![]() ![]() In addition to the alerting function of such words and thoughts, this quality of anger is an immediate, ingrained response that hides the anxious aspect of the state of arousal with its associated sense of helplessness. This anxiety helps clarify further the threatening quality of anger and the destructive thoughts and words that accompany it. ![]() Violence and revenge are destructive direct discharges, but they are not expressions of anger per se they are in part expressions of failed or unattempted communication. Indirect avenues of discharge such as gossip, teasing, and various types of obstruction are destructive because they are aimed at the integrity of the individual rather than the specific threat or difficulty he produces. The sense of threat or obstruction and the internal communication of arousal persist and often lead to diffuse and indirect expression or discharge. Unexpressed anger does not become a clear communication, but it still requires motor discharge or symbolic expression allowing for muscle relaxation. In other words, it is hidden or unexpressed anger that leads to hostility and destructiveness. He or she feels that direct communication will be ineffective or else feels that anger itself must be suppressed or avoided. They are related to the angry state, but they occur primarily when the angry individual resigns in advance. These manifestations in thought or action are not simply the result of intense or increased anger, as is commonly thought. Thus attack, violence, and revenge are manifestations of hostility, but so are sarcasm, teasing, gossip, and passive obstructiveness. Hostility, however, does not allow the object of the feeling or action to remove particular threats or obstructions but it tends to destroy the object itself. For humans, therefore, anger is an alerting phenomenon for the individual and for others that provides a basis for communication. ![]() This is true even when a person is unaware that he or she is angry, so that an observer can infer it. Muscle tension, vascular changes, and involuntary voice change (although this may be consciously controlled) are minimally present. The physiologic concomitants of anger and the state of motoric readiness they produce are involuntary and discernible phenomena. Anger is particularly suited for communication. In animals, flight and fight are the only alternatives in the face of threat or significant obstruction, but humans can employ complicated communications. Anger, however, does not necessarily involve destructiveness, harm, or pain to another. "Being hostile" always involves inflicting or trying to inflict some type of destruction, psychological or physical, upon another. "Feeling hostile" always involves the wish or intent to inflict harm, pain, or actual destruction on another person or creature. The critical distinction between anger and hostility is that hostility always has a destructive component, whereas anger may not. ![]() Hostility, like anger, is an affect, a behavioral manifestation, or both-one can feel hostile or be hostile. However, other related feelings, hostility and anxiety, may be even more destructive. Patients fear their angry feelings because they are sometimes connected with violence. We interpret the presence of anger, we confront anger, we draw anger, we tranquilize anger, and we help the working through of anger. In depression we look for evidence of anger behind the saddened aspect in histrionic disorders we experience angry seductiveness in sexual disorders we see angry dependency in marital problems we unearth distorted patterns of communication, particularly involving anger. As clinicians, we devote a considerable portion of our thinking and practice to unearthing, clarifying, and tracing early the manifestations of anger in our patients. It is especially important therefore to understand anger, hostility, and anxiety and their permutations because all are sometimes major ingredients in violence of all types. Violence of all types is today quite frequent and greatly problematic, both domestically and internationally. ![]()
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