Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. (in Marc. i. 6, 8) But in that He gives most profusely His gifts of healing and doctrine on the sabbath day, He teaches, that He is not under the Law, but above the Law, and does not choose the Jewish sabbath, but the true sabbath, and our rest is pleasing to the Lord, if, in order to attend to the health of our souls, we abstain from slavish work, that is, from all unlawful things. It goes on, and immediately the fever left her, &c. The health which is conferred at the command of the Lord, returns at once entire, accompanied with such strength, that she is able to minister to those, of whose help she had before stood in need. Again, if we suppose that the man delivered from the devil means, in the moral way of interpretation, the soul purged from unclean thoughts, fitly does the woman cured of a fever by the command of God mean the flesh, restrained from the heat of its concupiscence by the precepts of continence. PSEUDO-JEROME. For the fever means intemperance, from which, we the sons of the synagoguek, by the hand of discipline, and by the lifting up of our desires, are healed, and minister to the will of Him who heals us. THEOPHYLACT. But he has a fever who is angry, and in the unruliness of his anger stretches forth his hands to do hurt; but if reason restrains his hands, he will arise, and so serve reason. 1:32–3432. And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. 33. And all the city was gathered together at the door. 34. And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him. THEOPHYLACT. Because the multitude thought that it was not lawful to heal on the sabbath day, they waited for the evening, to bring those who were to be healed to Jesus. Wherefore it is said, And at even, when the sun had set. There follows, and he healed many that were vexed with divers diseases. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. (Vict. Ant. e Cat. in Marc.) Now in that he says many, all are to be understood according to the Scripture mode of expression. THEOPHYLACT. Or he says many, because there were some faithless persons, who could not at all be cured on account of their unfaithfulness. Therefore He healed many of those who were brought, that is, all who had faith. It goes on, and cast out many devils.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  “I don’t want to change my name.” “You don’t want to change your name?” “No sir.” He put his fork down. His nostrils were flaring. “Why not?” “I don’t know. I just don’t.” “Well that’s a lot of crap, because you’ve already changed your name once. Right?” “Yes sir.” “Then you might as well change the other name too, make a clean sweep.” “But it’s my last name.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake. You think anybody cares what you call yourself?” I shrugged. “Don’t badger him,” my mother said. “He’s already made up his mind.” “We’re talking about Paris!” Dwight shouted. “It was his choice,” she said. Dwight jabbed his finger at me. “You’re going.” “Only if he wants to,” my mother said. “You’re going,” he repeated. EXCEPT FOR ARTHUR, people didn’t say much about my not going to Paris. They’d probably thought all along that it was just one of my stories. Arthur called me Frenchy for a while, then lost interest as I seemed to lose interest, while in secret I went on thinking of cobbled streets and green roofs, and cafés where fast, smoky-voiced women sang songs about their absolute lack of remorse.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  By telling them not to touch I was mapping a space that would give her room to go after him. That, in turn, would give him the feeling of being desired. “I’ll make this clear for you. No contact. No pecks, no kissing, no massage, no strokes. Nothing. Sorry, you guys. You can write, you can send notes, you can make eyes—whatever else you want to do. Because at this point you have smothered sizzle with affection, leaving it with no way to ignite.” Candace was ready to comply with my suggestion. “OK,” she agreed. “It’s hateful, but it’s a good idea.” I wondered who would have the harder time following my prescription. While Candace presented herself as the “touch whore,” I suspected that Jimmy would be the first to break the agreement, for he had more at stake. He had been furious for years, and he had never known how to be angry with a person he also loves—how to be mad and connected at the same time. Behind his restraint, behind the sweet caresses, lay the unarticulated fear that ire inevitably leads to separation. During the first several weeks, Jimmy repeatedly slipped. So I instructed Candace to become more forceful in maintaining the hands-off rule. I was looking to up the ante. Eventually, Jimmy got worked up enough to comply. “About a month into it, I wanted nothing to do with her.” Removing the protective layer of affection turned out to be more effective than I had anticipated. “Safe might not be attractive to me,” Candace admitted. “But I’ve come to rely on it. These last few weeks he’s been more removed, and it’s been really uncomfortable. We’re not used to being this way. I got what I asked for, but I’m not sure it’s what I wanted.” Candace and Jimmy had constructed an intimacy that precluded conflict of any sort. All the tension was crystallized in their sexual impasse. It was the one place where they maintained their distinction. By upsetting the balance of their harmonious but sexually flat relationship, I hoped to introduce an increased sense of otherness; for without that, there was no way desire would emerge. A few months into our work together, Candace and Jimmy reported that they had noticed a difference, but they still had a long trek ahead. “In a lot of ways we have so much in terms of our relationship. We have a lot to be thankful for, and I know that,” Candace told me. “But we’ve also come to realize that being close doesn’t mean never fighting. It’s funny, because the one thing that we were so proud of was actually kind of a problem.”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In contrast, non-traumatized individuals who feel angry are well aware that (as much as they may “feel like murdering” even a spouse or their children) they obviously wouldn’t actually try to kill the object of their anger. As traumatized individuals begin to come out of immobility, they frequently experience eruptions of intense anger or rage. But fearing that they may actually hurt others (or themselves), they exert a tremendous effort to deflect and suppress that rage, almost before they feel it. When one is flooded by rage, the frontal parts of the brain “shut down.”50 Because of this extreme imbalance, the capacity to stand back and observe one’s sensations and emotions is lost; rather, one becomes those emotions and sensations.f Hence, the rage can become utterly overwhelming, causing panic and the stifling of such primitive impulses, turning them inward and preventing a natural exit from the immobility reaction. Maintaining this suppression requires a tremendous expenditure of energy. One is, essentially, doing to oneself what experimenters have done to animals to reinforce and protract their immobilization. Traumatized individuals repeatedly frighten themselves as they begin to come out of immobility. The “fear-potentiated immobility” is maintained from within. The vicious cycle of intense sensation/rage/fear locks a person in the biological trauma response. A traumatized individual is literally imprisoned, repeatedly frightened and restrained—by his or her own persistent physiological reactions and by fear of those reactions and emotions. This vicious cycle of fear and immobility (a.k.a. fear-potentiated immobility) prevents the response from ever fully completing and resolving as it does in wild animals. The Living DeadRage/counterattack is one consequence of repetitive fear-induced immobilization; the other is death. Death might occur, for example, when the cat persists in recapturing the mouse, repeating the cycle many times. The cat bats his prey until the mouse finally goes so deeply into immobility that it dies, even though uninjured. While only a few humans actually die from fright, chronically traumatized individuals go through the motions of living without really feeling vital or engaged in life. Such individuals are empty to the core of their being. “I walk around,” said a gang-rape survivor, “but it’s not me anymore … I am empty and cold … I might as well be dead,” she told me on our first session.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. (ubi sup.) But in a mystical sense the disciples pass through the corn fields, when the holy doctors look with the care of a pious solicitude upon those whom they have initiated in the faith, and who, it is implied, are hungering for the best of all things, the salvation of men. But to pluck the ears of corn means to snatch men away from the eager desire of earthly things. And to rub with the hands is by examples of virtue to put from the purity of their minds the concupiscence of the flesh, as men do husks. To eat the grains is when a man, cleansed from the filth of vice by the mouths of preachers, is incorporated amongst the members of the Church. Again, fitly are the disciples related to have done this, walking before the face of the Lord, for it is necessary that the discourse of the doctor should come first, although the grace of visitation from on high, following it, must enlighten the heart of the hearer. And well, on the sabbath-day, for the doctors themselves in preaching labour for the hope of future rest, and teach their hearers to toil over their tasks for the sake of eternal repose. THEOPHYLACT. Or else, because when they hare rest from their passions, then are they made doctors to lead others to virtue, plucking away from them earthly things. BEDE. (ubi sup) Again, they walk through the corn fields with the Lord, who rejoice in meditating upon His sacred words. They hunger, when they desire to find in them the bread of life; and they hunger on sabbath days, as soon as their minds are in a soothing rest, and they rejoice in freedom from troubled thoughts; they pluck the ears of corn, and by rubbing, cleanse them, till they come to what is fit to eat, when by meditation they take to themselves the witness of the Scriptures, to which they arrive by reading, and discuss them continually, until they find in them the marrow of love; this refreshment of the mind is truly unpleasing to fools, but is approved by the Lord. CHAPTER 3 3:1–51. And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. 2. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. 3. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. 4. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. 5. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “. . . I feel demeaned. She is a vulgar lady. Does everything possible to eliminate any shred of closeness between us. Nothing I do is good enough for her. Presses so many of my buttons that there’s got to be something of my mother in this. Every time I ask her about our therapy relationship, she gives me that wary look as though I’m coming on to her. Am I? Not a whisper of it when I check into my feelings. Would I if she weren’t my patient? Not a bad-looking woman—I like her hair, gleaming—carries herself well—great-looking chest, popping those buttons—that’s definitely a plus. I worry about staring at those breasts but don’t think I do—thanks to Alice! In high school once, I was talking to a girl named Alice and hadn’t any idea that I was staring at her tits until she put her hand under my chin and tilted my face up and said, ‘Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, I’m up here!’ I never forgot. That Alice did me a big favor. “Myrna’s hands are too big; that’s a turnoff. But I do like that great slick, sexy swish of her stockings as she crosses her legs. Yeah, I guess there are some sexual feelings there. If I had run into her when I was still single, would I have hit on her? Probably yes, I’d be attracted to her physically, until she opened her mouth and started whining or demanding. Then I’d want to get away fast. There’s no tenderness, no softness to her. She’s too self-focused, all sharp angles—elbows, knees, ungiving—” [A click as the tape came to an end.] In a daze, Myrna started the car, drove a few minutes, and turned right on Sacramento Street. Only a few blocks now to Dr. Lash’s office. She noticed, with surprise, that she was trembling. What to do? What to say to him? Quickly, quickly—only a few minutes until his goddamn clock started ticking off that $150 hour. One thing for sure, she told herself, there is no way I’m going to give back the tape as I usually do. I’ve got to hear it again. I’ll lie, say I forgot it, left it at home. Then I can rerecord his comments onto another tape and bring back the original next week. Or maybe I’ll just say I lost the tape. If he doesn’t like it—tough shit! The more she thought about it, the more sure she was that she would not tell him she’d heard his dictation. Why give away her hand? Maybe she’d tell him some time in the future. Maybe never. The bastard! She pulled up to his office. Four o’clock. Talking time.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I’m sorry, she said, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to diss your video—her English was the best in the class, she was a hair’s breadth from sounding like any American kid—I don’t mean to diss your video, but I’m so sick of this nostalgia bullshit. Sorry, she said, glancing at me, though she knew I didn’t care if they cursed in class, sorry, but all this men-on-horseback crap, what does that have to do with Bulgaria, I mean with Bulgaria now. The hair’s breadth made a difference; there’s a kind of uncanny valley in language, competency can overshoot the mark, so that however perfectly we speak a foreign language speaking it too casually feels like imposture, I don’t know why. I like horses, a boy interjected, getting a laugh, and she rolled her eyes. No, really, she said, this is the problem, when we want to be proud we think of the natsionalno vuzrazhdane , or we think of Bulgariya na tri moreta , we think of Tsarevets. She was right, I thought, though I didn’t say anything; they were at the core of what my students thought of as their national identity, the nineteenth-century liberation and Bulgaria’s medieval greatness, when its borders had touched three seas, tri moreta , a phrase the far right used to stoke nationalist feeling and that adorned tourist T-shirts at every cheap souvenir shop. But that doesn’t say anything about how we live now, she said, it’s all just Kill the Ottomans, it doesn’t tell us anything about what it means to be Bulgarian now. The temperature rose a little at this; some of the students leaned forward in their seats, which were situated around a group of desks we had pushed together to make a kind of conference table, I wanted them to look at each other as they spoke. What does, then, a boy asked, what do you think does tell us about Bulgaria now, and another boy said Berbatov, the soccer star, which made half of the class laugh and the other half groan. Nothing, my student said, raising her voice, nothing does, that’s our problem, that’s why the protests won’t go anywhere, we have no idea how to be Bulgarian in the real world, we have no idea how we should be. The temperature rose still further at this, a number of voices spoke at once, making noises of protest or skepticism, come on, I heard, and gluposti , nonsense, and then my student started to speak again in defense. I had let the reins go too slack, though I wanted to watch things play out the conversation was too hot, a couple of students were looking my way, I needed to intervene.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, Our Lord permitted a man to put away his wife on account of fornication, in punishment of the unfaithful party and in favor of the faithful party, so that the latter is not bound to marital intercourse with the unfaithful one. There are however seven cases to be excepted in which it is not lawful to put away a wife who has committed fornication, when either the wife is not to be blamed, or both parties are equally blameworthy. The first is if the husband also has committed fornication; the second is if he has prostituted his wife; the third is if the wife, believing her husband dead on account of his long absence, has married again; the fourth is if another man has fraudulently impersonated her husband in the marriage-bed; the fifth is if she be overcome by force; the sixth is if he has been reconciled to her by having carnal intercourse with her after she has committed adultery; the seventh is if both having been married in the state of unbelief, the husband has given his wife a bill of divorce and she has married again; for then if both be converted the husband is bound to receive her back again. Reply to Objection 1: A husband sins if through vindictive anger he puts away his wife who has committed fornication, but he does not sin if he does so in order to avoid losing his good name, lest he seem to share in her guilt, or in order to correct his wife’s sin, or in order to avoid the uncertainty of her offspring. Reply to Objection 2: Divorce on account of fornication is effected by the one accusing the other. And since no one can accuse who is guilty of the same crime, a divorce cannot be pronounced when both have committed fornication, although marriage is more sinned against when both are guilty of fornication that when only one is. Reply to Objection 3: Fornication is directly opposed to the good of marriage, since by it the certainty of offspring is destroyed, faith is broken, and marriage ceases to have its signification when the body of one spouse is given to several others. Wherefore other sins, though perhaps they be more grievous than fornication, are not motives for a divorce. Since, however, unbelief which is called spiritual fornication, is also opposed to the good of marriage consisting in the rearing of the offspring to the worship of God, it is also a motive for divorce, yet not in the same way as bodily fornication. Because one may take steps for procuring a divorce on account of one act of carnal fornication, not, however, on account of one act of unbelief, but on account of inveterate unbelief which is a proof of obstinacy wherein unbelief is perfected.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  The writer had already been saying his goodbyes when I arrived. He wouldn’t march tonight, he said, he had come to watch the crowd gather but he had to get home to his daughter, it was her bedtime already. She would be getting cross, he said to me; he spoke the English of the British Institute, of the Cambridge exam. He was devoted to this girl, who was four or five; his Facebook page was full of pictures of her, of the two of them, he was a convert to fatherhood, having come to it late. She came the first couple of days, he said, but after that she refused, she wanted to stay home with her mother and read—she loves to read, he said, you’ve never seen a child who loves so much to read—she says the protests are boring. Smart girl, D. said, they are boring, every night is the same, it’s not really a protest, it’s just a boring party. He spoke as if he were picking up a conversation I had interrupted. They don’t have any ideas, he said, throwing up his hands, what’s the good of a movement without any ideas. No no, the writer said, please, you can’t write that—D. was reporting on the protests for a newspaper in Britain, almost the first international coverage they would receive—please, that can’t be your story. You have to say what the feeling is, the energy, but D. cut him off. The energy, he said, not sounding happy now, what the fuck is that? Look, if it’s just energy, we should hope it stops, right away, energy without a plan can’t build anything, it’s more likely to make things worse. No, the writer said again, but he was already withdrawing, he put his hand on D.’s shoulder but it was a way of ending the conversation, not of drawing him near. I don’t think you’re right, he said, it’s the future they want, you should do what you can to help them. He smiled then, he put his hand on D.’s face, cupping his cheek like a grandfather, a much older man. If you had children you’d see it differently, he said, switching to Bulgarian, you’d support them then. D. scoffed but the writer had already moved on, he reached his hand to D.’s mother, who took him by the arm instead. I’m going too, she said, I’ll walk with you. D. kissed her cheek, and she thanked me again for the flower, which she held with her free hand as she and the writer set off for the metro stop a few blocks away, leaving D. and me alone. He looked at me and smiled, shrugging a little. He’s a great writer, he said, but he’s wrong about this. I didn’t say anything; I wanted to take up the writer’s side of things, but I knew I would lose the argument—I didn’t have any arguments, really, just feelings, he would have laughed at them. And anyway the drums started beating then, and air horns blared, and there was a shift in the crowd, which grew still and then very slowly began to move. D. sighed. Okay, he said, I guess it’s time, and he swung his backpack off his shoulder to take out a large camera, which he hung around his neck. It was his first time at the protests, too, he had followed them in the news but hadn’t come out until tonight, to play the role of journalist, not citizen—he would wander around talking to people, he said, gathering material. There was another blast of horns, and D. invited me to join him. But I would have been in the way, and I wanted to be on my own for a bit, I told him I would find him later. The crowd was moving more decisively now, I stood for a while at the fountain and watched it pass. People held their signs at attention, not using them for shade anymore, and everywhere I saw the word OSTAVKA, resignation, the protesters’ primary demand. A golden retriever twisted among the crowd, unleashed, his tail crazily wagging, until he paused in front of a young girl with Bulgarian flags painted on her cheeks, who patted him once or twice before he rushed off again.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  Dwight drove in a sullen reverie. When I spoke he answered curtly or not at all. Now and then his expression changed, and he grunted as if to claim some point of argument. He kept a Camel burning on his lower lip. Just the other side of Concrete he pulled the car hard to the left and hit a beaver that was crossing the road. Dwight said he had swerved to miss the beaver, but that wasn’t true. He had gone out of his way to run over it. He stopped the car on the shoulder of the road and backed up to where the beaver lay. We got out and looked at it. I saw no blood. The beaver was on its back with its eyes open and its curved yellow teeth bared. Dwight prodded it with his foot. “Dead,” he said. It was dead all right. “Pick it up,” Dwight told me. He opened the trunk of the car and said, “Pick it up. We’ll skin the sucker out when we get home.” I wanted to do what Dwight expected me to do, but I couldn’t. I stood where I was and stared at the beaver. Dwight came up beside me. “That pelt’s worth fifty dollars, bare minimum.” He added, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the damned thing.” “No sir.” “Then pick it up.” He watched me. “It’s dead, for Christ’s sake. It’s just meat. Are you afraid of hamburger? Look.” He bent down and gripped the tail in one hand and lifted the beaver off the ground. He tried to make this appear effortless but I could see he was surprised and strained by the beaver’s weight. A stream of blood ran out of its nose, then stopped. A few drops fell on Dwight’s shoes before he jerked the body away. Holding the beaver in front of him with both hands, Dwight carried it to the open trunk and let go. It landed hard. “There,” he said, and wiped his hands on his pant leg. We drove farther into the mountains. It was late afternoon. Pale cold light. The river flashed green through the trees beside the road, then turned gray as

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  All these permutations of power stumble into our adult intimacies, and gender does matter. Boys and girls undergo a radically different initiation in wielding power. Men become adept at direct expressions of power, women at indirect expressions; and these differences are discernible in our sexual scripts. As adults, we seek control in part as a defense against the vulnerability inherent in love. When we put our hopes on one person, our dependence soars. So do our frustrations and disappointments. The greater our helplessness, the more dangerous the threat of humiliation. The more we need, the angrier we are when we don’t get. Kids know this; lovers do, too. No one can bring us to the boiling point as quickly as our partner (except maybe our parents, the original locus of dependent rage). Love is always accompanied by hate. While we fear the depth of our dependence, many of us are even more frightened by the depth of our rage. We resort to intricate relational contortions in order to keep all this combustion in check. Yet the couples who most successfully implement this model of placidity are rarely passionate lovers. When we confuse assertion with aggression, neutralize otherness, adjust our longings, and reason away our hostility, we assemble a calmness that is reassuring but not very exciting. Stephen Mitchell makes the point that the capacity to contain aggression is a precondition for the capacity to love. We must integrate our aggression rather than eradicate it. He explains, “The degradation of romance, the waning of desire, is due not to the contamination of love by aggression, but to the inability to sustain the necessary tension between them.” Jed and Coral Jed is unassuming. He is a clean-shaven, mild-mannered architect, brilliant and well-spoken. He is kind, never the sort of person to get in your face about anything. But sexually, he’s another man. Jed discovered S-M (sadomasochism) as a teenager, and for years he has used eroticism as a venue for aggression. He loves leather, hard surfaces, chains, handcuffs. “I used to be shy, and it was hard for me to assert myself. But at the same time I was angry a lot, and I didn’t know where to go with it. I was too afraid of hurting people, so I kept it all inside.” “I can see why S-M was so attractive to you,” I reply. “You could make demands and not fear hurting anyone. The unambiguous codes, the negotiating beforehand, made it safe for you. Emotionally, you tend to put other people first. Sexual domination is a way for you to override the other person’s supremacy. It’s a clever answer to your more typical emotional subordination.” “Exactly,” he says. “But at the same time, you know, it’s all about their needs. I’m pleasing them—that’s the key piece. They want it. They have to be really into it, or it’s a no-go for me.”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  DiscussionYou may (unless you are extremely obsessive) have found it maddeningly difficult to stay focused on a sensation (or image) without drifting off into thought. For these exercises to take hold, you will need to regularly set some time to practice (generally from five or ten minutes to an hour). You will encounter a myriad of possible resistances ranging from drifting into thought to “spacing out” entirely or having the urge to go to the refrigerator to eat. Another kind of avoidance occurs when a sensation or image somehow reminds you of a past event, as in the experience of déjà vu. In “grabbing” prematurely for a meaning or understanding, you will almost certainly abort the developing internal process. Recall Miriam’s session (in Chapter 8), where she learned to trust the spontaneous happenings in her body by suspending her inclination to interpret, judge or understand. With practice she came to deepen her experience, notice her boundaries, heal her unresolved grief from her first marriage and physically open to her suppressed sexuality. The capacity to stay focused and deepen, focally, is a magnificent skill with great rewards, but it is stepwise and frustrating. Generally, when people are able to get in touch with their bodies, they are drawn first to a painful area. This is OK; in fact, pain (not due to a medical reason) is generally blocked sensation, indicating an area of conflict.a You will gradually learn to tease out these places of discord and progressively resolve them. But first and foremost you must learn to maintain focus and differentiate various spontaneous bodily (muscular and visceral) sensations. The term spontaneous is central here. Our limited acquaintance with our body is primarily with doing—namely, how we use our bodies to do what we want. If you observe the goings-on in any gym or health club, you will note that most people are not having an intimate relationship with their bodies. Rather, they are burning calories or building what they perceive to be an attractive shape. Even athletes (with the exception of some gymnasts, dancers and graceful individuals), more often than not, have very limited body awareness. To burrow into the world of spontaneous sensations and feelings takes a radically different approach than merely feeling the form and function of our bodies.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  I’ll try to sail with it as far as possible. “Your point is well taken, Myrna. The T-shirt crack doesn’t fit in anywhere. A stupid comment. And a hurtful one. I’m sorry about it. Not sure where it came from. I wish I could recapture what prompted it.” “I remember from the tape—” “I thought you didn’t listen to the tape.” “I didn’t say that. I said I forgot to bring the tape, but I listened to it at home. The T-shirt comment came right after I said you could introduce me to one of your rich single patients.” “Right, right, I remember. I’m impressed, Myrna. Somehow I had the feeling that our sessions didn’t mean enough for you to remember them so well. Let me go back into my feelings in that last hour. One thing I remember for sure—that very comment about introducing you to one of my rich patients really bugged me. Just prior to that, I think I had asked what I could offer you, and that was your answer. I felt put down: your comment hurt me. I should be above that, but I’ve got my sore spots—and my blind spots too.” “Hurt? Aren’t we being a bit touchy? Just a joke.” “Maybe. But maybe more than a joke. Maybe you were giving voice to your sense that I have little of value to offer you—at best, an introduction to another man. So I felt invisible. Devalued. And I guess that’s why I lashed out at you.” “Poor thing!” Myrna muttered. “What?” “Nothing, nothing—another joke.” “I’m not going to let you drive me away with that kind of comment. In fact, I’m wondering whether we should be meeting more than once a week. For today, though, we have to stop. We’re running over. Let’s pick up from here next week.” Ernest was glad Myrna’s hour was over. But not for the customary reasons: he wasn’t bored or irritated by her; he was exhausted. Punch-drunk. Staggering. On the ropes. But Myrna hadn’t finished punching. “You really don’t like me, do you?” she remarked as she picked up her purse and started to rise . “On the contrary,” said Ernest, determined to hang in there with his patient, “I felt particularly close to you in this session. It was scary and hard today but good work.” “That’s not exactly what I asked you.” “But that’s the way I feel. There are times when I feel more distant from you; times when I feel close to you.” “But you really don’t like me?” “Liking isn’t a global feeling. Sometimes you do things I don’t like; sometimes there are things I like very much about you.” Yeah, yeah. Like my big tits and the swish of my stockings, Myrna thought as she got out her car keys. At the door Ernest, as always, offered his hand.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In contrast, (fixated) emotional states derive from frustrated drives or engagement of the last-ditch mobilization of emergency (fight/flight/freeze). With the paucity of saber-toothed tigers, this critical reaction of last resort rarely makes sense in modern life. However, we are compelled to deal with a myriad of very different threats, such as speeding cars and overly eager surgeons, for which we lack much in the way of evolutionarily prepared protocols. Emotions are our constant companions, enhancing our lives and detracting from them. How we navigate the maze of emotions is a central factor in the conduct of our lives, for better or for worse. The question is: under what conditions are emotions adaptive—and conversely, when are they maladaptive? In general, the more that an emotion takes on the quality of shock or eruption, or the more that it is suppressed or repressed, the more prominent is the maladaptation. Indeed, often an emotion begins in a useful form and then, because we suppress it, turns against us in the form of physical symptoms or in a delayed and exaggerated explosion. Anger and resentment, when denied, can build to an explosive level. There is a popular expression that is apt here: “That which we resist, persists.” As damaging as emotions can be, repressing them only compounds the problem. However, let it be duly noted that the difference between repression/suppression and restraint/containment is significant though elusive. Remember once more how the samurai warrior delicately, but definitively, arrested his compulsion to strike, allowing him to feel his (former) murderous rage simply as pure energy—and ultimately as the bliss of feeling alive. As the successful parent knows, this strategy works well with children. Rather than suppress the child, encouraging a habit of repression, these parents help the child by providing a timely interruption, while guiding the child to feel his anger and source his needs and desires. This is what healthy aggression is about. On the other hand, we have the permissive parent who lets the child go out-of-control with temper tantrums, as the samurai was about to do but with lethal consequences. The effective parent, however, provides and channels the child’s aggression in a useful way. They do this by both allowing the child to feel her anger and then helping the child to understand what she is mad about. If emotions are not too extreme and are approached with a certain stance, they can serve the function of guiding our behaviors—even moving them toward positive goals. Here’s an example with which most of us can identify. Bob comes home from work and finds his house in chaos. He is furious and wants to yell at Jane and the kids, but he “stuffs” his rage. By bedtime he cannot unwind and has an acute attack of gastric reflux.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, The species of anger given by Damascene and Gregory of Nyssa are taken from those things which give increase to anger. This happens in three ways. First from facility of the movement itself, and he calls this kind of anger {cholos} [bile] because it quickly aroused. Secondly, on the part of the grief that causes anger, and which dwells some time in the memory; this belongs to {menis} [ill-will] which is derived from {menein} [to dwell]. Thirdly, on the part of that which the angry man seeks, viz. vengeance; and this pertains to {kotos} [rancor] which never rests until it is avenged [*Eph. 4:31: “Let all bitterness and anger and indignation . . . be put away from you.”]. Hence the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 5) calls some angry persons {akrocholoi} [choleric], because they are easily angered; some he calls {pikroi} [bitter], because they retain their anger for a long time; and some he calls {chalepoi} [ill-tempered], because they never rest until they have retaliated [*Cf. [1427]SS, Q[158], A[5]]. Reply to Objection 1: All those things which give anger some kind of perfection are not altogether accidental to anger; and consequently nothing prevents them from causing a certain specific difference thereof. Reply to Objection 2: Irascibility, which Cicero mentions, seems to pertain to the first species of anger, which consists in a certain quickness of temper, rather than to rancor [furor]. And there is no reason why the Greek {thymosis}, which is denoted by the Latin “furor,” should not signify both quickness to anger, and firmness of purpose in being avenged. Reply to Objection 3: These degrees are distinguished according to various effects of anger; and not according to degrees of perfection in the very movement of anger. OF THE CAUSE THAT PROVOKES ANGER, AND OF THE REMEDIES OF ANGER (FOUR A RTICLES)[*There is no further mention of these remedies in the text, except in A[4].] We must now consider the cause that provokes anger, and its remedies. Under this head there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether the motive of anger is always something done against the one who is angry? (2) Whether slight or contempt is the sole motive of anger? (3) Of the cause of anger on the part of the angry person; (4) Of the cause of anger on the part of the person with whom one is angry.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In Steps 5, 6 and 7, the gradual restoration of active defensive and protective responses—along with the carefully calibrated termination of the immobility reaction is accomplished. This, along with the discharge of bound energy, reduces the hyperarousal. Together these steps lie at the heart of transforming trauma. In particular, the egress from immobility is associated with intense arousal-based sensations, along with the powerful emotions of rage and frantic, fearful flight. This is the reason the process of trauma release must be worked in tiny increments. I use the term titration to denote the gradual, stepwise process of trauma renegotiation. This process operates like certain chemical reactions. Consider two glass beakers, one filled with hydrochloric acid (HCl) and the other with lye (NaOH). These extremely corrosive substances (the acid and the base, respectively) would cause severe burning if you were to place your finger in either beaker; indeed, if you were to leave that finger there for a few moments, it would simply dissolve since both of these chemicals are so caustic. Naturally, you would want to make them safe by neutralizing them; and, if you knew a little chemistry, you might mix them together to get a harmless mixture of water and common table salt, two of the basic building blocks of life. This reaction is written HCl + NaOH = NaCl + H20. If you simply poured them together, you would get a massive explosion, surely blinding yourself and any other individuals in the lab. On the other hand, if you skillfully use a glass valve (a stopcock), you could add one of the chemicals to the other one single drop at a time. And with each drop there would be a small “Alka-Seltzer fizzle,” but soon all would be calm. With each drop the same minimal reaction would repeat (see Figure 5.3). Finally, after a certain number of drops, both water and crystals of salt would begin to form. With several titrations, you would inevitably get the same neutralizing chemical reaction, but without the explosion. This is the effect that we want to achieve in resolving trauma: when dealing with potentially corrosive forces, therapists must somehow neutralize those sensations of intense “energy” and the primal emotional states of rage and non-directed flight without unleashing an explosive abreaction. Titration [image file=image_rsrc2NA.jpg] Figure 5.3 Titration in the chemistry lab is a way of combining two corrosive and potentially explosive substances in a controlled mixing that transforms the reactants gradually. Step 5. Restoring active responsesDuring my accident, as I was propelled into the windshield of the car, my arm stiffened to ward off the impact to my head. The amount of energy that goes into such a protective response is vast; muscles stiffen to maximal exertion to fend off a lethal blow. Also, at the moment my shoulder smashed into the glass and I was propelled into the air and onto the road, my body went limp.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was about joy, the story he would tell me, but it wasn’t joy I saw as he moved back and forth between my cock and my hand, or not only joy. I had the sense that he was looking for something and not finding it, making his movements sharper and faster; he was asking a question I didn’t know how to answer, that I tried to answer by jabbing my hand and twisting it with each movement he made. But he was frustrated, I thought, and finally he stopped his motion, he forced himself down on my cock, taking me as deep as he could, shaking his head a little as if to work me in deeper, like a dog worrying a toy. I used my free hand to grab his head and fucked him as hard as I could, savagely, in a way meant to hurt him. I tilted slightly on my side and wrapped my legs around his head, trapping him and moving my hips very fast, as hard and as fast as I could, an uncontrolled motion, a kind of spasm to echo his own spasm as he choked on me, though even as he choked he locked his arms around my ass, to keep me from pulling away. I made a sound then too, loud and guttural, almost a shout, and it was only when I heard it that I realized it was anger I felt, hot and eager, I didn’t know where it came from but I would make him feel it too, I thought. I held him in place even as I felt him try to pull his head back, even after he started slapping my thighs again I held him down. I wanted to frighten him, I think, I wanted it not to be a game. You want it, I said as he struggled, you want it, take it then, I said, take it, you fucking whore, and it was the shock of the words that made me let him go, the words and what I felt as I said them.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  One could also speculate on what unconscious thoughts (and images) were stirred when the master provoked the swordsman’s ire. Perhaps the samurai was startled and at first even agreed with the characterization that he was ugly and untalented. This strong reaction to this insult (we might hypothesize) derived from his parents, teachers and others who humiliated him as a child. Perhaps he had a mental picture of being shamed in front of his school classmates. And then the other micro-fleeting “counter thought”—that no one would dare to call him that again and make him feel small and worthless. This thought and associated (internal) picture, coupled with a momentary physical sensation of startle, triggered the rage that led him down the compulsive, driven road to perdition. That was, at least, until his “Zen therapist,” precisely at the peak of rage, kept him from habitually expressing this “protective” emotion (really a defense against his feelings of smallness and helplessness) and forced him to the ownership of his real power and peaceful surrender. In the examples of Pouncer and the Zen master, choice occurred at the critical moment before executing attack. With the Zen master’s critical intervention, the samurai held back and felt the preparation to strike with his sword. In this highly charged state he paused and was able to restrain and transmute his violent rage into intense energy and a state of clarity, gratefulness, presence and grace. It is the ability to hold back, restrain and contain a powerful emotion that allows a person to creatively channel that energy. Containment (a somatic rooting of Freud’s “sublimation”) buys us time and, with self-awareness, enables us to separate out what we are imagining and thinking from our physical sensations. And this fraction of a second of restraint, as we just saw, is the difference between heaven and hell. When we can maintain this “creative neutrality,” we begin to dissolve the emotional compulsion to react as though our life depends on responses that are largely inappropriate. The uncoupling of sensation from image and thought is what diffuses the highly charged emotions and allows them to transform fluidly into sensation-based gradations of feelings. This is not at all the same as suppressing or repressing them. For all of us, and particularly for the traumatized individual, the capacity to transform the “negative” emotions of fear and rage is the difference between heaven and hell.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  And I told you that I would be engaged with you, and that much of our task here would be to study that engagement? And you said you welcomed that?” “This is not making sense. You think I’m deliberately opposing you. Tell me, why would I come week after week, on a long drive and blowing one- fifty an hour? One hundred fifty dollars—maybe small change for you but not for me.” “On one level it doesn’t make sense, Myrna, yet on another it does. Here’s the way I see it. You’re unhappy with your life, you’re lonely, you feel unloved and unlovable. You come to me for help—at great effort—it is a long drive. And expensive too—I do hear you, Myrna. But something strange happens here—I think it’s fear. I think getting close makes you uncomfortable, and then you back off, close down, find fault with me, ridicule what we’re doing. I’m not saying you do it deliberately.” “If you understand me so well, why the T-shirt comment? You still haven’t answered that question.” “I was addressing that when I mentioned that I felt impatient.” “That doesn’t really feel like an answer.” Ernest took another long look at his patient and thought, Do I really know her? Whence this blast of directness? But it’s a welcome, bracing wind—and anything’s better than what we’ve been doing. I’ll try to sail with it as far as possible. “Your point is well taken, Myrna. The T-shirt crack doesn’t fit in anywhere. A stupid comment. And a hurtful one. I’m sorry about it. Not sure where it came from. I wish I could recapture what prompted it.” “I remember from the tape—” “I thought you didn’t listen to the tape.” “I didn’t say that. I said I forgot to bring the tape, but I listened to it at home. The T-shirt comment came right after I said you could introduce me to one of your rich single patients.” “Right, right, I remember. I’m impressed, Myrna. Somehow I had the feeling that our sessions didn’t mean enough for you to remember them so well. Let me go back into my feelings in that last hour. One thing I remember for sure—that very comment about introducing you to one of my rich patients really bugged me. Just prior to that, I think I had asked what I could offer you, and that was your answer. I felt put down: your comment hurt me. I should be above that, but I’ve got my sore spots—and my blind spots too.” “Hurt? Aren’t we being a bit touchy? Just a joke.” “Maybe. But maybe more than a joke. Maybe you were giving voice to your sense that I have little of value to offer you—at best, an introduction to another man. So I felt invisible. Devalued. And I guess that’s why I lashed out at you.” “Poor thing!” Myrna muttered. “What?” “Nothing, nothing—another joke.” “I’m not going to let you drive me away with that kind of comment.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  The Amen Corner____ Chuck got drunk almost every night. Some nights he was jolly. Other nights he went into silent rages in which his face would redden and swell, and his lips move to the words he was shouting inside his head. At the peak of his fury he threw himself against unyielding objects. He would ram his shoulder into a wall, then back up and do it again. Sometimes he just stood there, saying nothing, and pummeled the wall with his fists. In the morning he would ask me what he’d done the night before. I didn’t really believe that he had forgotten, but I played along and told him how wiped out he’d been, how totally out of control. He shook his head at the behavior of this strange other person. I could not keep up with him and I stopped trying. He never said anything, but I knew he was disappointed in me. Chuck’s father had run a dairy before he became a storekeeper and preacher. The family still owned the farm, though now they leased the pastures and barn to a neighbor. Mr. and Mrs. Bolger and their two young daughters lived in the main house. Chuck and I were off by ourselves in a converted storage shed a couple of hundred feet away. Mr. Bolger had the idea that a good dose of trust would rouse us to some adult conception of ourselves. It should have. It didn’t. The Bolgers went to bed at nine-thirty sharp. Around ten, if Chuck wasn’t already in the bag, we pushed his car down the drive a ways, then cranked it up and drove over to Veronica’s house. Arch and Psycho were usually there, sometimes Huff. They drank and played poker. I had no money, so I sat on the floor and watched the late show with Veronica. Veronica ruined the movies by telling me all about the stars. She had the inside track on Hollywood. She knew which actor, supposedly dead, was actually a drooling vegetable, and which actress could not be satisfied except by entire football teams. She was especially hard on the men. According to Veronica they were all a bunch of homos, and she proved it by pointing out the little signals and gestures by which they advertised their persuasion. The lighting of a cigarette, the position of a handkerchief in a breast pocket, the way an actor glanced at his watch or angled his hat— everything was evidence to Veronica. Even when she wasn’t talking I could feel