Anger With Denial Yields Violence

V = (a)d2

A Discussion of the Social Consequences and Individual Psychodynamics Within The Violence Cycle

The social and personal processes of abuse, anger and denial fuel a psychological chain reaction— the violence cycle. Our psychological defense process of anger-denial promotes and maintains this violence cycle by further denying that violent events are cyclic phenomena, and denying that they are endemic to our culture. We hide their presence in nearly every family, so that the painful or violent events experienced by nearly everyone from earliest childhood onward must be systematically suppressed. This denial uses the building blocks of suppressed childhood anger to produce adult rage that is too often expressed as violence.

This personal and social process of denial serves both the individual's neurotic psychological needs and the needs of society by identifying and punishing only the most recent perpetrator of violence, exonerating ourselves and our parents. Most protected are the particular parents (and/or others) who aimed the original and causative and determining violent painful experiences at the helpless, powerless and once innocent, child who has now become the latest violent actor in this millennial drama.

More accurately, each violent incident is only the most recent violent event in a long inter-generational cycle of violent events. This cycle has been repeating for at least two millennia and probably far longer. We ignore and deny the society-wide systems that teach and propagate violence, preferring instead to set up as scapegoat only the most recent victim of that violent tradition, the one who is the most recently identified rage-filled violent individual. Rather than see reflections of both victim and abuser within ourselves, and our own families, we deny, externalize, prosecute, punish, and execute others.

This denial also serves to protect and exonerate ourselves. By blaming the most recent raging victim of childhood violence, we differentiate ourselves from him or her. (We are not violent, now or ever because we are good people.) At the same time denial also protects the ‘institution of parenthood’ creating what might be called ‘the insulation of parenthood.’ By our denial, we effectively protect our own parents, and we protect our illusions and memories regarding parents, from our conscious scrutiny and from our awareness of any violent acts they may have directed at us during our own childhoods. By this means we also are prevented from any subsequent honest accusations that might point the finger of blame at these sainted individuals for their actions.

If it is unconscionable to blame one's parents, the consequential psychological corollary is that someone else must be blamed. Most frequently we blame ourselves. We justify our painful experiences to protect our treasured image of our parents, claiming that we deserved the punishment (or depression), or that it is a normal part of bringing up children. This choice compounds pain, building anger slowly into rage leading to illness. The original pain of abuse is multiplied by itself many times over as the developing individual struggles with the injustice of having been hurt for what he or she secretly believes was not their fault. The process of this struggle is subtle unconscious self-blame and unconscious self-punishment. Unable to blame a parent for our pain, or accept this blame ourselves, we choose some other person or institution whose character or process in our lives resembles that of our hurtful parent.

Transferring the blame in this way, via psychodynamic process referred to as transference, we may avoid awareness of the intimate nature of the violent or hostile experiences of our childhood. We invoke transference as a method of "choice" because all the other options are unconscionable and too painful. We make no conscious decision; no decision at all. We simply carry a grudge that grows larger as we grow older, releasing the accumulated anger against whomever or whatever seems to behave similarly to our parents.

All society must mourn these tragedies. We are all hostages to the parental abuse of powerless and helpless children. We must mourn for the victims of this terrorism, for terrorism it is, in the most heinous form. Indeed it may underlie the very foundation of terrorism, worldwide. Terrorism and psychodynamicaly driven violence is begins with the terrorizing of small weak children by powerful adults which, in some children, with some parents, determines eventual violence (perhaps including psychosis) in the child or adult , and his or her subsequent terrorizing of others—of ourselves.

Violent transference may become misdirected at anyone, and at any scale, from a scapegoted spouse or co-worker to a famous public figure, through larger scale organizations such as corporations, and beyond to social ethnic or religious groups. At the largest scale, violent transference reactions may fuel political assassination, ‘hate’ based terrorism, terrorism against whole governments, and war itself.

A truly civilized and humane society will mourn for the terrorist as well as his victims, for all have been the victims of childhood terror. To reduce acts of violence we must, ourselves, stop doing, (and teaching) and supporting violence towards children. All killers were once sweet innocent babies. If our children become killers, it can only be because we have imposed our own rage against our own parents on them, the helpless. By causing children to fear our rage and violence, We force them to rage at and kill others for (or instead of) us.

We, the parents, are responsible. Our parents are responsible, and their parents are responsible. We the society are responsible for condoning as normal, acts of abuse and neglect, of casual and of intentional violence against children. Children grow up. Children nourished on fairness and love grow up more or less mentally healthy. Children formed by victimization and abuse grow up hurt and angry, later to hurt others. No one, and no society, that psychologically or physically brutalizes, maims or kills another human being (except in clear and extreme self defense, or in defense of others) is mentally healthy.

Mayer Spivack January 4, 1995