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Confluence
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Oppression
Philip trentenberg
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Undoing the Clinch of Oppression
American University Studies
Series VIII
Psychology
Vol. 21
A
OF CLEVELAND
Philip Lichtenberg
&
A GestaltPress Book
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Copyright © 1990 by Philip Lichtenberg
A GestaltPress Book
66 Orchard Street, Cambridge MA 02140
[email protected]
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 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.
Lichtenberg, Philip.
Community & Confluence: Undoing the Clinch of Oppression / Philip Lictenberg.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88163-251-1
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Identification With the Aggressor:
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Projection Upon a Primed Vulnerable Other:
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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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The Quick-Circuiting Process and the
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Noticing and Changing Faulty Identifications................ P21
Discovering and Undoing Projections..................ssesseee 141
Recovering and Reorganizing ANnget..............sssssssssssesee 157
On Anxiously Acting Assertively...............ccsscscssssssessseees 181
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dedication
Gordon Wheeler
Cambridge MA, 1994
Preface to the Second Edition
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
"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
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.
6. The weak and misused person actively refuses to hate the dominating,
exploiting individual.
"an adult and a child love each other, the child nursing the playful fantasy of
taking the role of mother to the adult.”
Scheme 1
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 . . . .”
"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.
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
Scheme 2
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
"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."
omy. Peter Marris suggests how this all works, including the conse-
quences for the weaker person, in his assessment of transfer of risk:
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:
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
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
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
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.”
"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."
"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."
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
"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."
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
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mc My|
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
"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!
"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
"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."
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
3 Mech
x
000anions aaa i Ee 4g
"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!
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."
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
"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."
"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."
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.”
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
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
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
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
"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.”
"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.”
a Goi les
neyT notherapwene Ctens. "bas piace :
a
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
ae Pied em
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
case where one cannot stand contradiction, one persuades, bribes, compels
or bullies. ACS Se ee«esUe
"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.”
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.
the pieture.
"The antidotes to [unhealthy] confluence are contact noi neate e and ar-
Working with the Full Delusion of Fusion 119
"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.
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
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.
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. .
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
- “You appear to like this idea very much; what don't you like a
about it? Is it hard to dislike it?”
resol — atta
A too ready and unconvincing "Yes" can lead to the next observa-
tion:
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
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
"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.”
"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."
- "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
- Easy blame
of others
- Avoidance
of one's own-part.in negatively valued events
- Excessively
admiring-others-fer-doing-well
what one can_do
well oneself
"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."
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
The examples I have just used are mine. The reader will find it
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
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
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
",. . 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;
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
"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."
"'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."
"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."
"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
"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.”
"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... .
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
"If you did that to me on the street, I'd stick you. Don't push me or I'll take
you out."
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
"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
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-
"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
"... those
of us-who fight ineffectively are usually caught up in unsuccessful
oe to change a person who does not want to change.”
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
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.”
And finally, taking the self as agent into thebroad social world,
"When you direct your anger, make sure your voice level is nottoo loud and
thal
.thave’gaad
you cys epotac." nn
bers in contact with reality and each other and strengthens | their
=. oonr-—-—“— =
away from. each other. Thus there isaafertile field ofof social-change
s
—
"It
!who
is am angry.
"IBee
am angry
ee for
or me
aie and
ae may needs. My desires are important.
rr fs PKG reybet
a4, opie pied. oy
: na
en
3
~ tet:
orbeltsie
aie SO
mesa
8 OBE
ar Dee PAK ee ug set auieg
1 aR
wt)siNeaeeMO oR a
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v4? Shige 36,408, Sivio ¢
‘hict is Se r4
aa
"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
"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.'"
",. . 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
£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.
16. Gayle Graham Yates, What Women Want: The Ideas of the
Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Page 95.
18. Joanna Rogers Macy, Despair and Personal Power in the Nu-
clear Age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1983.
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
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“acceptance”
ao). 129, line 8 from bottom: for “inner-desires’ ’ 9 read
“inner-desires”
. 139, line 5 from bottom: for “a” read “at”
. 163, line 6 from bottom: for “new” read “now”
. 183, line 19: for “in” read “an”
. 193,
su
US line 14 from bottom: for “a historic” read “an
historic”
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“automaton”
p. 229: for “Verblen” read “Veblen”
for “Womens” read “Women’s”
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