“I see your point. Please don’t withdraw. Should we take a break?”
Or
“I don’t want you to feel attacked. When I feel passionate about something, I might sound angry. But I’m not angry at you.”
Or
“My reaction was too extreme. Sorry. Let me start again and stay cool and collected.”
Or
As Robin Williams said, “I’m sorry. If you were right, I’d agree with you.”
People who withdraw suddenly often do so because they feel attacked and overwhelmed. They leave because they can’t handle any more what they feel as an assault. If you persist in passionately clarifying your position, that will probably be perceived by them as too much.
In order to have an effective discussion, it’s important to back off until both people can calm down. Nothing can be achieved when someone is on the defensive. There must be some compassion and openness to have a fruitful conversation.
One of the best ways to keep the spirit of humanity and compassion in a discussion is to keep a sense of perspective about your frustrations and your life. Keeping things in perspective allows us to laugh at ourselves while also having compassion for ourselves and others.
People who become volatile in close relationships often do so as a result of taking other people’s behavior too personally. Other people’s words and actions generally reflect their own psychological state, including their personal perspective, fears, desires, and insecurities. When you realize that their actions are generally a reflection of themselves more than their attitude toward you, it will be easier for you to retain your emotional control.
Suppose that your new girlfriend is upset because she couldn’t get in touch with you. Before going on the defensive, you may want to find out what is motivating her strong reaction. She may have been lied to and cheated on by a previous boyfriend. Knowing this should cause you to see that she is not accusing you, but responding out of fear from a past experience. So give her the benefit of the doubt.
Listen first.
When people don’t feel listened to, they tend to get more adamant and angry, and try even harder to make sure their point gets across.
There are two benefits to listening to the other person fully before reacting. First, you’ll find out what’s really motivating the other person and you’ll avoid jumping to conclusions. Second, the angry person will let off steam, and be able to listen to you once the bottled-up emotions have been vented. Sometimes, simply listening is enough to diffuse and change the whole situation.
Once you have listened, paraphrase what you’ve heard so the other person knows that he or she has been heard and understood.
Stay calm.
Avoid attacking the other person when you explain the situation from your point of view. You will be much more effective for two reasons. First, the other person is more likely to listen to you if you are not angry, condescending or passive-aggressive. Second, you won’t seem defensive. Defensiveness telegraphs to others that you lack self-control or feel guilty. In essence, emotional volatility broadcasts to others that you are too weak to stay in control of yourself.
Once you see how much more effective you are when you stay calm, you’ll find that it will become easier to resist the impulse to be emotionally triggered. Keep in mind that you will feel more self-empowered and appear more confident to others when you stay centered. As a result, others will take you more seriously and respect you more.
Practice!
Psycho-drama is the most effective way to prepare for those situations that trigger you. Think up situations that have triggered you in the past or that are likely to trigger you in the future. Figure out how you would be most effective responding in such situations. Then practice your response—your choice of words, body language, and tone of voice—until it becomes natural without a hint of sneering or whining. You can practice with a friend or in front of the mirror. It helps to have a friend give you feed back and help you eliminate the meekness in your voice or contempt in your demeanor so that you will become powerful and effective.
Is he in a constant state of barely suppressed rage? Does she flare up at the slightest slight? Does he interpret any behavior, however innocuous, as a “provocation”?
He or she may be a narcissist.
Anger is a perfectly normal and, in most circumstances, a healthy reaction. The underlying aggression is often verbalized and sublimated long before it transforms into violence. So, do we become angry because we say that we are angry, thus identifying the anger and capturing it – or do we say that we are angry because we are angry to begin with?
Anger is provoked by adverse treatment, deliberately or unintentionally inflicted. Such treatment must violate either prevailing conventions regarding social interactions or some otherwise a deeply ingrained sense of what is fair and what is just. The judgement of fairness or justice is a cognitive function impaired in the narcissist.
Anger is induced by numerous factors. It is almost a universal reaction. Any threat to one’s welfare (physical, emotional, social, financial, or mental) is met with anger. So are threats to one’s affiliates, nearest, dearest, nation, favourite football club, pet and so on. The territory of anger includes not only the angry person himself, but also his real and perceived environment and social milieu.
Threats are not the only situations to incite anger. Anger is also the reaction to injustice (perceived or real), to disagreements, and to inconvenience (discomfort) caused by dysfunction.
Still, all manner of angry people – narcissists or not – suffer from a cognitive deficit and are worried and anxious. They are unable to conceptualise, to design effective strategies, and to execute them. They dedicate all their attention to the here and now and ignore the future consequences of their actions. Recent events are judged more relevant and weighted more heavily than any earlier ones. Anger impairs cognition, including the proper perception of time and space.
In all people, narcissists and normal, anger is associated with a suspension of empathy. Irritated people cannot empathise. Actually, “counter-empathy” develops in a state of aggravated anger. The faculties of judgement and risk evaluation are also altered by anger. Later provocative acts are judged to be more serious than earlier ones – just by “virtue” of their chronological position.
Yet, normal anger results in taking some action regarding the source of frustration (or, at the very least, the planning or contemplation of such action). In contrast, pathological rage is mostly directed at oneself, displaced, or even lacks a target altogether.
Narcissists often vent their anger at “insignificant” people. They yell at a waitress, berate a taxi driver, or publicly chide an underling. Alternatively, they sulk, feel anhedonic or pathologically bored, drink, or do drugs – all forms of self-directed aggression.
From time to time, no longer able to pretend and to suppress their rage, they have it out with the real source of their anger. Then they lose all vestiges of self-control and rave like lunatics. They shout incoherently, make absurd accusations, distort facts, and air long-suppressed grievances, allegations and suspicions.
These episodes are followed by periods of saccharine sentimentality and excessive flattering and submissiveness towards the victim of the latest rage attack. Driven by the mortal fear of being abandoned or ignored, the narcissist repulsively debases and demeans himself.
Most narcissists are prone to be angry. Their anger is always sudden, raging, frightening and without an apparent provocation by an outside agent. It would seem that narcissists are in a CONSTANT state of rage, which is effectively controlled most of the time. It manifests itself only when the narcissist’s defences are down, incapacitated, or adversely affected by circumstances, inner or external.
Pathological anger is neither coherent, not externally induced. It emanates from the inside and it is diffuse, directed at the “world” and at “injustice” in general. The narcissist is capable of identifying the IMMEDIATE cause of his fury. Still, upon closer scrutiny, the cause is likely to be found lacking and the anger excessive, disproportionate, and incoherent.
It might be more accurate to say that the narcissist is expressing (and experiencing) TWO layers of anger, simultaneously and always. The first layer, of superficial ire, is indeed directed at an identified target, the alleged cause of the eruption. The second layer, however, incorporates the narcissist’s self-aimed wrath.
Narcissistic rage has two forms:
I. Explosive – The narcissist flares up, attacks everyone in his immediate vicinity, causes damage to objects or people, and is verbally and psychologically abusive.
II. Pernicious or Passive-Aggressive (P/A) – The narcissist sulks, gives the silent treatment, and is plotting how to punish the transgressor and put her in her proper place. These narcissists are stalkers. They harass and haunt the objects of their frustration. They sabotage and damage the work and possessions of people whom they regard to be the sources of their mounting wrath.
In 1939, American psychologist John Dollard and four of his colleagues put forth their famous “frustration-aggression hypothesis.” With minor modifications, it fits well the phenomenon of narcissistic rage:
(i) The narcissists is frustrated in his pursuit of narcissistic supply (he is ignored, ridiculed, doubted, criticized);
(ii) Frustration causes narcissistic injury;
(iii) The narcissist projects the “bad object” onto the source of his frustration: he devalues her/it or attributes to her/it malice and other negative traits and behaviours;
(iv) This causes the narcissist to rage against the perceived “evil entity” that had so injured and frustrated him.
Narcissistic Injury
An occasional or circumstantial threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).
Narcissistic Wound
A repeated or recurrent identical or similar threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).
Narcissistic Scar
A repeated or recurrent psychological defence against a narcissistic wound. Such a narcissistic defence is intended to sustain and preserve the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).
Have you ever surprised yourself by lashing out at someone you’re not angry with?
If a woman is angry that her husband is too career focused, but she isn’t able to talk to him about it, she may find herself criticizing others in her life instead, such as her career-focused girlfriend.
Her subconscious knows that she’s acting inappropriately. In fact, she may be quite proud of her friend’s successful career. Yet she just can’t help herself.
The vehemence of her criticism does not have much to do with her friend. Perhaps it feels too risky to take up the issue with her husband because she fears losing him. The power of her attacks may be expressing her fears about her crumbling marriage.
Her feelings may be ambivalent and difficult to sort out. Perhaps, she doesn’t really want him to become less career-focused. Or she may fear that even IF she and her husband spent more time together, they would not enjoy being together. Her anger thus gets focused on a safer target—her girlfriend.
The Unconsious
When we are taken by surprise by something we say or do, it’s because an unconscious part has suddenly expressed itself. Such outbursts reveal a struggle between our conscious and unconscious desires and fears.
Displacement is the act of associating one thing with another. You direct an unconscious feeling, such as anger or blame, on somebody or something other than the original offender.
Our fixations and outbursts reveal our internal conflicts, which indicate precisely where we have the greatest opportunity to grow. When we ignore the eruptions of the unconscious, we can bet that they will come out in even more disruptive ways. Through becoming aware of our unconscious we see how we can work on becoming more whole human beings.
Solution
In this situation, after apologizing to her friend, the woman should find a way to talk openly and compassionately to her husband. Usually it’s best to express ambivalent feelings without sounding controlling or critical.
For example, “I find myself feeling disappointed that we don’t spend more time together because of your career focus. Yet, I’ve never brought it up to you, because I know how important your job is to you. Maybe there’s a way that we can still spend some special time together without your jeopardizing your work.”
“I’d like to help but I can’t do so if you swear at me or continue to raise your voice.”
In difficult situations staying calm will create an atmosphere that is least likely to escalate tempers. Issuing commands, yelling, or swearing back generally stokes the flames of anger and the argument will spiral out of control.
Yet, ignoring the swearing or yelling by continuing to help someone who is treating you inappropriately is not the answer. Never accept demeaning language or behavior as this will encourage more of it in the future.
If the other person grabs you by the arm, don’t lose your calm. Face him or her squarely and repeat your request, “Look, nothing is accomplished by shouting. Let’s sit down and discuss this in a civilized manner.”
If the angry person continues, you can repeat yourself one more time: “As I’ve said before, I do want to help, but I cannot do so if you raise your voice and swear at me. And if you continue, I will walk away.” Be prepared to do so.
