It?

and more realistic and break apart the chains of their old distorted
human relations. Then they will be free, if they wish, to leave the
particular oppressive scene they have been in or to stay in the
scene and help make it free, probably taking part in it more quietly
now, since they will be more involved with their own responsibili-
ties and less with others’. (Incidentally, I would urge historians, po-
litical theorists, and social activists to make sure they know what
the undoing of projections looks like and to spotlight its happen-
ing, as it surely will, whenever strong movements to change social
systems are under way, because people don't often have a chance
to observe someone undergoing it and learn what is happening.)
For those on top to make the fullest possible movement toward
a democratic and equalitarian social order, then, they must ac-
knowledge their discontent, withdraw from the processes of domi-
nation, and undo their projections. For those who occupy the weak
positions in such social relations to make the same kind of move-
ment, there are complementary tasks that are at least as formidable
— a fact that in itself suggests that the numbers of oppressed and
oppressors who are ready for social change to end oppression may
not be so very different. And indeed one of these tasks of the weak
is to discover the ways in which they derive satisfactions from the
status quo and so take part in the maintenance of what is. Even
the most oppressed hold on to the way things are not only because
of the danger of change but also because they have found methods
for getting some of their needs met. And they need to become
aware of this to become able to withdraw from the fusion that
holds the oppression in place.
Another task of the weak is to become aware of their power —
the power of their intelligence, of the work they do, of all they cre-
ate in society, of their being essential there. The dialectic of power
and weakness, in which we see that we are sometimes forceful,
sometimes vulnerable, and that in the best of circumstances and in
the worst these are intertwined, must be seen by the weak as they
come to terms with their own strengths. Only when they acknowl-
edge their own great power and influence can the weak take
responsibility for their lives rather than allocate it to others who
Who Wants Social Change, Starts It, Supports It? 195

become strong, sometimes on their behalf, always in their stead.


Taking responsibility, the weak can become agents, not superre-
sponsible but not regularly divesting themselves of their power as
they manipulate and connive in oppressive relationships.
A third task has the first two parts of undoing introjecting pat-
terns. First, the weak need to stop introjecting in the here and
now. Second, they need to extricate themselves from the powerful
influence of old introjects that they carry about within them —
standards and values they have taken in and regulated their lives by
that violate their very nature.
On the surface there seems nothing in these complementary
human processes that suggests that the weak are the ones, or even
the prime ones, who desire and initiate social change to end op-
pression. Yet if we look closely, there is something here that must
lead many people to believe the weak are in fact the ones who do
these things — something more tangible than the idea that those
without benefits are the logical ones to do them.
This vital source of the popular conviction, I believe, is the fol-
lowing: In introjecting, a person takes on more than she or he can
shoulder; in projecting, a person tries to shed responsibility. The
weak internalize social conflict and try to solve it within their psy-
chic economies, while the strong externalize the conflict and try to
solve it in social relations. When the weak give up their self-con-
quest, they reopen the conflict in the social relations; that is, they
put it back where it began. When the strong stop divesting them-
selves of responsibility, they take it back inside and relieve the so-
cial relation of its burden. The open conflict out there in the light
of day is conspicuous, the responsibility taken back is not.
Of course, in all contacts both the internal psyche and the social
relation are involved, but the emphasis shifts when either an intro-
jection or a projection is being undone. Women who have intro-
jected from childhood and made themselves weak give up self-
blame and demand more for themselves in social relations when
they start to battle sexism. Racial and ethnic minorities who have
degraded and diminished themselves by self-conquest stop this
when they turn their efforts toward rectifying the social policies
196 Who Wants Social Change, Starts It, Supports It?

and practices that have meant their occupation of the weak roles in
society. Conversely, the powerful give up the regulation of social
interactions as they undo their projections, and center upon the
experience and expression of feelings and purposes they have
avoided, such as yeoman work in social service or costly private
philanthropy out of direct strong feeling for people, or serious am-
ateur painting or furniture making. And these different emphases
give rise to the appearance not only that the weak initiate social
change but also that they benefit more than the strong from the
overcoming of exploitative relationships.
In the matter of benefit, the underlying reality, I believe, is that
the persons on both sides gain equally as human beings. Whether
the oppressed are in fact the initiators of social change remains un-
clear in that they may be reacting to a withdrawal on the part of the
powerful. The undoing of the clinch of oppression is transactional,
just as the creation of oppression is transactional. But who takes
the first step is much less important than both sides’ then going on
to overcome domination and submission fully.
Who wants social change? Many people on both sides of the
fence, I believe. Who initiates it? Sometimes representatives of
the weak, sometimes people from the powerful side. Who sup-
ports it? Again, many on both sides of the fence. Then why isn't
there more social change? Because all these people also support
what is. We are all revolutionaries and all reactionaries, acting
sometimes more in one role, other times more in the other. We are
all spontaneous, because we cannot help having desires and being
aroused by attractive qualities in our environments. We are all also
ensnared in webs of fusion, having learned early on in life to give
up being agents, to project and introject, to quiet our rage and flee
our anxiety. The trick for those who want to be agents of social
change is to find that change side in many people, from many walks
of life and all social classes, and to bind together in common
purpose all who want to move toward a new world of equality.
The idea of the class struggle has narrowed our view of what is
possible, limited whom we see as allies and enemies, constricted
our vision of reality. The struggle, I believe, is less between classes,
Who Wants Social Change, Starts It, Supports It? 197

less between men and women, less between a white majority and
racial and ethnic minorities, than between those working back to-
ward their natural spontaneity and human concern and those
holding on to the delusion of fusion.
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Chapter 17

Is All This Practical?

When psychological issues surface in social relations and become


the focus of discussion, people tend to concentrate on the negative,
pathological factors in these issues rather than their positive, pro-
ductive sides, such as healthy possibilities in anger and anxiety.
Psychological issues are most often equated with the unusual, the
abnormal, and the irrational. And in line with this tendency, their
presence in social intercourse is treated as intrusive, as an unwel-
come itch. To talk of the psychology of experience while striving to
settle a social dispute, for instance, seems to many like ad hominem
behavior that is to be avoided at all costs.
A favorite example of this whole attitude comes from a class-
room project I have used. Students who work in human service
agencies are asked to study their superiors, not to judge their com-
petence, but from a personality point of view. The task for each
student is to choose one superior, whose identity is not to be re-
vealed, study this person, and write a paper on the results, answer-
ing questions such as these: What are this person's psychological
characteristics? What personal strengths and limitations does one
see in observing this person carefully in the work setting? For in-
stance, how does she show anger in staff meetings, or how does he
react to having a mistake he's made revealed? And finally, what
use might the student make of the observations made and insights
gained?
From the discomfort that the students display over this assign-
ment, an outside observer might think they had been asked to peek
and watch their parents having sexual intercourse. A majority of
the class say they don't want to do the assignment. I hear it is
200 Is All This Practical?

“inappropriate,” that they will be "violating" their superiors and


"belittling" them, that the papers will amount to "gossiping." I have
to insist mildly to get the students started. Then a few do a
straightforward, clear job, and none write anything belittling or
gossipy. But most don't write much, or they say superficial things,
or they write unclearly, or some combination of these. Then, when
finished, many report they didn't like doing this chore.
This does not seem a case of respecting or fearing authority fig-
ures. The exercise is set up so that the analyzed superior never has
to know about it, and many of the students in the class have said
they would not want to explore a friend's psychology this way ei-
ther, for the same reasons.
Given this kind of propensity for feeling that to explore others’
psychology is essentially to spy on them and devalue them, is there
any place for talking about our shared psychological trends in nor-
mal social endeavors, or does that kind of talk belong only in the
psychotherapist's office and in small groups that are organized pre-
cisely to talk about such matters?
The fact is that we already bring up psychology in daily discourse
about social and political life a great deal, as when someone says,
"He's crazy to believe he can lie to us over a long period of time,"
or "That's a paranoid thing for the chairman to do." Similarly, how
often have we heard statements like "She's out of her mind to think
we can get rid of war," or "That's emotional when we need a ratio-
nal perspective." This common way of talking, however, con-
tributes little to serious social endeavor. It doesn't help to resolve
differences, build unity, or facilitate democratic practices. Rather,
it does in fact devalue others. It does this by expressing disagree-
ment strongly but without serious intent to reach toward and con-
nect with the other about whom we are speaking. I believe that
such application of psychological considerations often derives from
a feeling of inferiority or helplessness, and that the person in-
dulging it is likely to be diminishing the other in an effort to appear
superior or to stand firm with the community against the perceived
weakness of the criticized other. In contrast, it seems to me that
only if the psychological is brought up in the service of loving, car-
Is All This Practical? 201

ing resolution of the social issue being engaged is it likely to be


useful.
The value of a caring use of psychological insights can be seen in
the context of counseling battered women. A victim of battering
often feels guilty, as if she had done something wrong, and differ-
ent helpers have different strategies for dealing with the guilt.
Some insist that we say firmly to the woman that she is a victim,
purely and simply, and has absolutely no reason to feel guilty. The
woman may accept this view overtly but continue to feel guilty and
act as if she did not believe in her innocence. A prime way of doing
this involves anger. A helper of a battered woman usually is angry
at what has happened to her and may still be happening, and wants
her to become at least as angry. Rarely does she do so, and mean-
while she cannot control her feeling of guilt, and it bewilders her.
It also bewilders her helper. The helper does not know why she
should feel guilty for being a victim. But just using common sense
and telling such a person her feeling is unnecessary seldom suc-
ceeds in freeing her of it.
Alternatively, a helper may explore with the woman what goes
on psychologically that may underlie such guilt. Now it emerges
that the woman believes that in some way she may have partici-
pated in her battering, by tolerating it, by feeling she deserved it, by
baiting her batterer, or by some other action that brought her into
collusion with the one who has hurt her. For a helper merely to
entertain that such participation by the woman is possible often
rouses in others the charge that the helper is "blaming the victim."
But the helper who tries to work through the guilt typically is trying
to blame no one, but rather to get to the bottom of what is causing
the guilty feeling so that it can be alleviated. And this kind of
helper, who works with the woman's role as maker of her own life
— for instance, with how staying with her batterer may be provoca-
tive — is, in my experience, more likely to succeed with the bat-
tered woman.
To say that any group of oppressed people participate in their
own oppression is to risk the same charge of blaming the victim. In
fact, I believe, if the speaker is an astute psychological observer, to
202 Is All This Practical?

speak this way usually reflects care for the oppressed. No matter:
for many, what he or she has said is easily disposed of by this criti-
cism. And the use of the accusation of blaming others, and thus
demeaning and hurting them, extends further, to many contexts
where psychology and social existence may be considered together.
Why is this so? What is it about an observer's noticing such psy-
chological happenings as people's fusing with those who hurt them
or those they hurt that merits attribution of a blaming and de-
meaning purpose? Why is it common for people to believe that
taking into consideration how another individual functions psy-
chologically, especially when the functioning is not what is conven-
tionally deemed to be rational, is unkind and hurtful? Why is in-
voking in social effort the understanding that leads to psychiatric
diagnosis considered to belittle people rather than show concernful
interest? Professionals in the human services as well as lay persons
treat the use of psychological insights in this negative fashion,
which suggests that doing it must have some deeper base than mere
ignorance. And anyone who wants to make psychological under-
standing useful in a social context needs to sort out what is behind
this readiness to see paying attention to the psychological as blam-
ing and diminishing. He or she also needs to understand the in-
tense feelings, especially wrath, that are sometimes aroused in dis-
cussions that bring the psychological to bear upon social struggle.
To begin an approach to an explanation, blaming, as we have
seen, is a prime action in the arena of projection, and acting ag-
gressively against blaming, as in attacking others for blaming the
victim, is itself blaming and is projection. To assert that I am
blaming the victim when I am seeing the participation of the victim
in his or her own oppression, if the accusation against me is hurled
like a thunderbolt rather than shared like a concernful insight, is to
blame me as a blamer. Projected material can sometimes be quite
true of the person projected on, and if I do in fact blame the victim
— have the attitude that the victim's troubles are the victim's fault
— I have no cause to complain. If my reference to the victim is not
a blaming but a caring one, however, I will be rightly pained by the
charge levied upon me that can clearly be construed as disguised
Is All This Practical? 203

projection. I know it is not I who think poorly of a person who is


trapped in a weak-strong power relationship and contributes to its
continuance. I feel wrongly heard, and sorely mistreated to be an-
grily accused of cruel insensitivity. My feeling is a reflection of my
resistance to this projection that is being foisted upon me, my un-
willingness to introject the accusation.
The projection in cries of "You're blaming the victim" seeks to
keep psychological issues from being material pertinent to the at-
tacker. As in all projecting that is unawares, the individual is im-
posing on the object of his or her concern something that is active
within. The one who doesn't want the helper of a battered woman
to get into dealing with her guilty feelings is not necessarily pro-
jecting a criticism of the battered woman, but something is aroused
in the objector that is not being fully owned and dealt with. Any-
one who has been attacked as blaming the victim when this has
been untrue will be able to testify about how fruitless it is to defend
oneseif rationally — a sure sign of the projecting process.
Some highly loaded words I have been using in discussing blam-
ing the victim — "attack," “accuse,” "charge,” "hurl like a thunder-
bolt" — are just as appropriate for the reactions I have sometimes
gotten when I have presented the ideas contained in this essay to
others for comment. From human service clinicians — persons who
work with abused and battered women, for example — I have re-
ceived understanding and recognition, while from social activists I
have elicited a very mixed response. Some respond with interest
and ready acceptance or thoughtfully critical remarks. Others
think that in even suggesting applying psychological considerations
to social struggle as I do, I am being unrealistic or foolish, as if this
couldn't be done well or wouldn't work, or diverting focus wrongly
from the struggle itself. And they become quite angry with me.
Their anger rouses my suspicion that I am in the presence of a
very profound internal state, that the angry person is trying to ward
off something by naysaying or challenging me. I think I know what
is being avoided by such intense reactions; it is the debilitating
feeling of hopelessness. Aaron Bender, metaphorically discussing
"transference, countertransference and resistance in the psychoan-
204 Is All This Practical?

alytic treatment of war," has made remarks that bear on my hy-


pothesis here:

"The countertransference feeling . . . in doing such therapy is one of hope-


lessness . .. . A therapist who would try to work with the illness of war must
be prepared to deal with lots of feelings of working with a hopelessly destruc-
tive patient and he must also be prepared to field many castrating remarks
from the intellectual community which would deny that war is at least partly
connected with irrational childhood conflict.”

I myself have experienced such hopelessness in preparing the


material in this text. Besides having learned anew how resistant
many people are to the use of psychological considerations in social
action, I have felt anew the despair of knowing that each effort to
do so is difficult and each individual gain miniscule. I too wish for
big changes which should occur quickly, rather than small, incre-
mental growth while individuals are in the process of becoming
agents in the making of their lives in society.
Those who oppose my kind of use of psychological understand-
ing in social action seem to me to operate under the banner of
keeping the community whole and unified and moving forward by
the sacrifice of individuality. To them, I believe, my approach
threatens a hopeless stop of that moving forward. One of the
things they often say is "We haven't got time for that approach;
we'd get nothing done." My response is that their alternative has
proven to be impractical. The attempt to avoid the psychological
leads to denial, via projection, of our human nature, which is all we
have to work with, and possibly to the misuse of psychology I de-
scribed early in this chapter.
But hopelessness is debilitating, so a first principle for the suc-
cessful use of psychological considerations in social struggle is that
they should be brought up not only in the service of loving, caring
resolution of social issues, as I said earlier, but also within a frame-
work of hopefulness.
Where will the hopefulness come from?
The strongest ground for hopefulness we who want to move in
this direction have, I believe, is the presence of our allies. As long
Is All This Practical? 205

as there are those who are willing, for instance, to push through the
resistance of colleagues and others to help an abused woman work
through her feelings of guilt, there is cause for hope that we can
have success in the enterprise this essay is about.
My answer, then, to the question of whether using psychological
considerations in efforts to undo the clinch of oppression is practi-
cal is a qualified yes. To be practical, the psychological considera-
tions must be applied for everyone involved, those who lead and
those who follow or stand to the side. They must be part of the on-
going concern with process in social struggle, sometimes figural or
central, more often a subsidiary concern. They must be used in a
supportive, not denigrating, way. And they must be embedded in
an atmosphere of hope, realistic hope, a sense that the struggle is
long and difficult but that it is possible to be successful in the long
run if we are active, with our allies, in the short run.
Is this program likely to be practical soon? Only rarely, I believe.
Two opposite forces — those of putting the community before the
individual and those of emphasizing the personal to the point of
excluding community endeavors — are entrenched in our custom-
ary ways of thinking and acting. We have believed for too long that
social welfare and individual welfare are competitive, not congru-
ent, to easily believe that they can be mixed together well. Fur-
thermore, both collective struggle and expansion of individual
awareness are scary endeavors, and we are resourceful in our hu-
man weakness at avoiding that which is frightening. But even as I
put forward this view here, I wonder if this too is a countertrans-
ference response of hopelessness. These ideas are practical in the
context of hope. This I believe from my clinical experience and
assessment of the social movements of the past. This I affirm
again.
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Notes

Chapter 1: A Beginning

. Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-


Rearing and the Roots of Violence. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, 1983.

. Lloyd deMause, Reagan's America. New York: Creative


Roots, Inc., 1984. See also his "The Making of a Fearful
Leader: "Where's the Rest of Me,’ " The Journal of Psy-
chohistory, 1984, 12(1), 5-21; "The Real Target Wasn't Ter-
rorism,” The Journal of Psychohistory, 1986, 13(4), 413-426;
and "Why Did Reagan Do it?" The Journal of Psychohistory,
1986, 14(2), 107-118.

. Andras Angyal, Neurosis and Treatment: A Holistic Theory.


Eugenia Hanfmann and Richard M. Jones, Editors. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965.

. John Macmurray, The Self as Agent. London: Faber and


Faber Limited, 1957.

Chapter 2: Identification with the Aggressor:


A Clinical Formulation

. Allan R. Buss, A Dialectical Psychology. New York: Irving-


ton, 1979. Page 56.

. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove


Press, 1963. Page 115.
208 Notes

Harold D. Lasswell, "Propaganda and Mass Insecurity." In:


Personality and Political Crisis. A H. Stanton and S. E. Perry,
Editors. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1951. Pages 19-22.

Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized. New York:


Orion, 1965. Page 53.

Sandor Ferenczi, "Confusion of Tongues between Adults and


the Child.” Paper read at the Twelfth International Psycho-
Analytical Congress, Wiesbaden, September 1932. In: Final
Contributions to the Problems and Methods of Psycho-Analy-
sis. New York: Basic Books, 1955. Pages 161-162.

Patricia Perri Rieker and Elaine [Hilberman] Carmen, "The


Victim to Patient Process: The Disconfirmation and Trans-
formation of Abuse.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry,
1986, 56(3), 360-370.

Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id. In: The Standard Edition
of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol-
ume XIX. James Strachey, Editor. London: Hogarth Press,
1961. Page 54.

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents. In: The


Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sig-
mund Freud, Volume XXI. James Strachey, Editor. London:
The Hogarth Press, 1961. Page 129.

Hellmuth Kaiser, Effective Psychotherapy: The Contribution


of Hellmuth Kaiser. Louis B. Fierman, Editor. New York:
Free Press, 1965. Page 113.

10. Cynthia A. Solin, "Displacement of Affect in Families fol-


lowing Incest Disclosure." American Journal of Orthopsychi-
atry, 1986, 56(4), 570-576.
Notes 209

11. Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman,


Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Per-
sonality. New York: Julian Press, 1951. Page 363.

Chapter 3: Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other:


A Clinical Formulation

. Carl G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. New


York: Meridian Books, 1956. Page 160.

. Hellmuth Kaiser, Effective Psychotherapy: The Contribution


of Hellmuth Kaiser. Louis B. Fierman, Editor. New York:
Free Press, 1965. Page 115.

. Peter Marris, "The Social Impact of Stress." In: Mental


Health and the Economy. Louis A. Ferman and Jeanne P.
Gordus, Editors. Kalamazoo, MI: W. E. Upjohn Institute for
Employment Research, 1979. Page 311.

Chapter 4: Empowering and Disempowering Reciprocally

1. I refer to the senses of powerlessness and of powerfulness to


indicate that a distorted, excessive belief about how weak or
strong one is underlies identification and projection pro-
cesses. I also seek to account adequately to real power dif-
ferentials characterizing the weak and the strong.

Hellmuth Kaiser, Effective Psychotherapy: The Contribution


of Hellmuth Kaiser. Louis B. Fierman, Editor. New York:
Free Press, 1965. Page 115. Norman F. Dixon also describes
this well in his On the Psychology of Military Incompetence.
New York: Basic Books, 1976.

Harriet Goldhor Lerner, The Dance of Anger. New York:


Harper & Row, 1985. Page 33.
210 Notes

. Erving Polster and Miriam Polster, Gestalt Therapy Inte-


grated. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1973. Pages 93-94.

. Erich Fromm, Man for Himself. New York: Rinehart and


Company, 1947. Page 155.

Philip Lichtenberg, "On Responsibility." In: Getting Even:


The Equalizing Law of Relationship. Lanham, MD: Univer-
sity Press of America, 1988. Pages 59-76.

Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self. New York: Interna-


tional Universities Press, 1971. Page 91.

Elizabeth Janeway, Powers of the Weak. New York: Alfred


A. Knopf, 1980. Especially Chapter 8.

T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson,


and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality. New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1950. Chapter VI.

10. Vamik D. Volkan, Cyprus — War and Adaptation. Char-


lottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1979. Pages 70-
74.

Chapter 5: Some Qualities When People Fuse

Erich Fromm, Man for Himself. New York: Rinehart and


Company, 1947.

Abraham Maslow, "The Authoritarian Character Structure."


The Journal of Social Psychology, 1943, 18, 401-411.

T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson,


and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality. New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.
Notes 211

James Mark Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations in


Mental Development. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1902. Pages 24-25.

Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized. New York:


Orion, 1965.

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove


Press, 1963.

William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs, Black Rage. New


York: Basic Books, 1980.

T. W. Adorno et al., op. cit. Page 463.

T. W. Adorno et al., op. cit. Page 463.

Chapter 6: Self as Agent, Self as Agency: A General Statement

1. Philip Lichtenberg, Psychoanalysis: Radical and Conserva-


tive. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1969, and
Getting Even: The Equalizing Law of Relationship. Lanham,
MD: University Press of America, 1988.

Chapter 7: Cautions on Taking Psychological Ideas Into a


Social-Action Arena

1. Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacher, The Individ-


ual Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Basic Books,
1956. Especially Chapters 17, 18, and 19.

Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism. New York:


Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970.

Bertha Capen Reynolds, Social Work and Social Living. New


York: Citadel, 1951.
212 Notes

William R. Beardslee, The Way Out Must Lead In: Life


Histories in the Civil Rights Movement. Atlanta, GA: Emory
University Center for Research in Social Change, 1977.

Chapter 8: The Angry Weak and the Angry Powerful

Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert, quoted in pamphlet with the


record Lifeline. Oakland, CA: Redwood Records, 1983.
Number RR404.

Alan R. Buss,A Dialectical Psychology. New York: Irvington


Publishers, 1979. Page 56.

Kay Lehman Schlozman and Sidney Verba, Injury to Insult:


Unemployment, Class and Political Response. Cambridge,
MA.: Harvard University Press, 1979. Page 194.

John H. Garraty, Unemployment in History. New York:


Harper & Row, 1978. Page 185.

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove


Press, 1963. Pages 73-74.

Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the


Ego. In: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII, James Strachey, Edi-
tor. London: Hogarth Press, 1955. Page 10S ff.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, Mind and Politics. Berkeley, CA:


University of California Press, 1972. Page 126ff. —

Wilhelm Reich, Sex-Pol: Essays 1929-1934. New York: Vin-


tage, 1972.

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class. New


York: Viking Penguin, 1987. Page 246ff.
Notes 213

Chapter 9: Intense Social Emotions Are Key

. Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman,


Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Per-
sonality. New York: Julian Press, 1951. Page 203.

. Marshall H. Klaus, Treville Leger, and Mary Anne Trause,


Editors, Maternal Attachment and Mothering Disorders. Pis-
cataway, NJ: Johnson & Johnson Baby Products Company,
1975. Page 23.

. Jack Belden, China Shakes the World. New York: Monthly


Review Press, 1970. Page 275ff.

. Gayle Graham Yates, What Women Want: The Ideas of the


Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Page 99.

. Wilfred R. Bion, Attention and Interpretation: A Scientific


Approach to Insight in Psycho-Analysis and Groups. New
York: Basic Books, 1970.

. William R. Beardslee, The Way Out Must Lead In: Life


Histories in the Civil Rights Movement. Atlanta, GA: Emory
University Center for Research in Social Change, 1977. Page
59.

. Ibid. Page 153.

. Andras Angyal, Neurosis and Treatment: A Holistic Theory.


Eugenia Hanfman and Richard M. Jones, Editors. New
York: Viking, 1973. Page 234.

. Elizabeth Janeway, Powers of the Weak. New York: Alfred


A. Knopf, 1980. Page 167.
214 Notes

10. Philip Lichtenberg and Jeanne C. Pollock, "Responsibility as


a Personality Characteristic." A.M.A. Archives of General Psy-
chiatry. 1967, 17, 169-175.

11. Philip Hallie, Cruelty. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University


Press, 1982. Page 83.

12. Ana Julia Cienfuegos and Christina Monelli, "The Testimony


of Political Repression as a Therapeutic Instrument." The
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1983, 53, 43-51.

Chapter 11: Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion

. Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman,


Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Per-
sonality. New York: Julian Press, 1951. Pages 121-122.

. D. W. Winnicott, The Maturational Processes and the Facili-


tating Environment. New York: International Universities
Press, 1965. Pages 43-46.

. Cheryl Hyde, "Experiences of Women Activists: Implications |


for Community Organizing Theory and Practice." Journal of
Sociology and Social Welfare, 1986, XIII(3), 545-562. Quota-
tion on page 554.
|

. Donna Warnock, "Mobilizing Emotions: Organizing the


Women's Pentagon Action." Interview by Annie Popkin and
Gary Delgado. Socialist Review, 1982, 12(3/4), 37-47. ;

. Donald R. Catherall, "The Support System and Amelioration |


of PTSD in Vietnam Veterans." Psychotherapy: Theory/Re-
search/Practice/Training, 1986, 23(3), 472-482. :

. Irving D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psy- |


chotherapy, 3rd Edition. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
Pages 143 and 145.
Notes 20

. Hellmuth Kaiser, Effective Psychotherapy: The Contribution


of Hellmuth Kaiser, Louis B. Fierman, Editor. New York:
Free Press, 1965. Pages 133-134. .

. Erving Polster and Miriam Polster, Gestalt Therapy Inte-


grated. New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers, 1973. Pages
95-97.

. Hellmuth Kaiser, op. cit. Page 154.

Chapter 12: Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications

. Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class. New


York: Viking Penguin, 1987.

. Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the


Ego. In: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII. James Strachey,
Editor. London: Hogarth Press, 1955.

. Ibid. Page 105ff.

. E. Y. Harburg, Rhymes for the Irreverent. New York: Gross-


man Publishers, 1965. Page 43.

. Anton Makarenko, The Road to Life: An Epic in Education.


New York: Oriole Editions, 1973.

. Steve Burghardt, The Other Side of Organizing. Cambridge,


MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1982. Page 180.

Chapter 13: Discovering and Undoing Projections

. Erving Polster and Miriam Polster, lecture notes, March 8,


1982.
216 Notes

Marshall H. Klaus, Treville Leger, and Mary Anne Trause,


Editors, Maternal Attachment and Mothering Disorders. Pis-
cataway, NJ: Johnson and Johnson Baby Products Company,
1975. Page 23.

Harriet Goldhor Lerner, The Dance of Anger. New York:


Harper & Row, 1985. Page 22.

Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman,


Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Per-
sonality. New York: Julian Press, 1951. Page 215.

Ibid. Page 216.

William Ryan, Blaming the Victim. New York: Vintage


Books, 1976.

Zolaka Adams-Sawyer, Martha Adams-Sullivan, Robyn


Brown-Manning, Andaye C. DeLaCruz, and Carmen Gaines,
"Women of Color and Feminist Practice." In: Not for Women
Only. Mary Bricker-Jenkins and Nancy Hooyman, Editors.
Silver Spring, MD: National Association of Social Workers,
1986. Page 82.

Chapter 14: Recovering and Reorganizing Anger

. Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman,


Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Per-
sonality. New York: Julian Press, 1951. Pages 342 and 344.

Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-


Rearing and the Roots of Violence. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, 1983.

James R. Averill, Anger and Aggression: An Essay on Emo-


tion. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1982. Page 321.
Notes a7

Saul D. Alinsky, John L. Lewis: An Unauthorized Biography.


New York: Vintage Books, 1970. Pages 149-152.

J. Raymond Walsh, C..O.: Industrial Unionism in Action.


New York: W. W. Norton, 1937. Page 129.

Hyman Spotnitz, Modern Psychoanalysis of the Schizophrenic


Patient. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1969. Page 39.

Barbara Bender, "Scapegoating Behavior Sequential to Bat-


tering.” Child Welfare, 1976, 55, 417-422.

Pennie Cohen, "Violence in the Family ... An Act of Loy-


alty?" Psychotherapy: Theory/Research/Practice, 1984, 21,
249-253.

Klaus D. Hoppe, "Chronic Reactive Aggression in Survivors


of Severe Persecution." Comprehensive Psychiatry, 1971, 12,
230-237.

10. David M. Berger, "The Survivor Syndrome: A Problem of


Nosology and Treatment." The American Journal of Psy-
chotherapy, 1977, 31, 238-251.

11. Carol Roman, private communication.

£2. William R. Beardslee, The Way Out Must Lead In: Life
Histories in the Civil Rights Movement. Atlanta, GA: Emory
University Center for Research in Social Change, 1977. Page
153.

: Chester M. Pierce and Louis Jolyon West, "Six Years of Sit-


Ins: Psychodynamic Causes and Effects." International Jour-
nal of Social Psychiatry, 1966, 12, 29-34.

14. Sheldon B. Cohen, "Desegregation: A Southern Psychiatrist's


View." Psychiatric Opinion, 1966, 3(6), 25-28.
218 Notes

1a Elizabeth Janeway, Powers of the Weak. New York: Alfred


A. Knopf, 1980. Page 61.

16. Gayle Graham Yates, What Women Want: The Ideas of the
Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Page 95.

jE Philip Hallie, Cruelty. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University


Press, 1982. Page 83.

18. Joanna Rogers Macy, Despair and Personal Power in the Nu-
clear Age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1983.

19. Harriet Goldhor Lerner, The Dance of Anger. New York:


Harper & Row, 1985. Page 33.

20. Ibid. Page 9.

PAN Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Lichtenberg Reader.


Franz Mautner and Henry Hatfield, Editors. Boston: Bea-
con Press, 1959. Page 98.

22 Harriet Goldhor Lerner, op. cit. Page 1.

23. Carol Tavris, Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion. New


York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.

24. George R. Bach and Peter Wyden, The Intimate Enemy.


New York: Morrow, 1967. Page 6.

Py Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, 2nd Edition.


New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1968. Page 162.

26. Hendrie Weisinger. Dr. Weisinger's Anger Work Out Book.


New York: Quill, 1985. Page 81.

oA Ibid. Pages 81-82.


Notes 219

. Philip Lichtenberg, Getting Even: The Equalizing Law of


Relationship. Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
1988. Pages 15-29.

Chapter 15: On Anxiously Acting Assertively

. Elizabeth Rosenberg [Zetzel], "Anxiety and the Capacity to


Bear It.". The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1949,
XXX, 1-12.

. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New


York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1945. Page 133.

. Daniel P. Brown and Erika Fromm, Hypnotherapy and Hyp-


noanalysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
1986. Pages 225-226.

. Elizabeth Rosenberg [Zetzell], op. cit. Page 8.

. Kenneth Burke, The Grammar of Motives. Cleveland, OH:


The World Publishing Co., 1962. Pages 33-34.

. Frederick Perls, "Four Lectures." In: Gestalt Therapy Now.


Joen Fagan and Irma Lee Shepherd, Editors. New York:
Harper Colophon, 1971. Page 16.

. F. Ishu Ishiyama, "Morita Therapy: Its Basic Features and


Cognitive Intervention for Anxiety Treatment." Psychother-
apy: Theory/Research/Practice/Training, 1986, 23, 375-381.

. Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman,


Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Per-
sonality. New York: Julian Press, 1951. Pages 426-427.

. Ibid. Page 131.


220 Notes

10. Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response. New York:


William Morrow, 1975, and Beyond the Relaxation Response.
New York: Times Books, 1984.

EE. Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.


In: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, Volume VIII. James Strachey, Editor.
London: Hogarth Press, 1960.

Chapter 16: Who Wants Social Change, Who Starts It,


Who Supports It?

Barbara Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men: American Dreams


and the Flight from Commitment. New York: Anchor Books,
1983.

Chapter 17: Is All This Practical?

Aaron Bender, "Psychohistorians Discuss Psychohistory:


Transference, Countertransference and Resistance in the
Psychoanalytic Treatment of War." The Journal of Psy-
chohistory, 1987, 14, 179-185.
Index

Abused and the abuser 3 Angyal, Andras, theory of universal


Abused parents abusing children ambiguity 4
142-143 Ansbacher, Heinz L. and Rowena
Abuser, the, see also Aggressor, R. Ansbacher 211
Oppressor 19 Antiabortion groups 152
Ad hominem behavior 199 Anticommunism, hysterical 90
Adams-Sawyer, Zolaka, Martha Antinuclear groups 99, 170-171
Adams-Sullivan, et al. 216 Antiwar and peace movements 68,
Adaptation to the environment 137 144.
Adler, Alfred 6, 66 Antiwelfare individuals 152
Adorno, Theodore 52, 55-56, 210 Anxiety 12-13, 34, 36, 41, 58-59, 79,
Adult molesters 19, 22, 26 84, 88, 90, 94, 96-97, 101-102,
Adult-child relation 27 105, 109-112, 120, 134, 139, 143,
Aggressor, the; aggression 16-26, 148, 155, 179-190, 193, 199
33, 51, 53, 55-56, 71, 122-123, Anxiety disorder 181
160, 164; fantasies of aggression Anxiety of anticipation and excite-
38 ment 35
AIDS quilt, the 188 Anxiety of dread and fear 35
Alcoholics Anonymous 7 Anxiety, manageable and unman-
Alcoholism 191 ageable 182
Algeria 70 Anxiety, productive management of
Alienation 63 35-37, 142, 187
Alinsky, Saul 161-162, 217 Anxiety, traumatic 13
Allende, Salvatore 105 Apathy, political and social 69
Ambiguity 6, 96, 123-124 Assembly line workers 12
Ambiguity, intolerance of 55-57 Association for Psychohistory, Inc.
Ambivalence 55, 96 6-7
American Indians and alcoholism Authentic intimacy 123
155 Authoritarian groups, persons and
Anger 38-41, 43, 53-54, 58-59, 68, systems 36, 45, 52, 55-56, 100,
72, 74-77, 79, 85, 88, 90, 92-94, 133
98, 101-104, 109-112, 120, 134, Authority figures 187, 200
137, 139, 144, 148, 155, 157-179, Authority, (oppressive) 17, 151, 176
199, 201, 203; productive/ Authority, irrational 42, 156
political uses 171-179, 186 Authority, legitimate 97, 160
Anger and political endeavor 169 Automation behavior 13
Anger as focused on rule setting 167 Averill, James R. 160, 216
Anger management 40, 43
Anger, contactfulness of 170 Bach, George R. and Peter Wyden
Angyal, Andras 4, 207, 213 176, 218
agee

Balance of desire and self-regulation Child abuse, sexual; molested chil-


24 dren 9-10, 12, 14-16, 20, 25-27,
Baldwin, James Mark 52, 211 41, 46, 63, 139, 183
Battered, abused women and wives Child molesters 63
71, 84, 201, 203, 205 Child's environmental conditions 5
Beardslee, William 66, 86-88, 167, Chinese revolutionary movement
212-213, 217 81, 84, 171
Behavior modification therapy 186 Chrysler, Walter 161
Belden, Jack 81, 84, 213 Cienfuegos, Ana Julia and Christina
Bender, Aaron 203, 220 Monelli 104, 214
Bender, Barbara 164, 217 Civil rights movement 68, 70, 86-87,
Benson, Herbert 189, 220 99, 101, 156, 167-168; psychody-
Berger, David 165, 217 namic factors 168
Bion, Wilfred R. 213 Class struggle and what is possible
Black rage 54 196
Blaming the victim 152, 201-202 Clinch of oppression, the 190, 193,
Blocked excitement 182-183 196, 205
Body politic, the 4 Cohen, Pennie 164, 217
Bonding 104 Cohen, Sheldon 168, 217
Bourgeois ideology 69 Collective action 86, 88-89, 170, 188
Bourgeois versus socialist individu- Collective behavior 131
alism 73 Colonizer and colonized 54
Breaking the will of the child 1 Committed passivity 71
Bricker-Jenkins, Mary and Nancy Community caring 148
Hooyman 216 Community control 145
Brown, Daniel P. and Erika Fromm Community mental health move-
182, 219 ment 65
Brownmiller, Susan 85 Compassion and love for one's tor-
Bureaucratic military persons 39 mentors 84
Burghardt, Steve 133, 215 Compelled dependence 22
Burke, Kenneth 6, 219; dramatistic Concentration camps, campguards
method of dialectical analysis 95195 22554
182 Confidence 5
Buss, Allan R. 9, 69, 207, 212 Confluence 40-41, 45, 58, 79, 100-
101, 106, 110-111, 113-115, 118,
C.I.O./Chrysler Corporation Labor 120, 178
negotiations, 1937 161-163, 193 Confrontations 186
Caldwell, Reverend 86 Confusing guilt and self-hatred
Capitalist system 74 phase 16, 18, 29, 31
Catherall, Donald R. 116, 214 Confusion 13
Change-oriented groups 126 Conscience 128
Character armor 75 Contact, differentiation and articula-
Child abuse as cultural phenomenon tion as antidotes 118
166 Contemporary society 1
Child abuse, abused children 2-3, 8, Control-dependence bonding 28
22, 46, 51, 54, 139, 145, 164, 167 Conversion reactions 181
Index 223

Cult of personality 73, 131 Ego-ideal 15


Cut-off 178 Ehrenreich, Barbara 193, 220
Empathy 141, 159
Empowerment, self-empowerment
Deadness 45
28, 32, 35-37, 40-41, 45, 137,
Defense mechanisms 55
161, 170-171
Defiance 13
Established habits 2
Defusing 178
Ethical persons 129
Delusion of fusion 22-23, 53, 58, 62,
Ethics, authoritarian 42
70, 72-73, 79, 85, 87, 89, 100-
Ethnic group antagonism 90
101, 106, 109-110, 112, 114, 116-
Ethnocentrism 71, 86
120, 156, 197
Existential guilt 95
Delusional ideology 118
Existential therapy 89
Delusions 181
Experience and expression of feel-
Demanding other 38
ings avoided 196
DeMause, Lloyd 3, 207
Experienced anger phase 14, 18, 28-
Democratic and equalitarian social
31
order 194
Exploitation: exploiters and ex-
Democratic practices, democracy 1,
ploited 4, 51, 70-71, 73, 89, 99,
8, 114-115, 119, 126, 131-133
101, 145, 147, 192-193, 196
Dependence 5 Eye contact 154
Depression 4, 45, 105
Desires, insatiability of 63
False consciousness 191
Desperate insistence of the powerful
Family and marital therapy 89
20 Fanon, Frantz 6, 9, 54, 70, 207, 211-
Dewey, John 6 212
Diagnostic assessments 192 Fear, fears 139, 149, 188
Dialectic of union and diversity 115 Feminist movement 68, 144, 167-
Dialectical movement 52 169, 173, 175
Dichotomizing, see also Splitting 55- Feminist perspective 175
56 Feminist therapy 154
Diminished individuals 1 Fenichel, Otto 6, 219
Disempowerment 27, 32, 37, 40-45, Ferenczi, Sandor 9, 11-16, 19-20, 25,
S143! 41, 46-47, 208
Disgust 125, 139, 142; as a natural Figural social-emotional
barrier 80 characteristic 34, 40
Divorce proceedings 173 Forgiveness 120
Domination 2-4, 8, 11, 17, 20, 31, Fraiberg, Selma 81, 142-143
72, 82, 84, 88, 91, 93-95, 97, 100- Free association technique 187
101, 123, 145, 147, 160, 167, Frenkel-Brunswik, Else 55, 210
179, 192-194 Frequency of interruption 128
Drug-addicted mothers and their Freud, Sigmund 15, 73, 131, 208,
children 166 212, 215, 220; social theory 121;
Drug-addicted, the 4, 167 theory of jokes 190
From, Isadore 134
Ego 17 Fromm, Erich 42, 52, 210
224 Index

Fused power-dependence relation- Hitler, Adolph 9, 90, 93


ship 45 Holding environments 115-118, 122
Fused, reciprocal empowering-dis- Homosexuals 49
empowering transactions 43 Hopefulness 204
Fusion, see also Confluence 40-41, Hoppe, Klaus D. 165, 217
45-48, 51-56, 62, 71, 77, 148, Human service clinicians 203
150, 178, 185-186, 191-192, 194, Human species 3
196, 202 Humanization/dehumanization 74,
Fusion of own and aggressor's de- 92, 132
sires phase 14, 16, 18, 30-31, 33 Humiliation 136
Fusion of part-persons 8 Humility 150
Hyde, Cheryl 116, 214
Gambits and counters 178 Hypercriticism 127
Garraty, John 70, 212 Hypertension as psychosomatic ill-
Gestalt therapy and theory 40, 134, ness 168
182-183, 186-187 Hypnosis and anxiety 182
Gestalts of health and neurosis 5
Goal-directedness 130 I and it statements 151-152, 159,
Gold Flower's story 81-84, 90 177
Goodman, Paul 6, 113, 157, 209, Idealization 131-133, 192
213-214, 216 Identification with the aggressor 8-
Gorbachev era in Soviet Union 193 11, 13-14, 16, 18-24, 26, 28, 32-
Great Depression, the (1930s) 193 33, 42-43, 48, 52-54, 57, 59, 63,
Greeks and Turks on Cyprus 48-49 71-73, 79-81, 84, 90-94, 102,
Green party 72 110, 120, 122-126, 130, 134, 142,
Grier, William H. and Price M. 144-45, 164
Cobbs 54, 211 Identification with the projector 149
Group criticism 127 Identifications and identifiers 31, 33,
Group dynamics 130 42, 52, 54, 58-59, 63, 72-74, 76,
Guided meditation 171 80, 84, 91, 94, 96, 100, 121, 123-
Guilt 15, 34, 40-45, 53, 58-59, 71, 79, 127, 129-131, 168, 173, 184
85, 88, 90-91, 93-95, 101-104, Incest disclosure 17
109-112, 120, 143, 152, 157, 193, Incestuous seductions 10, 54
201, 205 Independence 160
Guilt of the abused 20, 41, 43, 45 Individual life 1
Individual, the 6
Hallie, Philip 99, 170, 214, 218 Individuals as agents and agencies
Harburg, E. Y. 131, 215 34
Health care activists 123 Industrial organizational develop-
Hedging 177 ment consultants 117
Hefferline, Ralph F. 113, 157, 209, Inferiority 200
213-214, 216 Ingroups and outgroups 47-49, 56-
Helplessness 137, 193, 200 57, 85, 101, 143
Here and now, the 2 Institutional leaders 3
Hierarchies authoritarian 44; mili- Internal danger situation 181
tary 39; power-oriented 49, 188 Internal regulating devices 29
Index piles

International Society of Political Lichtenberg, Philip 210-211, 214,


Psychology 6 219
Introjecting, right now 134-135 Love 157-158, 166
Introjection 63, 72, 80, 91, 101, 106, Loyalty 164
111, 114, 126-129, 134-140, 148,
157, 164, 173-174, 178, 184, 186 b Macmurray, John 6, 207
190, 192, 195, 203; of guilt 13, Macy, Joanna 170-171, 218
15, 41, 63; of the aggressor 10 Makarenko, Anton 132-133, 215
Introjections, living now the influ- Management, corporate 123-125,
ence of past 135 135
Irrational childhood conflict 204 Mao Zedong 73
Ishiyama, F. Ishu 183-184, 219 Marcuse, Herbert 6
Isolation 5, 113, 150 Marris, Peter 24, 209
Marx, Karl 191
Janeway, Elizabeth 47, 97, 168, 210, Marxists and marxism 69-70
213, 218 Maslow, Abraham 52, 176, 210,
Jealousy of imagined sex lives 155 218
Joy 157, 179 Masochistic personality 43
Jung, C.G.; Jungians 21, 30, 209 McCarthy, Senator Joseph 90
Meditation and yoga 189
Kaiser, Hellmuth 16, 22-23, 25, 31, Memmi, Albert 9, 54, 208, 211
118-119, 208-209, 215 Memory 2
Keller, K.T. 161-162 Middle-class people 152
Kelley, Nicholas 161, 163 Military system, military life and val-
Kinesthetic sense 154 ues 38, 67, 133
King, Martin Luther, Jr. 156 Miller, Alice 2, 5, 159-160, 207, 216
Klaus, Marshall H., Treville Leger Modern world, the 2
and Mary Anne Trause 213, 216 Molested children 25, 27, 139
Kohut, Heinz 46, 210 Morita therapy 183, 186
Mutual destruction process 157
Labor unionists, union organizing
66, 75-76, 99-101, 123, 135, 148, Narcissistic personality-disordered
169-170 individuals 46
Labor, organized; unions 162, 178- Natural biological rhythms 57
179 Natural spontaneity 12-13, 18, 27,
Lasswell, Harold 6, 9, 208 31, 57-58, 111, 197
Laughter 190 Nazi persecution, survivors of 165,
Lazarsfeld 70 167
Leadership choices and styles 36, 39 Nazis and Nazism 9, 39
Left-wing political groups 66, 73 Near, Holly and Ronnie Gilbert 68,
Lerner, Harriet 40, 145, 175-176, 212
209, 216, 218 Negative phenomena 153
Levinson, Daniel J. 55, 210 Negativism 127
Lewis, John L. 161-163, 193 Negotiation process 122, 127, 133
Lichtenberg, G. C. 176, 218 Neurosis 181
226

Neurosis, vicious circle foundation Political demobilization 67


of 119 Political organizing, see also Social
Nixon, President Richard 29 activists 67-69, 71, 73
Nonjudgmental atmosphere 187 Political prisoners 105
Nonviolent resistance 174 Political prisoners, tortured 66
Norms, adherence to 44 Politicians 1
Norms, bureaucratic 86 Pollock, Jeanne C. 214
Norms, group, social norms 130, Polster, Erving and Miriam 40, 118,
132, 187 142, 210, 215
Post-traumatic stress disorders 116
Obedience 3, 38, 43 Power elite 191
Obsession 181 Power relationships 141, 148
Occupational safety 123 Power-dependence relationships 40
Open negative valuation 152-153 Powerfulness 34
Opening pathways through move- Powerlessness 24, 34
ment 171 Powers of the weak 168
Oppressed ethnic and racial minori- Prejudiced behaviors 143-144, 149,
ties 71, 195-196 155, 193
Oppressed, wisdom of the 147 Pressman, Lee 162
Oppression 2-3, 5-6, 8, 31, 142, 145; Prestige 21
sexual component 3 Priests 44
Oppressor/oppressed relation 8, 20, Prioritizing grievances 174
43, 45-46, 51, 53, 55, 73, 75-76, Process and process focus 117, 137,
79, 81, 88-91, 93-101, 103-105, 177
111-114, 117, 129, 146-147, 156, Profound, experienced anxiety phase
157, 168, 173, 190-195, 201-202 12, 18, 27, 31
Progressive education movement
Pain 3, 182 65, 68
Panic disorder 181 Projected guilt 30
Paranoia 45, 53 Projected self-hatred 30
Parental teaching 1 Projection and projectors 31, 33, 42,
Parents abusive 81, 143; overprotec- 52, 54, 58-59, 72-74, 76, 84-85,
tive 45 91-92, 94-96, 100-101, 106, 111-
Peer groups 99-102, 104, 117; char- 112, 114, 124-125, 141-157, 159,
acter structure of members 100 170-174, 178, 192-196, 202-203;
Perls, Frederick, et al. 17, 79-80, as signal of family cohesion 143;
113, 150-151, 157-158, 183-185, reowning of a projection 185-
209, 213-214, 216, 219 186
Permission-giving probes 164 Projection upon a primed vulnerable
Personality 4 other 26, 28-34, 37-39, 42, 45,
Personality development 52 51-54, 57, 59, 63, 71-73, 79, 90,
Personas 4 95, 97, 102, 110, 120, 125, 141-
Phobia treatment 186 144, 152, 188
Physicians 44 Proletariat, working class 69
Pierce, Chester M. and Louis Jolyon Psyches 4, 6, 120, 127
West 168, 217 Psychic economies 195
Index parFi

Psychic resolution 76 Relationships of unequal power 3


Psychoanalysis 19, 89, 181, 186-187; Relaxation procedures 186
analyst and analysand 46; coun- Relaxation response 189
tertransference 203-205; trans- Religion, fundamentalist, punitive
ference 89, 203 86
Psychoanalytic concepts 9, 89 Rendering the other's rage helpless
Psychoanalytic treatment of war 204 29
Psychological functioning 124, 130 Repression 160, 187
Psychological insights 148-149, 199, Repression and exploitation, overt
201-202 69
Psychological issues in social action Repression, political 104
125 Resignation 137
Psychological re: social/political ac- Resistance 203, 205
tivity, the 7 Resolution of social issues 204
Psychology of experience 199 Responsibility 193, 195
Psychotherapeutic instruments 105 Retroflection 106, 109, 143
Psychotherapeutic lexicon 9 Reynolds, Bertha Capen 66, 211
Psychotherapy, general principle of Rieker, Patricia Perri and Elaine
125 Carmen 14, 208
Psychotherapy, psychotherapists 1, Right-wing politics, forces of reac-
5, 7, 44-45, 66, 79, 81, 96, 105, tion 69, 75, 169
118-119, 134, 143, 146-147, 154, Risk-taking aptitude 45
163-165, 167, 180, 186-187, 190; Roman, Carol 167, 217
holistically-oriented 5, 7 Russian October Revolution 132
Public health movement 65 Ryan, William 152, 216

Quaker-style individual participation Safe emergency technique 187


131 Sanford, R. Nevitt 55, 210
Quick-circuiting 51, 58-59, 102, 110- Schizophrenic patients 163-164
111 Schlozman, Kay Lehman and Sidney
Verba 70, 212
Racists, racism 53, 57, 70-72, 86, 97, Schools 1
143, 149, 154-156 Self as agent/self as agency 59, 62-
Rage 38-39, 41-42, 51, 53, 56, 70, 63, 73-74, 77, 90, 95, 175-176,
72, 76-77, 79, 84-85, 88, 92, 96, 179, 193, 195-196, 204
110, 120, 122, 138, 141, 144-45, Self, the 17
157, 167-170, 174, 193; produc- Self, the incomplete 5
tive uses 77 Self-abasement, self-degradation 44
Rage, helpless 97-98, 103, 148, 156 Self-actualization 49, 122
Rage, repressed 56 Self-actualizing 16
Rage, retroflexed 168 Self-affirmation 147-148, 176
Rape, rapists 10, 19, 23, 44, 54 Self-assertion 61
Raw force 55 Self-censorship 46
Reagan, President Ronald 90, 93 Self-control 29, 38, 40, 42, 47, 54,
Reason, rationality 4-5 95, 150
Reich, Wilhelm 6, 66, 74, 211, 212 Self-criticism 153
228 Index

Self-definition 179 Social legislation 193


Self-domination, self-conquest 47, Social life 1
122, 138, 150, 184, 195 Social movements and change 4, 55,
Self-esteem 99 67, 85, 87, 140, 178-179, 187,
Self-evaluative standards 21 190, 193-195
Self-examination and grieving pro- Social reformers and revolutionaries
cess 116 6, 54, 191
Self-expression, individual 131 Social relations, relationships 23, 67,
Self-forgiveness 109 77, 102, 113-114, 122, 130, 150,
Self-hatred 42-45, 53, 58-59, 79, 85, 156, 158, 169, 199
90-91, 93, 96, 100-103, 109-112, Social relationships, distorted, con-
120, 142, 157, 193 fluent 62, 110
Self-help groups 7 Social relationships healthy 61-62
Self-regulating activities 61, 92, 122, Social service agencies 1, 133
182 Social structures, existing 55
Self-righteousness 152 Social system, the 1, 55, 76-77, 161,
Self-subordination 13 169
Self-support 188-189 Social vs. individual welfare 205
Self-victimization 96 Social workers 166
Sexism 57, 71, 86, 144, 155, 193, Social-emotional complex 34, 37, 75,
195 120, 141
Sexual activity 11 Social-emotional executive powers
Sexual aggressiveness 186 36
Sexual arousal 166 Social/political activists 9, 72-73, 184
Sexual curiosity 129 Socially committed mental health ac-
Sexual desires and social relation- tivists 65
ships coordinated 57 Society for the Psychological Study
Sexual fantasies of children 10 of Social Issues 6
Sexual play of children 26 Solidarity 103-104, 148, 178
Sexual pleasure 63 Solin, Cynthia 17, 208
Sexual relations 44 Southern blacks and violent intrara-
Sexual trauma 9 cial aggression 168
Sexuality 53 Speak bitterness sessions 81, 171
Signal function 182 Splitting 55
Significant others 73 Spontaneity of behavior 6, 179, 190,
SNCC 72 196
Social accommodation 61-62 Spontaneous excitement 185
Social action and struggle 7, 65, 72, Spotnitz, Hyman 163-164, 217
86, 92, 103, 106, 171, 178, 202- Spouse abuse, see also Wife Batter-
205 ers 54
Social controls 49, 55 Stalin, Josef 73, 90
Social conventions and the powerful Status quo, the 40, 55, 72, 110, 126,
49 194
Social emotions management 90 Stereotyping 154
Social emotions, Social-emotional Striving actions 163
phases 110-11, 120, 142, 156
Index 229

Strong and the weak, the 142, 145- Unemployed workers 70-71
148, 153, 159, 168-169, 188, 191- Unfinished business 187
196 Unorganized workers, exploited 162
Structural social change 65
Subjects of the realm 1, 4, 6 Verblen, Thorstein 6, 77, 121, 212,
Submission 2, 39, 63, 72, 88, 97, 101, 215
113 Victims and victimizing relationships
Submissive mode 16, 22 2-4, 17, 51, 53, 71, 93, 97, 154-
Subordinate 39-40, 44, 52, 63 155, 201
Suicide 53, 133 Vietnam War, Vietnam vets 40, 116
Super-ego 15-17, 42 Violence, violent force 10, 75, 191
Superior 52, 63, 72 Volkan, Vamik 48, 210
Suppression of dissent and resis- Vulnerability 25, 39, 44, 47, 93, 95,
tance 75 103, 190, 194
Symbols of support 188
Symptoms, hysterical 181 Walsh, J. Raymond 163, 217
Symptoms, psychosomatic 181 War neuroses 67, 106
Warnock, Donna 116, 214
Tasks of ordinary life 4 Watergate 29
Tavris, Carol 176, 218 Weisinger, Hendrie 177, 218
Temper tantrums 40 Welfare system 75
Terror 143 Westmoreland, General William 40
Therapeutic alliance 187 Wife batterers, battered wives 19,
Therapeutic change 89 22, 45
Therapeutic communities 65 Winnicott, D.W. 115, 214
Toilet training 2 Woman activists 116
Transformation of individuals and Women's consciousness-raising
society 4 groups 86, 173
Transformative encounters 98, 147, Womens Pentagon Action 116
156 Wood, Ellen M. 73, 212
Transformative relationships 94, 98- World War II 39
99, 103
Trauma management 107, 116 Yalom, Irving D. 117, 214
Tyranny, tyrants 2, 22-23, 31, 38, 50, Yates, Gayle Graham 85, 168, 213,
52, 72, 74-76, 88, 95, 113, 147- 218
148
Zetzel, Elizabeth 181-182, 219
U.A.W. 161-163
U.S.A. 48
Unconscious, the 53
Underclasses, the 98
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Donald W. Hudson Jr.

ASSERTI-CARE
ASSERTION TRAINING FOR THE ELDERLY
CLIENT

American University Studies: Series VIII (Psychology). Vol. 1


ISBN 0-8204-0039-4 169 pages paperback US $ 17.35*

*Recommended price - alterations reserved

Reports of successful treatment, utilizing assertiveness training, have been


established mainly through research efforts coordinated with youthful popu-
lations. Lengthy literature reviews reveal only five attempts with the elderly
population; only three interventions were empirically based and results have
been inconclusive. This book discusses negative stereotypes of the aged and
prevailing attitudes found within our profession which influence the psycho-
logical diagnosis and treatment of the elderly (i.e. «Why bother with them
when there’s no need to effect a change so late in life?»). The author reports
a study which examines the effect of an assertiveness training program on
assertion, self-esteem, locus of control, and health for an elderly population.

Contents: Assertion training provides a re-vitalization process. The elderly


can acquire social skills enabling to defend their dignity.

GESTALIOESSTREE TE
OF CLEVELAND

Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press


1588 Hazel Drive Cleveland OH 44106
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