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Anyone can become angry—that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time; for the right purpose and in the right way—that is not easy.— Aristotle.
AGGRESSION AND LOVE, ANGER AND AFFECTION, death and life, are but a few of the opposites posed in a dialectical search for the understanding of man. How does one understand the paradox of
individuals who feel most alive when in a state of Aggression? Such a state can suggest the less extreme tendencies which involve power, money and success in the marketplace; or those more virulent aggressive impulses, feelings and actions in alienated individuals who pursue sadism, violence, destruction and death to others and/or themselves. Repression and denial are no less integral to the former than alienation is to virulent aggression. How is aggression dealt with clinically? Let me give you one clinical example. When I was active in the blue-collar therapy project at White (Caligor, et al., 1971), a young Sicilian, uneducated patient told me in broken English, trembling with rage and tension, and rising out of his chair shaking his fist at me, that he was going to kill his wife. Options of hospitalization, medication occurred to me, but his behavior with me was as though I were his judge and persecutor. Not wishing to fulfill his unconscious demand of me, I calmly insisted on more details about his wife and his father despite his agitation and inarticulation. The story unfolded, with active questioning on my part, that he was convinced his wife was unfaithful to him, i.e. a prostitute. When seeking advice from his father, he was convinced his father told him to act upon the old Sicilian code: The honor of their family was at stake, and needed to be avenged. The detailed inquiry released him to be m