Aggression is good and bad. Aggression - signs and treatment

The opinion of the leading Russian psychologist of the CROSS club, Mikhail Maslov, is how to increase self-esteem, how to become successful, by analyzing and recognizing your attitude to the two most powerful human emotions, anger and fear. Fear is not as terrible, anger is not as terrible as they seem at first glance.

Unexpressed aggression inevitably causes a strong feeling of guilt. We are embarrassed to express our natural emotions. Aggression is directed at us and eats us up from the inside.

Where does the prohibition on expressing this emotion, which is actually useful for survival, come from? How to overcome this barrier?

Thesis: The main reason for self-doubt is an internal prohibition on feeling and expressing aggression.

First I want to define and expand the concept of aggressiveness. It will be slightly different from the concept of aggressiveness, which is used “by default” in society and is understood in the meaning of “bad, destructive. This is true, but these are infantile or immature forms of expression of aggression. I will say more about forms of aggression below.

Aggression is any act aimed at modifying oneself or the world around oneself.

And what do you think, what tool has nature (evolution, God, creator) endowed people with for developing themselves, protecting themselves, their interests, territory, personality? This is the emotion of anger. When does anger arise? When there is a source of discomfort and a person feels subjectively stronger than the source of discomfort (B.M. Litvak’s definition). And if a person perceives himself as weaker, then what emotion arises? Fear. This second one is genetically given to a person an emotion that is also aimed at protecting one’s interests and one’s personality. By the way, fear, like anger, is, in terms of intensity of experience, the most powerful emotions a person can experience.

Let's get creative. Imagine that you are crossing the road, even if the traffic light is green. But then you see a car approaching you at high speed from the left, honking its horn, flashing its headlights, and you understand that it is not going to slow down. How will you feel? Probably at first you will allow yourself to get angry that they want to ask you to quickly get out of the way, although you have every right to occupy the crossing, but the closer the car approaches, the more you will feel what emotion? Fear. Fear for your life and this fear will somehow begin to spur you on, and you will quickly leave the roadway.

Now imagine that you are crossing the road in a tank when the traffic light is green. And from the left, a car is also approaching you, honking its horn, flashing its headlights, and generally wants to hurry you up. How will you feel? It will probably be different somehow, but there will be no fear. Why? What distinguishes the first situation from the second? In the second situation, there is an understanding and feeling of being armed, able and ready to fight back if necessary.

So what makes it possible for a person to be confident and ready to fight back if necessary? This is the ability and opportunity to experience anger and internally allow oneself to be aggressive.

I remember how one young man who was taking a script reprogramming course read out an autobiography and described the events when he served in the army. He told how the old-timers forced him to do something, put pressure on him, humiliated him, forced him to fight. But despite the fact that he had a second adult rank in boxing, it was extremely difficult for him to defend himself: “It feels like you are tied hand and foot, although my hands and feet are free and I know how to fight, but psychologically I can’t allow myself to do this.” . Those. For some reason, a person sheaths his tool to protect himself and forbids himself to use it. The magnitude of this prohibition determines the feeling of being strong or weak when a person is faced with a manifestation of aggression directed at him. And this prohibition is called moralization.

How and where does this ban come from? It often happens that parents own reasons They treat the child as an extension of themselves, do not want to accept the child in all its manifestations and do not want to see manifestations of anger directed at them. And vice versa, they want their child to only admire them. And when a child, completely normal for himself, shows anger at his parents from the age of 3-4 years, then the parents punish the child for this with various sanctions. Basically, this is rejection “I don’t need you like that,” and rejection is one of the most terrible situations for a child. This is either retaliatory anger, beatings, or manipulations based on feelings of guilt and shame, “Shame on you, I’m your mother,” or manipulations based on feelings of negation, “I’m not talking to you,” “My child doesn’t behave like that,” “I I will love another Dima.” And then the child imposes an internal ban on feeling and expressing anger, because... understands that defending one’s interests and being oneself is scarier (i.e., losing a relationship is scarier) than enduring suffering in a relationship. Those. The child sheaths a certain psychological sword that can and should be used to defend itself, the mother fills the neck of the sheath with sealing wax, stamps it “Do not open, do not use, indecent, uncivilized. Aren’t you ashamed, I’m your mother,” and what kind of person goes out into the world in terms of weapons? Disarmed.

What will happen next? What emotions will the person experience? Imagine that you are walking down the street without a weapon, and a man comes out to meet you, takes out two submachine guns, points them at him and says, “Well, let’s talk?” How will you feel? What emotion should you feel? Fear, anxiety. Will you try to make this person stop shooting at you? Yes. Those. you will form a list of expectations from yourself and when this list is not fulfilled, what emotion will arise? Guilt. Or a feeling of resentment. Those. it is anger, but directed at oneself. What will happen to the feeling of self-confidence? It will not be there, but instead there will be a feeling of anxiety, suspiciousness, shyness and a desire to please the other person. You will live with the feeling that someone else can be angry with me (shoot at me), but I can’t respond.

And what will happen in such an emotional state with the realization of your desires? I understand that there will be situations where they will evaluate me and put psychological pressure on me, but what are these situations like for me? Pleasant or not so pleasant? These are very scary situations for me, these are situations that cause a lot of stress. And when I want to do something, then at the same time how will I do it? Scary. And then the more scared, the more likely it is that I will say to myself what? “I’m not interested in doing this,” “it’s not mine.” What will happen to your interests in life and your emotional state in general? How will I feel if I suppressed one of the most powerful emotions in terms of severity - fear. What will happen to weaker emotions: interest, joy, a sense of meaning? Will I be able to feel a weaker emotion if I have stopped myself from feeling a stronger one? No. And then I will feel that “I’m bored”, “I’m not interested”, “I’m lazy”, I don’t know what I want and in general I don’t want anything. This state can be called emotional mortification, “either will or captivity, it’s all the same.”

What will happen to the body if you suppress anger? The unconscious will react in its own way, without asking the person whether he wants him to have a reaction in response or not. Anger will be expressed through psychosomatic illnesses. For example. The subordinate’s character remains the desire to please everyone; he feels inferior when he is evaluated significant people and such a person is his boss. But the boss mocked his subordinate, yelled at him, and assessed his personality negatively. The subordinate left the conversation with the boss feeling grateful for the criticism. But after 10 minutes, the subordinate began to have a headache. Blood pressure rose. Those. there is a reaction to the invasion of personal boundaries, but it is not realized. This can be compared to an attack on Russia Nuclear weapons, in response to which our military also press the “Start” button, and a missile with atomic bomb leaves the launch pad in an underground mine, but when it flies up to the lid of the underground mine, it turns out that they forgot to open the lid of the mine. And then the rocket explodes on Russian territory.

So, anger, if it is not felt, experienced or, if necessary, not expressed, then it is transformed into an upsurge blood pressure, spasms of the muscles of the back, neck, throat.

If there is too much suppressed anger, then these emotions can destroy a person, and then another defense mechanism- depression. Depression does the same thing to the psyche as weakness, fever, or lack of appetite during a viral disease. Those. In order for the body to focus on fighting the viral disease, weakness appears and the person goes to bed. Meanwhile, the body continues to intensively fight viral infection. Likewise, depression somewhat dampens mental activity so that excessive emotions do not destroy a person. For example, suppressed anger is transformed either into headaches or into a depressive state. Although the only correct emotion in response to personal insult and invasion of personal boundaries should be what? This is retaliatory anger.

So what to do and what forms of expression of aggression are acceptable and which are not?

I would begin to answer this question by first distinguishing between the concepts of aggressiveness and destructiveness. Or they would separate infantile (immature) and mature aggression - on the one hand, and aggression directed at oneself and external world with another.

What is mature aggression? Any act of creation, initiative - is it a phenomenon in itself? Aggressive. If I create something, it assumes that what was created before me somehow needs correction, is somehow outdated, has somehow lost its relevance. And with my creative product, I treat other creative products aggressively. And this is mature aggression, i.e. energy aimed at transforming and improving the world around you. From here follows the understanding that any initiative is punishable (if it is not expected). And everything new has the well-known three stages of implementation: Resistance “This cannot be”, adaptation “There is something in this”, and acceptance “This is the only way it should be”.

If mature aggression is directed at oneself, then what do you think this is expressed in? In transforming whom and in what direction? Yourself towards the realization of your abilities and needs. Those. mature aggression is gnawing on the granite of science and processing it for oneself and other people. This is a modification of oneself in the direction of development, acquisition of skills and knowledge.

What about infantile aggression? This is the destruction of something, causing physical, material, moral harm to other people. And infantile aggression directed at oneself is self-destruction, feelings of guilt, resentment, and anger at oneself.

So what stops you from being aggressive? Most often, this is a moralization or prejudice that anger and aggression are bad. This is rude, this is unacceptable. And along with this prejudice, the concept of which includes “aggression is a scandal,” a person bans himself from feeling and expressing aggression as a tool for protecting his personality and realizing himself in general.

In order to feel confident, it is enough to allow yourself to get angry, if necessary, but not necessarily to express it. Because very few people can accept anger without ending the relationship or punishing it with other sanctions. Conversely, there are a lot of people who treat other people as objects that should only be admired. Then you will feel that you can defend your interests, that you are psychologically armed. This state is felt by another person and he understands that “it’s better not to, don’t interfere, it will be worse for both.” This is read non-verbally and felt by another person. Much like how nuclear powers do not attack each other because they understand that it will be worse for both.

After a person allows himself to feel anger, then more subtle and weaker feelings are released: interest, joy, love, the ability to feel and experience belonging to meaning. Those. the person begins to feel alive.

And I would also like to talk about one form of aggression that is most difficult to resist. What do you think this is? This is care and supposedly love disguised as care. A person who cares about you often says what? “I love you, I want you to feel better.” Those. This is how a person rationalizes his aggression; this aggression is often not felt and is just as strongly binding and immobilizing as the direct expression of aggression in the form of coercion to do something. It can be especially difficult to get rid of a caring aggressor when you realize that this is a person close to you.

Good luck to you in your ability to be mature aggressors!

You can practice the skills of correctly expressing your emotions, start living a full life, or simply learn more about your own psychological portrait at our seminars dedicated to “ Personal growth" The series of seminars is called “How to get out of the script and start living.” Look at the schedule of CROSS club seminars for the dates that are relevant to you

The ability to explode with aggressiveness at any second and the next second to smile serenely is an indicator high level control of yourself and your own emotions. If you learn to freely cause aggression, it will soon become easier for you to turn it off, and those around you will begin to treat you with more respect.

However, anything can happen in life. We are all alive, sometimes we get angry and offended, after which we want internal tension somehow defuse it. How?

Not only from friends and neighbors, but also in popular psychological literature, you can often come across the following recommendation: “If you are angry and overwhelmed by aggression, do not suppress it in yourself, find a way to defuse it. Throw it out in words, throw it out in actions, and you will feel better. If you suppress your emotions, it will have a bad effect on your health.” Treat such a recommendation with caution: this is a very popular but harmful myth, where half-truths are mixed with ignorance.

Statements about the harm of deterring aggression and negative emotions are ignorance, and the promise of benefits from the outburst of emotions is a dangerous half-truth. In this half-truth, the moment of truth is that Now from the splash to you more likely It will become easier, and it’s a big lie that you should accustom yourself to this dubious method.

Fans of this recommendation often use the metaphor of a pot of steam that will explode if it is not released. This metaphor is beautiful, but wrong. Anger is more of a forest fire that will take over large areas with catastrophic destruction if the first small light or fire is not controlled in time.

This question has attracted attention many times scientific psychology, the results are clear. Experiments by R. Walters and M. Brown (1959), S. Mullick and B. McCandliss (1966), C. Turner and D. Goldsmith (1976), R. Green (1981), M. Zuzul (1989) and B. Bushman (2002) convincingly showed that neither imaginary aggression nor outbursts of anger not only reduce the likelihood of the promotion of real aggression, but, on the contrary, increase it.

But what about folk wisdom“let off steam”, “vent your anger?” University of California professor E. Aronson explains it this way: “We humans are cognitive animals. Accordingly, in our case, aggression depends not only on tension - on what a person feels - but also on what he thinks. Once in your life you speak disapprovingly of your boss or give another person an electric shock in an experiment, it will become much easier to do it the second time. Your initial hostile act causes you to need to justify it. When a person harms another, cognitive processes are triggered to justify the act of cruelty. Thus, cognitive dissonance is reduced, but at the same time the ground is prepared for further aggression.”

The release of aggression and the outburst of negative emotions are popularized, apparently, due to confusion: the outburst of emotions is confused with the opportunity to speak out one’s emotions. Or - relieve internal tension with physical pumping. And these are all different things.

Shall we figure it out? For example, a daughter was angry with both her parents and herself, everything was seething inside her, anger was boiling inside her. What should she do now? The first, quite reasonable option is to speak out your feelings: “I’m very angry with myself and with you, I think I’m about to explode.” The second, also quite acceptable option: go to your room, stamp your inner tension with your feet, or dance to the music so that after that you just want to lie down and relax. The third option: yell your feelings, throw out your anger in the most energetic terms at yourself, a fool, and at such and such (even more energetically) parents. This is unacceptable, even if it doesn’t sound to the parents’ faces.

The first thing to consider is that this method quickly stops working. Even experts don’t all know that the outburst of emotions and the release of aggression seriously alleviates the internal state only at first, while such a release is something new for a person, while this event distracts his attention. The more the discharge of aggression becomes a habit, the less screaming and even hitting help discharge it. The discharge method stops working, but the habit of yelling remains.

This is very similar to trying to relax with alcohol. It is known that a glass of vodka also makes men feel better. Is it necessary to make taking two hundred grams a daily habit, taking into account the fact that soon two hundred grams will no longer be enough?

The second thing to consider is that this method often helps women and does not help men well. Moreover, it often brings them trouble. If in women's screams only internal tension without specific content spills out, then the words of men mean exactly what they say, a man's cry is meaningful and specific, it contains a clear desire to fulfill certain threats. By throwing out his anger, a man does not discharge himself, but winds up and charges, and the matter may end not in relief, but in a fight.

"When my younger brother When he was angry about something, he started kicking the furniture. Our mother said that in this way he “let off steam.” Now he's 32 years old, he still takes it out on furniture when he gets irritated. But in addition, he began to beat his wife, his children, his cat and destroy everything that came in his way,” this is how one reader responded to the psychologist’s recommendation to give the child a special “beating bag” to help him cope with outbursts of irritation .

There is no need to throw out anything to someone who is not inflaming himself: what happened can be understood, and what worries or enrages you can be spoken out. The ability to restrain your negative feelings is an indicator of internal culture and good manners, a mandatory attribute of a business and simply successful person.

In summary: it is useful and normal to talk about your grievances (anger, dissatisfaction), it is useful to relieve tension with physical activity (sports, washing dishes, scrubbing floors), but it is not worth throwing out your negative emotions by experiencing imaginary aggression. The discharge of aggression, when repeated, ceases to work as an emotional response, turning only into psychopathic behavior.

But we don't need it!

Aggression and belligerence have always been part of our world; people have constantly encountered and continue to encounter these phenomena in their Everyday life. Aggression is a certain type of action aimed at causing moral or physical harm to other people, it is an attack on them with the aim of causing harm. And aggressiveness is not just a character trait of a person, in which he reacts aggressively to everything, but it is also a natural manifestation of his bestial essence.

Aggressive behavior is characterized primarily by less intellectual developed people, and at the same time, quite active people whose endless desires are supported great opportunities. Being weak and feeling his weakness, a person will not attack other people, because fear will not allow him to do this. But feeling his strength and seeing the opportunities that it gives, a person acts more boldly, more assertively, more aggressively. Consequently, weak people are less aggressive than strong people, but nevertheless, aggression weak people can be expressed in a hidden form, which is sometimes no less, or even more dangerous, open form aggression.

No matter how strong or weak we are, we are still very aggressive creatures by nature and our aggression is associated primarily with the need to defend our interests in this cruel world, in a world of limited resources and boundless selfishness. Therefore, we should perceive our animal essence positively, since nature endowed us with it not by chance, we simply need it for survival. We have created a world in which even the weakest human individuals can survive, whereas in nature only the strongest survive, only those who can fight not only for their lives, but also for their place in the sun. Our world, the world of people, is an unreal world, artificial world, in which aggression and aggressiveness are perceived negatively, while in wildlife, this phenomenon is natural and necessary. Aggressive behavior does not require ethical assessment and interpretation on our part, it simply exists, and has always existed in our lives, as natural and, as mentioned above, necessary. congenital form behavior. And as we are constantly convinced of this, even in our seemingly civilized world, animal laws often operate, under which it is important for a person to be able to, as they say, awaken the beast within himself.

What aggression has emotional coloring, is explained primarily by the fact that for a targeted attack, for an attack, for a powerful and lightning strike, aimed at destroying his enemy or his victim, a person needs great energy. And he draws energy from his emotions, which, although they turn off his thinking, at the level of instincts allow him to act very effectively. But at the same time maximum efficiency actions of the aggressor is more related to the rationality of his behavior than to the strength of his emotions. Remember the words of Muhammad Ali - float like a butterfly and sting like a bee? Anger, anger, aggression, and nonsense in general need to be controlled by the mind, then a person’s aggressive behavior will be more effective. In fact, one person causing harm or any damage to another person, without special need, is an unnatural manifestation of aggression. People, in addition to their hostility, also have a tendency to cooperate, similar to other animals, which, if necessary, gather in packs or herds. And with such behavior, when it is important for a person to establish cooperation with other people, it is more useful for him not so much to be aggressive as to be able to find mutual language with all people, or at least with most of them, for which he needs to develop his thinking. Do you think we are so nice to each other only because of our ethical upbringing? Nothing like that, in most cases, we are forced to be polite to other people, and are forced to take into account their opinions and their interests. But when we have the opportunity not to do this, when everything depends only on our decision - to be or not to be a person who respects other people, we often make a decision not in favor of these very other people. A person with great potential, often without any twinge of conscience, harms other people for the sake of his interests and his boundless selfishness. Therefore, we all need to be moderately aggressive so that our aggression is a deterrent to the exorbitant ambitions of other people. Being aggressive when it is really required is very useful, since in every society, without exception, a person needs to be able to protect his interests and be able to position himself correctly in order to occupy the most advantageous position in comparison with other people, preferably the position of a leader.

But the most important thing that you and I should understand is that the aggression of smart people differs in form from the aggression of stupid people, or better said, wild and underdeveloped people. However, the content of aggressive actions remains unchanged, regardless of any personality differences between people. I would even say that in some, not all, cases, aggressive actions of smart and very smart people can be much more dangerous than similar actions on the part of fools. Disguised, as a rule, under good intentions, the aggression of some very literate people does not meet resistance precisely because it is not obvious. And, unfortunately, for most people, the truism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions remains empty words, heard and repeated many times, but never understood. We all need something from this world and from other people, and many of us are ready to go to great lengths in order to take more of someone else's and give less of our own. And often people get theirs precisely at the expense of aggressive behavior, through violence, which can only be resisted with the help of retaliatory violence.

When we observe aggressiveness in children, we must understand that the point is not in the child’s abnormality, the point is in his natural desire for leadership, in his desire to shape his environment at his own discretion. You can find a lot of information on childhood aggression, and in most cases it will tell you that an aggressive child is not normal, or at least not completely normal. But in reality this is not so, or rather, not entirely so. The fact is that in children, due to their insufficient development, aggression is expressed in a very primitive form; it cannot be hidden, as in some cunning adults, when we do not see obvious signs of aggression against us or against someone else , but at the same time we suffer from it. Well, let’s say, in our society there is such a thing as legitimate violence, that is, legal, fair violence, which most people accept as a forced necessity, which cannot be avoided. Most shining example such violence is the death penalty, which is supposedly a fair punishment for especially dangerous criminals. But, in most cases, legitimate violence is not at all legitimate and even completely unjust. It is simply cultivated and ennobled by the good intentions of the aggressor, who takes advantage of the opportunities available to him and causes harm to another person. We must understand that even the most dangerous criminals did not appear out of nowhere. They were not born who they later became, they became who their parents, society and their environment in general made them.

But when we commit violence against criminals, we consider it completely justified and do not notice that there are no fewer crimes in our lives, although, of course, the severity of the laws somewhat pacifies some hotheads. However, from the point of view of effectiveness, fighting the consequence, and not the cause, of violence is absolutely pointless, and the fact that we do this speaks of our aggressiveness, which is expressed in a somewhat unhealthy form. We don't solve the crime problem in our society when we punish criminals, we just more or less control it. But, firstly, it is possible to solve this problem, and secondly, it is more useful for each of us. Why doesn't anyone solve it properly? But because every problem needs someone who is able to solve it, which means that society will always depend on someone’s power over itself, which solves unsolvable problems. So I think I don’t need to explain to you how dependent society is on iron fist, may be beneficial for some, not the most stupid people. In general, we don’t have any legitimate violence now, there is simply violence that we put up with, or that we are forced to put up with. It follows from this that even in the most civilized and cultured society, some people who have the necessary opportunities for this systematically commit violent acts against other, weaker people. And we have not yet come up with anything more effective against aggression, except adequate retaliatory aggression that can protect us. Well, if it were otherwise, we would only do what we would do, turning the other cheek to attack, instead of creating weapons, forming an army, having a police force, arming ourselves, and so on.

So it turns out that from early childhood, a person is not only inclined, but he is even drawn to commit violence against other people. It turns out because, firstly, our ambitions are initially prohibitively high, and secondly, within ourselves, we instinctively understand that it’s either us or us. But aggression simply moves us in this direction, towards domination over other people, it points us to goals without offering the means to achieve them, because this is already the task of our brain. And only fear of punishment serves to prevent aggression, and then only in cases where we're talking about about people who are capable of feeling this fear. No amount of fear will stop a fool, therefore the severity of the laws does not play a role for him, and no one in our society deals or plans to deal with the exception of the possibility of a fool appearing in general, as we found out above. So it is precisely need that forces a person to behave more or less kindly towards other people, and to look for ways to cooperate with them. Whether we like it or not, violence in our society is the norm, not the exception, and despite our negative attitude towards it, it is committed regularly. Each of us, at least once in our lives, has become a victim of violence in one form or another. Even the same deception that is encountered at every step today is also violence, it is mental violence developed person, over the less developed. We, quite naturally, consider it a crime when an adult deceives a child and, say, induces him to have sexual intercourse? This is aggression, isn't it? Well, why don’t we treat the same situations with adults in a similar way, who, despite their years, can sometimes be much stupider than children? Do we consider it acceptable for our lives to take advantage of other people's stupidity, or have we been taught that this is normal?

Deception, as a manifestation of more sophisticated and cultivated aggression, usually replaces more primitive, physical aggression, which we perceive more emotionally, and therefore we are able to more or less correctly interpret all the fairly primitive actions of other people. But it is precisely this skill, the ability to culturally show their aggressiveness, that children lack, who are forced to behave more openly, more primitively and more predictably, thus achieving essentially the same goals as adults, that is, achieving recognition, leadership position in one’s environment and success, in the end. Why do we have an extremely negative attitude towards a murderer who killed only a few people, but at the same time we are completely normal about the tobacco or alcohol business and those who stand behind it, despite the fact that these businessmen kill millions of people? Are we so smart that we are not able to appreciate and understand the scale of such evils? Or are we so cowardly that we are forced to accept one kind of violence and oppose another? Each person has his own answer to this question, depending on his level of development and his honesty, first of all with himself.

Psychology, my friends, is what we need for you and me, to explain to us the patterns of our behavior, and not to interpret it. Otherwise, we would not call it science. If there is violence in your life and you are its victim, then you can seek help from a priest or an inadequate psychologist who will help you accept this violence, come to terms with it, forgive the aggressor and, in some cases, allow him to continue to commit violence against you and further. You need it? How long are you going to turn the other cheek and allow other people to abuse you? Maybe you should seek help from adequate people, adequate psychologists who will help you protect yourself? Your instincts will tell you the answers to these questions - trust them. Try to seek help from those who are truly able to help you, regardless of your personal beliefs and attitude towards this or that person. You must be able to fight violence; aggressive behavior must always, remember, always meet with resistance, otherwise it will be impossible to cope with it. But in order to fight back, you need to be able to do it, and no matter what peace-loving people propagandize, every blow can and should be responded to with exactly the same blow, or better yet, with a stronger blow. An aggressive person, even if he gives up his excessive ambitions, will do so only if he meets resistance in the form of no less, or even greater, aggressiveness from other people whose interests he has decided to encroach on. In such cases they say that a scythe found a stone. Or - there is no method against scrap, except for another similar scrap.

Do not think that our not the most beautiful behavior, or even absolutely antisocial behavior, is the result of our primitiveness. Aggression and belligerence are often a completely conscious decision and a carefully thought-out policy aimed at a person achieving his goals at the expense of other people. Every person who strives to realize his desires always has the opportunity to show aggression towards someone weaker, and I assure you, many take advantage of this opportunity. Some people create opportunities for themselves in which they can take advantage of someone else's weakness to achieve their goals. To do this, they make other people stupid through a certain psychological and ideological influence on them. V.I. Lenin said: “As long as the people are stupid and uneducated, the most important art for us is cinema and the circus.” But, I thought so, and came to the conclusion that this circus and cinema are needed to make people stupid. If you are very smart people, you will be able to resist any aggression, which means that you will not be easily subjugated to your will. But if you are illiterate, stupid, disorganized, not united, and even frightened people, then you can do whatever you want. Moreover, your ill-conceived and in some cases completely inappropriate goodwill and openness will make you easy prey for a more aggressive and insidious person who will certainly take advantage of all your weaknesses in his own interests. And you will not oppose anything to someone else’s aggression, no matter in what form it will be expressed, if you yourself are white and fluffy.

I’m not saying that your response to any aggression directed at you must necessarily be mirrored, and it cannot always be so, since we all have different capabilities. But it must be your answer. Not by force, not by cunning, not by cunning, not by intelligence, not by intelligence, but by pity and sycophancy, but we must be able to repel our enemies. Otherwise we will simply be destroyed. Every person, I repeat - every person, has his own strengths. If you are not, in principle, an aggressive person and cannot be one, then look for other opportunities to protect yourself and defend your interests. I consider aggression to be any human activity aimed at opposing or suppressing other people, no matter how. If someone tries to deceive me, for me this is an aggressive person; if someone proves to me that they are subjectively right, in order to push their interests through me, for me this is also an act of aggression. So, psychosis and physical violence, savagery and cruelty are not necessarily manifestations of aggressive behavior; any unequal relationship between people, in which one person uses another person for his own purposes, is aggression.

Why is that? Yes, because in this world, there can be as many conventions as you like, while according to the laws of nature, which we cannot circumvent, any use of one’s capabilities by one creature against another creature can be considered aggression. Here you need to understand that it does not matter at all what methods are used to achieve people’s goals related to obtaining benefits at the expense of another person or other people. All the reasons for aggression that we deal with, from the point of view of our nature, are completely justified. Just like our reluctance to submit to someone else’s will and resist it in every possible way is also a natural human reaction to aggression towards oneself. It is not natural to serve other people of your own free will, and not to understand that it is not natural for you. This is a truly unhealthy person’s perception of reality. Therefore, it is so important to understand exactly when and how someone acts against us, so as not to be surprised by the unplanned results that each of us receives in our lives. Well, will it really matter to you how you are forced to work for someone - at gunpoint or by creating conditions under which you will be forced to do what someone wants you to do? Only, perhaps, for yours emotional state it will make some difference, but not for the situation as a whole. If, as a result of a certain influence on you from other people, you are forced to serve someone, then it does not matter at all how you were forced to do this; in any case, aggression was committed against you. Simple, not very smart people, do not react to their unstructured management, that is, to management carried out through manipulation, as something negative. This means that such people do not consider as aggression those phenomena because of which they are forced to obey other people’s instructions and serve other people’s interests, contrary to their own at will, true desire, and your own interests. And if you don’t see your enemy, then you can’t fight him, because you don’t understand what kind of threat you need to counter, and therefore you can’t find the necessary means to adequately counter this threat or threats. Therefore, it is very important to recognize aggression in any of its manifestations, preferably in early stages, and only then learn to respond adequately to it.

So don’t keep the beast inside you in a cage, let it have the opportunity to show its qualities in especially difficult situations for you, when you are really in danger. The only thing an aggressive person really needs is control over his aggressive state. We must be able to manage ourselves and our emotions, which can only be done through our mind, which must be developed and forced to work. A primitive person reacts to everything quite emotionally; the more emotions there are in a person’s behavior, the less reasonableness there is in this behavior. But as soon as we accustom ourselves to constantly think before acting, we accustom our brain to analyze the situation and the information coming to us, reason about it, calculate various options developments of events in one or another of our actions, then our emotions fade into the background, and we can control our behavior. Including, due to the activity of our thinking, we will be able to control our aggression, not by fighting it, but by competently managing its energy.

Notice how many things arise in our lives conflict situations. People constantly argue about something, quarrel with each other, and commit violence against each other. To the best of their ability, every person, I repeat, everyone, do not think that you are different, strives to dominate someone, to control someone. And with such aspiration, conflicts are inevitable. Even within our own family, we do not know how to live in peace and harmony. But in reality there is no difference between family quarrels and big wars, in which many people die, because in both cases, human egoism, the human desire to dominate and defend one’s interests, is met with exactly the same desire on the part of other people or with their opposition to this desire. And a conflict arises. The scale is only different conflicts may be different, suffers from family quarrels less people than during great war. But if you pay attention to general statistics domestic violence, it turns out that all family quarrels and the violence that follows them is a very big war.

And in war, as in war, there is no time for sentimentality and tenderness; in it you need to be tough and aggressive and at times very cruel. To protect our lives, as well as the lives of people dear to us, we definitely need to be able to be aggressive. In everyday life we ​​can and should be civilized and cultured people in order to maintain a more or less acceptable atmosphere in society for us and our life. But when we are forced to enter into confrontation with other people, when we are forced to defend our interests and defend our values, as well as the life I have already mentioned, then we need to use everything that nature has given us, including aggression and our other animal qualities. Many in this life will try to test your hardness in order to find your weak spots and use them to bend you to their will. And if you cannot or do not want to respond properly to these hostile attempts to bend you, then it can cost you dearly. Many people are only reasonable in appearance, but in fact, really reasonable people are found very rarely, whereas we are forced to meet people who are primitive and very aggressive by nature much more often. And we need to be able to interact with them, no matter how we treat them. Each of us has a certain set of qualities that we can use for both good and bad deeds. And you can pursue any goals in your life, without paying attention to the means of achieving them, but at the same time, your behavior will always be reflected in the adequate attitude of other people towards you.

You would do a lot of things in your own way in this life, if it were your will, you would definitely take advantage of many, many for your own purposes, if only you could. And you definitely wouldn’t take into account some people who are wrong from your point of view, getting the actions you need from them, if they only allowed you to give a damn about them. You are not good and not bad person, you are just a person, with the qualities inherent in this creature. You will always want more than what you already have, and your aggression, in one form or another, will always come out. And only the fear of retaliatory violence will stop you from committing some, not the best, actions that will seem necessary to you, or at least desirable for you, at one time or another in your life. See for yourself how much our lives depend on the fear of punishment, without which we are unable to maintain normal human relationships with each other. Without a legitimate form of violence, or rather, without its illusion, it is generally impossible to create any kind of normal society that does not get bogged down in civil strife. We should not consider ourselves too intelligent beings, because intelligent beings do not need a stick to do as they should be done, and not as they want to do. And as long as we think more about the fact that we are very developed beings, but are not such in reality, aggression and aggressiveness will be companions of our lives.

It is important for each of us to keep any of our emotions under control, including aggression. Animals are no less aggressive than us, but as you can see for yourself, it is not they who have conquered us, but we who have subdued them and keep them under control. Therefore, it is important for us not so much to rely on our natural instincts, but on our own mental development, which has always moved us forward and helped us achieve outstanding results. We should transform aggression into energy that stimulates our activity. Do you dislike something, do you hate someone, do you want to destroy your enemies, are you very angry with other people? Well, this happens in our lives and you can understand. But because of this, there is no need to awaken the beast in yourself and rush at people with wild screams, solving all your problems with the help of brute force; this is too dangerous and too ill-conceived in most cases. Better turn on your brains and look for solutions to your problems with their help. And your aggressiveness will give you energy with which you will force yourself to work on solving all your problems.

Wildness, friends, is only appropriate in a wild environment, and if you don’t want to constantly worry about your back, which might get a knife stuck in it, then don’t cynically take advantage of other people’s weaknesses to your advantage. Remember that every person contributes to the atmosphere of the society in which he lives.

Suppressing anger

What will happen to the body if you suppress anger? The unconscious will react in its own way, without asking the person whether he wants him to have a reaction in response or not. Anger will be expressed through psychosomatic illnesses.

For example, a subordinate’s character remains the desire to please everyone; he feels inferior when significant people and such a person are his boss. But the boss mocked his subordinate, yelled at him, and assessed his personality negatively.

The subordinate came out afterwards feeling grateful for the criticism. But after 10 minutes, the subordinate began to have a headache. Blood pressure rose. Those. there is a reaction to the invasion of personal boundaries, but it is not realized. This can be compared to an attack on Russia with nuclear weapons, in response to which our military also presses the “Start” button, and a rocket with an atomic bomb leaves the launch pad in an underground mine, but when it flies up to the lid of the underground mine, it turns out that They forgot to open the shaft lid. And then the rocket explodes on Russian territory.

So, anger, if it is not felt, not experienced or, if necessary, not expressed, then it is transformed into a rise in blood pressure, spasms of the muscles of the back, neck, and throat.

If there is too much suppressed anger, then these emotions can destroy a person, and then another protective mechanism is activated - depression. Depression does the same thing to the psyche as weakness, fever, or lack of appetite during a viral disease. That is, in order for the body to focus on fighting the viral disease, weakness appears and the person goes to bed. Meanwhile, the body continues to intensively fight the viral infection.

Likewise, depression somewhat dampens mental activity so that excessive emotions do not destroy a person. For example, suppressed anger is transformed either into headaches or into a depressive state. Although the only correct emotion in response to personal insult and invasion of personal boundaries should be what? Retaliatory anger.

So what to do and what forms of expression of aggression are acceptable and which are not?

To begin with, it is worth differentiating the concepts of aggressiveness and destructiveness. Or separate infantile (not mature) and mature aggression, and aggression directed at oneself and the outside world.

Mature and infantile aggression

Any act of creation, initiative – is it a phenomenon in itself? Aggressive. If we create something, it assumes that something that was created before us and somehow needs correction, is somehow outdated, has somehow lost its relevance. And with our creative product, we treat other creative products aggressively. And this is mature aggression, i.e. energy aimed at transforming and improving the world around you.

From here follows the understanding that any initiative is punishable (if it is not expected). And everything new has the well-known three stages of implementation: resistance - “This cannot be”, adaptation - “There is something in this” and acceptance - “This is the only way it should be.”

If mature aggression is directed at oneself, then what do you think this is expressed in? In transforming whom and in what direction? Yourself towards the realization of your abilities and needs. Those. mature aggression is the “gnawing” of the granite of science and its processing for oneself and other people. This is a modification of oneself in the direction of development, acquisition of skills and knowledge.

What about infantile aggression? This is the destruction of something, causing physical, material, moral harm to other people. And infantile aggression directed at oneself is self-destruction, feelings of guilt, resentment, and anger at oneself.

Allow or prohibit?

So what stops you from being aggressive? Most often, this is a moralization or prejudice that anger and aggression are bad. This is rude, this is unacceptable. And along with this prejudice, the concept of which includes “aggression is a scandal,” a person bans himself from feeling and expressing aggression as an instrument of his personality and self-realization in general.

Few people can accept anger without ending the relationship or punishing it with other sanctions. Conversely, there are a lot of people who treat other people as objects who should only be admired.

After a person allows himself to feel anger, then more subtle and weaker feelings are released: interest, joy, love, the ability to feel and experience belonging to meaning. Those. the person begins to feel alive.

And also, I would like to talk about one form of aggression that is most difficult to resist. What do you think this is? This is care and supposedly love disguised as care. A person who cares about you often says what? “I love you, I want you to feel better.” Those. This is how a person rationalizes his aggression; this aggression is often not felt, and is just as strongly binding and immobilizing as the direct expression of aggression in the form of coercion to do something. It can be especially difficult to get rid of a caring aggressor when you realize that this is a person close to you.

Good luck with your ability to be mature aggressors!

Aggression is a very common concept and phenomenon in modern society. Aggression occurs in very different forms, including global ones (wars, etc.). But we are interested in aggression, precisely as a psychological phenomenon, as an emotion that does something to a person and his life.

Aggressiveness is that quality in a person that produces aggression (accumulates appropriate emotions and energy). Our task in this article is to give precise definitions Aggression, understand its nature and what aggressiveness needs to be replaced with so that aggression leaves a person’s life forever and his psycho-emotional state becomes balanced and positive.

What is Aggression? Esoteric definition

Aggressiveness- this is a search for a reason to violence against another. The mistake is in the choice goals And methods(the choice is made emotionally, without thinking with your head):

• Target– destruction of another (reflex – remove an obstacle to what you want, etc.)
• Method– direct negative (aggressive) emotional (energy) impact aimed at destruction (causing pain, complete or partial destruction).

During a surge of aggression, a stream of negative energy (a bundle of emotions) flies out of a person and destroys energy systems, subtle bodies, consciousness and the body of both the one sending the negative and the one at whom the aggression was directly directed. After outbursts of aggression, as a rule, a person recovers for some time, and sometimes gets very sick, because much of his energy and body has been destroyed and damaged, and it takes time for the body to restore itself.

Aggressive behavior- this is an indicator of the inability to manage one’s own , and the predominance of animal instincts in humans, rather than human virtues and qualities. Aggression is one of the roughest and most primitive animal emotions. Its presence in a person does not do him honor and speaks only of his ignorance and that he cannot be trusted.

What is Aggression replaced with?

Aggressiveness, as quality – is replaced by . Calmness – involves consciously managing your emotional reactions, extinguishing negative emotions (aggression, anger, etc.) and including positive ones (peace, goodwill, joy).

When eliminating aggressiveness, Calmness is also security(to be invulnerable to external provocations), the search for mutual interests (compromises to solve the current situation, problem), tact (showing respect for oneself and others, decent behavior).

How to cope with your own aggression and remove aggressiveness

7 effective ways:

1. Read the article carefully again and recognize that aggression does not lead to anything good, does not provide worthy solutions, but only destroys both people and the situation. Stop justifying your own aggressiveness and firmly decide to say goodbye to aggressiveness.

To do this, write down at least 10 points in your workbook - which negative consequences cites aggressiveness (preferably with examples from own life, or from the lives of loved ones). Visibility – best tool fight against Evil.

2. Create positive motivation– strength for internal changes. Write 15-20 points - what you will get when you eliminate aggression and learn Calmness, which will leave your life forever, how you will react to provocations, how you will feel without being triggered by aggression, how other people’s attitude towards you will change, and much more. etc.

3. Apply self-hypnosis formulas:“I burn aggression”, “I enhance Calmness”, “I control myself”, etc. To do this, study how the self-hypnosis technique works in the section “Personality Development Techniques”. Remember that self-hypnosis presupposes a volitional influence on an object (in our case, this is aggressiveness), that is, you need to awaken and invest sufficient internal efforts, the energy of consciousness, for self-hypnosis to work and give the necessary result. Correct Self-Hypnosis speeds up the process of changing a person (replacing negative qualities with positive ones) tenfold.

4. Find for yourself a model (example) of decent Behavior(instead of aggressive behavior). This could be the hero of a book, a good movie (for example, a true Knight or Lady) - how the best of people behave, how they react to provocations, how they parry with dignity and get out of difficult situations. To begin with, copy their behavior, psycho-emotional reactions, external manifestations, to feel and make the state natural for these heroes your own. And over time, this state will become individual, you will gradually fill your behavior and inner sensations with your own findings - individual techniques, emotions and feelings, shades, what best suits your personality, individuality. But this will be without aggression and negative manifestations.

5. Active physical activity and exercises– burn negative energy, burn aggression. It could be anything, as long as it maximum load: breathing exercises, shaping, exercise equipment, intense running, martial arts, game types sports (football, volleyball, etc.), etc. After a good intensive physical activity, the athlete always leaves the gym calmer, happier and kind than came by.

6. Learn to be calm, cultivate Peace. And it’s best to start doing this in Meditations. All states and feelings that are new to a person can be mastered most quickly through meditation, which is what it is designed for, and then gradually transfer them throughout your life. Master basic meditation - . You will find other techniques for developing and working on yourself on the page.

7. Humor is power! Laughter is a cure not only for many diseases, but also for many vices, shortcomings, pride and arrogance, aggression and anger, depression and despondency, etc. Laughter can help in so many ways! But not everyone, but only those who have at least a little sense of humor. Therefore, I put Laughter and Humor in 7th place, because this method of saying goodbye to aggressiveness is not accessible to everyone.

But the ability to laugh at your shortcoming means defeating it by 50%. But laughter is also an emotion, a powerful energy that comes from somewhere. How can laughter help deal with internal aggression? Very simple! Aggression, as accumulated energy inside a person, is simply transformed into the energy of laughter, provided that the person has a sense of humor. For example, when he is in cheerful company, or watching funny KVN. Aggression, quite simply, will all come out with laughter and will not be destructive, but will be creative, because the person was happy. Therefore, laugh heartily and don’t hold back – it’s to your benefit!

And remember, aggressive men - usually everyone shuns them, they don’t want to deal with them, they don’t trust them. Nobody likes aggressive women, least of all men. Aggression does not bode well for a person, but Peace, on the contrary, Peace is the door to heaven, to inner harmony and happiness. Therefore, it is worth trying to remove aggression from yourself and form Calm.

If you have any individual questions for me, write in the comments or in .

I wish you a good state, deep calm, invulnerability and always growing satisfaction! Best regards, author.