Dynamics of Hostility

I take my assignment in this discussion to be two-fold: one, to describe the hostility actually seen in childhood; and, two, to see what developmental connection there may exist between the hostility in childhood and that seen later in life.

Immediately, some very serious difficulties arise. First come those of definition. Shall we, for instance, place “acting out” under hostility? The objection may well be raised that acting out may be present without any great show of emotion or inner turmoil and without adequate psychological motivation. Shall we consider suicide as hostility against oneself? What shall we do with sibling rivalry in its extreme forms? In a sense, all these manifestations could be included under acting out. There is then the question of what to do with latent hostility, ready to respond to any pied piper. And how shall we recognize it in a clinical study?

These and other considerations indicate the difficulty of the subject of tonight's discussion. However, if we chose some simpler aspect of the problem with the object of allowing a more rigorous treatment, justice would not be done to the rich complexity which it presents clinically.

I thought we might get somewhat closer to the actual problem in childhood if we looked at a series of cases. For this purpose I have examined the last hundred consecutive cases seen by me either in consultation or treatment. These come about equally divided from private practice and a child-guidance clinic, and include children up to fifteen years of age.

Let us see why these children were brought to a psychiatrist and, if possible, the part that hostility played in their problem. First, an orienting overview of the hundred cases. In forty of the cases the problem was school: in twenty-four of these, it was poor work alone; in fifteen, both poor work and disturbing behavior; and in one, disturbing behavior alone. In another