As we discussed with Anxiety and Depression in Parts 1 and 2 of Emotions As Percentages, our goal is to create balanced personalities and patterns of behavior in which people interact as “normal” human beings and experience comfortable amounts of Anxiety, Depression and Anger both personally and socially. To this end the most favorable balance is when each of the 3 negative Emotions is at a level of about 50 to 60% in each person. Once any one of these Emotions reaches 70 – 75% or exceeds this, we are looking at intense levels of negative Emotions that are difficult to tolerate both for the person themselves and for society at large. These are levels of Anxiety, Depression and Anger that give rise to significant levels of discomfort and most likely will require some form of intervention in terms of mental health treatment or medication.
In line with the Favoritism theme of DOLIF and in the experience of the author, the most common reason for the accumulation of an excess of any of these 3 negative Emotions is Disfavor in comparison with a next born Favored sibling in the Family of Origin. Therefore, the main focus of therapy in any treatment setting should be the Favoritism dynamic and how it unfolded in the first family.
There is no doubt that of the 3 negative Emotions, Anger is the one that is least recognized and most poorly understood. This theme is elaborated in the blog titled Anger: the forgotten Emotion. Not only has Anger been ignored in the formal study of psychology, but also the general populace tends to prefer to deny the existence of Anger in social interaction. It seems that on a day-to-day basis it is easier to avoid dealing with Anger than to confront it. The other side of the coin is that importance of Anger and its usefulness for social interaction is entirely misunderstood.
One problem with confronting and dealing with Angry feelings is that Anger from others generates our own Anger. In other words, we ourselves become Angry with those who display their Anger. Whether with a child or an adult who misbehaves, rather than respond with understanding as we do with Anxiety or Depression, our own Anger is provoked when children display negative behavior toward ourselves or toward society at large. We find it challenging to control our provoked Anger despite religious teachings that attempt to guide us toward more peaceful resolutions of conflict. In dealing with adults, we attempt to quell our Anger with them by forgiving or praying for those whom we consider to be “fallen” or misguided. Alternatively, we may be advised to count to ten before acting, or breathe deeply before we leap to react against our source of irritation.
In DOLIF psychology, Anger is simply one of the three uncomfortable, socially undesirable feelings that humans experience. As stated in previous blogs, when Anger is acted out too brashly by people who express it too openly or strongly and harm others in obvious ways such as by stealing, threatening, attacking or killing, society tends to deal with them by objecting both morally and socially to their behavior, as well as through our legal system by means of warnings, reprimand, policing or at last resort, fine or imprisonment.
But the most important ways of expressing Anger that also happen to be the most irritating, are the numerous less obvious behaviors which, as a society and in the field of psychology, we either fail to recognize or choose to neglect. There are numerous such less obvious, devious offshoots of Angry expression where the actual Angry intent is hidden, disguised or not immediately obvious to the naked eye and escapes the notice of naive individuals as it is intended to do. These milder forms of Angry expression are actually the most socially tolerable and acceptable, or even considered desirable methods of enhancing personal gain. These methods follow the adage of “All’s fair in love and war”. Examples include the many ways that one might try to dupe, short-change or take advantage of less capable or less knowledgeable people, such as overselling or misrepresenting a product or point of view. Anger is expressed as well when one claims, on social or legal grounds, what does not belong to them, uses legal recourse to gain immoral advantage, bosses or bullies others, tells little “white lies” to achieve their ends, convinces others that what they themselves are doing is alright, and so on. These Anger-inspired social tactics begin to appear from early childhood and become increasingly refined and honed. They require improving one’s social skill throughout early childhood and adolescence. For example, we are usually left to wonder how a serial killer can come up with all their clever tactics to hide their burning inner malice and inflict their harm on others. We continually ask: How on earth did they they manage it, and how did they get away with it for so long without anyone noticing? But in hindsight using our DOLIF knowledge, we begin to recognize that their cleverness and guile had its beginning long ago. It is in fact the Anger they cultivated over time to hide their vicious intent, cleverly disguise it through various modalities of speech and tactical strategies, and direct it toward their evil purpose. We are even forced to admire the skill they built over the years, as well as the time, effort and practice they were able to invest in hiding their true intentions while contemplating and then carrying out their noxious social acts in secrecy from those around them.
Psychological research has yet to catch up on all the ways that people can express Anger in normal society. Numerous examples of Anger place it within the acceptable boundaries of common social interactions and behavior. Some everyday instances include dominating others, bossing, intimidating or otherwise taking advantage of others. Again, it is the contention of DOLIF theory that such interactions, which take place routinely among family members, friends, co-workers and strangers, are inspired by, or have their basic motivation in the original Anger that accumulated during the individual’s childhood while they were feeling Disfavored and being raised alongside, and resenting, their next born Favored sibling. They are all means, methods and behavior patterns that began with a pair of siblings where the Favored one grew up to be gentle, soft-tempered and less socially motivated by Anger, while the Disfavored one became upset, driven and routinely resorted to either Anxiety, Depression or Anger-based tactics in their quest to WIN the SIBLING WAR. It is only through DOLIF theory and our characterization of Favored and Disfavored personality types that we can come to understand and explain these phenomena.
By delving into such examples such as Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber or John Wayne Gacy, the clown who, according to a biography by Barry E. Boschelli, was an overweight, sickly and uncoordinated child whose father belittled him, called him stupid and compared him disparagingly to his sisters, grew up to be a serial child killer, that we can begin to understand not only the motivations of the average Angry perpetrator, but also the criminal mind that spawned these horrific crimes. Once we do, we become aware of the glaring contrast between these Angry individuals and their next born sibling with the Favored personality. Though we know little about Gacy’s sibling situation, in Ted’s case, it was his younger brother, David, who turned out to be the mild-tempered, gentle soul / social worker. Along with his wife, Linda Patrik, a professor of philosophy, David is the sibling who ended up turning his brother in to the authorities.
