Attachment

In recent times I have been presenting my writing on FaceBook and working out a style by which to do that. What has evolved is a thing which I call posters which is a writing style that suits the FaceBook culture. But now the posters are mounting up and I don't know what to do with them so I decided to present them here in groups of related writings. I have done 4 on attachment.









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Matricide and attachment

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Fantasy and meditative anger work

Anger work or the cathartic release of anger in therapy is a contentious issue. Some actively support it and others see it is a retrograde step that will just lead to more anger and violence. There are many ways to release anger in therapy ranging from the quite mild to restrained rage work on a mat.

Fantasy anger work is an interesting procedure and somewhat of a contradiction. In terms of cathartic release it is the mildest of all in that the person writes down or draws pictures of them self being angry. On the other hand it can be of a very violent and aggressive quality unlike any other type of anger work. Indeed it is limitless in its aggression and violence and people can do this type of anger work and think of things that are murderous and so forth. So on the one hand it is a very mild cathartic release of anger but at the same time it can be highly aggressive and violent.

Below is a statement of this type of anger work. After that is a paper sent to me recently by a friend. It uses a meditative or guided fantasy type of anger work. I have not seen this before in this way and adds an interesting addition to the area of anger work in psychotherapy.

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Violence and aggression in youth

Adolescent aggression

Anti social  behaviour during adolescence is statistically normal, and only a small proportion continue to behave in an antisocial way into adulthood. Criminological research shows that the prevalence of criminal involvement peaks during middle to late adolescence then declines rapidly and tapers off for most by their early twenties.

(My response:  One wonders what is the evolutionary advantage of having a criminal youth? Perhaps they give society a spark that results in change if need be. Keeps society on its toes so to speak?)

Anger management

Four core components of anger management.

1.  Exposure to provocation that leads to some level of emotional arousal.

2. Cognitive change that mediates the automatic thoughts which lead to angry feelings.

3. Self management skills that lead to the development of appropriate coping skills

4. Relaxation to reduce physiological arousal  and manage stress.

Engaging the violent client

One of the biggest challenges in working with the aggressive and violent client is engaging them in the process of change. Some (many) will resist taking responsibility for their own feelings and violent behaviour. Some steadfastly maintain they were justified in their behaviour  and it was appropriate for them to act violently. Habitually aggressive people can be hostile towards treatment providers.

Youth violence: family risk factors.

Poor behaviour management practice by parents such as poor supervision

High levels of family conflict

Family history of antisocial behaviour

Childhood abuse and neglect

All of the above comes from:

 InPsych: Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society,  June 2013.

Transactional analysis and youth violence

One would propose the presence of an early violence decision. This is similar in nature to the suicide early decision that I discuss in detail in my book - Working with suicidal individuals. 

When a young child makes the suicide decision it means it decides that suicide is a viable option as a problem solving technique should it to choose to use that option later in life. The violence decision is the same. The young child makes an early decision that violence is a viable option to solve a problem. If this decision is not made then that person will be very unlikely to use violence as a solution to a problem in adulthood. As is the same with the suicide decision.

Three aspects of violent behaviour

One can look at two further aspects of the violence decision which can be made in childhood and  are presumed to be a prerequisite for any pattern of violent behaviour exhibited by youth or adults.

It seems reasonable to assume that the child who is likely to make the early violence decision would have a natural temperament of fight, versus flight or freeze. That child who has an inbuilt propensity to deal with stress and adversity by fighting rather than fleeing or using the 'play dead' response. 

It seems plausible that the individual who has a natural temperament of fight is more likely to adopt the life position of You're not ok. Hence we have an interaction  between three variables. The temperament of fight, the life position of You're not ok and the early violence decision. Each one supporting the other thus making the violent individual quite resistant to therapeutic interventions because of this intertwined effect between these three personality factors.

The violence decision

This allows us to formulate a hypothesis on the psychology behind the violent and aggressive client. It shows a process of how the factors of temperament, life position and early decision could be seen to combine.

The suicide decision

Contemporaneously we can propose a similar process for suicidal behaviour. The temperament type in suicidal behaviour could be seen to be primarily the flight response. One could also argue that Fight can result in some of the suicide decisions. Debate on this exists though, as some argue that fight is simply used as a means to fulfill the primary response of flight.

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Thinking and doing

A recent article in InPsych magazine of the Australian Psychological Society (2012) concluded that in the literature there is wide disagreement about the negative effects of watching violent video games and other violence on TV. Researchers have tried forever to find a link between watching violence and subsequent aggression and it has just not been forthcoming. The results are very varied and have been so for years.

My personal view on this is one I have stated before. There is a very big difference about thinking or fantasizing about something and actually doing it. They are two quite separate things that involve two quite different psychological processes. 

Fantasy is an important part of human psychology

Confusing this however is the fact that we all think about things we have done and will do again in the future. We may daydream and fantasize about going on a holiday, getting angry at the boss or even some sexual behaviors and then go and do them. This however does not make them similar psychological processes. All it means is that it is acceptable to the individual to think about doing something as well as doing it. That does not make them the same and here I will provide some examples of how they are different.

The following list was present by the Australian Psychological Society (2006). It is a violence risk assessment tool being devised based on the various research about physically violent people and the characteristics of them:

Historical

Previous violence

Young age at first violent incident

Relationship instability

Employment problems

Substance use problems

Major mental illness

Psychopathy

Early maladjustment

Personality disorder

Prior supervision failure

Clinical

Lack of insight

Negative attitudes

Active symptoms of major mental illness

Impulsivity

Unresponsive to treatment

Risk management

Plans lack feasibility

Exposure to destabilizers

Lack of personal thought

Noncompliance with medication attempts

Stress

Interestingly, thinking or fantasizing about violence is not included.

It may look a bit aggressive but that does not mean they will act aggressive.

Thinking is a completely personal event that has no impact on anyone else. Others will only ever find out about it if the thinker discloses their thoughts. Behaviour is a public event that can effect others directly. One may try and hide the behaviour but there is always the danger they will be found out or secretly observed by someone else.

Thinking of being aggressive to another, as I said before, has no impact at all on the other. If one behaves aggressively towards someone that has a direct impact on the other person. Thus we have a major difference in the psychological processing between the thinking and behaving. 

Most people are capable of empathy. 

Thinking has no impact on others so empathy is not a consideration in choosing to have the aggressive thoughts or not.

Aggressive behaviour has direct impact on others so empathy is a key consideration in choosing to behave aggressively or not.

The same applies for legal considerations and damage to reputation. As thinking is completely private the legality of what one thinks and the possible damage to their reputation are not considerations at all. Behaviour being public, the legal considerations and damage to reputation may be very significant factors.

These two diagrams show the different psychological processes involved and as one can see they are quite different.

Video games and movies are pure fantasy as any player knows so their FC can be let free to run wild. To hit (let alone shoot) another person in reality is a very different process where empathy and Adult ego state considerations will significantly curtail any expression of the Free Child want.

This is supported by the violence risk assessment measure such that it does not even include thinking violent thoughts as a risk factor in expressing violent behaviour.

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The psychology of the bitch **

I was shopping in the supermarket the other day as you do. Going up and down each of the aisles and there were two women coming the other way talking to each other. We crossed by a number of times as we went up and down each aisle.

They passed me quite slowly in the first aisle and I overheard what they were saying. I wasn’t going out of my way to eaves drop on them! They were just talking and it was quite close as we passed each other. They would have been in their 50s and they were talking about some other woman who obviously had small children.

Well! They were savaging her, they were tearing her to shreds. A full on character assassination it was. Firstly about how bitchy she could be. Which was a bit ironic as they were bitching about her bitchiness. Then when we crossed two aisles later they were still at her, about what a bad mother she was, how she never controlled her children, always let them run amok and so forth.

So I wondered about all that. What was all that about? Why did it happen?

I suppose one could see it as a display of anger or aggression. Of all the emotions, it would seem that anger is the one that it would most closely be aligned to. However it is the expression of aggression in a feminine way - that is verbally. I think one could say that the more masculine expression of aggression would be less verbal and more physical.

So one could say that bitching can be a form of feminized aggression. Thus explaining why women (and gay guys) tend to engage in it more than straight males do, or at least one could argue that.

However since musing on this topic I have had discussions with two female colleagues of mine. They came up with some ideas that as a male I had not understood or even considered. They said that for females sometimes bitching about someone allows for a connection to be made between the two discussants. To say such confidential thoughts and secrets to the other means that you are trusting them and taking the relationship to a deeper level sort of thing. A most interesting idea that as a male one does not tend to experience at all. In this way the psychology of bitching is about relationship formation and maintenance.

I would suggest that males are not so bitchy in these ways but males certainly can be competitive. Whilst that is about winning and beating the other it is not so much about putting the other person down or creating some sort of connection between two men.

There is one other point that I would like to mention. In the Transactional Analysis literature one comes across the concept of four life positions:

I’m OK, You’re OK - (I+U+)

I’m not OK, You’re OK - (I-U+)

I’m OK, You’re not OK - (I+U-)

I’m not OK, You’re not OK - (I-U-)

I have since developed the theory of life positions further and this can be found at Life Positions.

I think one could say that the bitch would be adopting the life position of

I’m OK, You’re not OK - (I+U-)

In the article I state that it is more accurate to conceptualise this life position as:

I’m not OK, but You’re worse (I-U--)

The person in this position does not feel OK about self (I’m not OK). They deal with this is by trying to prove to self that others are worse than them. If they can prove such a thing then they feel better about self. It would seem reasonable to hypothesise that at least for some, this is one of the psychological functions of bitching.

“If I can prove to myself that some one else is bad, not doing the right thing and so forth then I wont feel so bad about myself” is the thinking of the bitch.

Now this formulation provides for an interesting theoretical off shoot. This last psychological function of bitching could be seen as a defence mechanism as was conceived of by Freud. The goal of the defence mechanism is to fend off anxiety provoking threats to the person. The belief - I’m not OK - would be such an anxiety provoking threat that the person would seek to fend off using one of the defence mechanisms.

To my knowledge no such defence mechanism like bitching has been previously suggested. There is a defence mechanism called - self negation. In this case the person wards off anxiety by getting in first with self criticisms and derogatory remarks. This is done in the hope that others will refute such claims with comments like - “Oh you’re not silly at all”.

Bitching could be seen as a derivative of this. It is not self negation, but others negation. By negating others the focus of attention is taken off self and this fends off the anxiety about ones own self doubts. In addition by convincing self that others a very negative then one’s own negative characteristics are minimised. Again the anxiety provoking threat is fended off.

So perhaps we need to add to Freud’s list of defence mechanisms with - The bitch defence mechanism.

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