In
general, hatred has been ignored both as an important characteristic of
personality and as a contributor to personal identity. Some psychoanalysts
(Klein, 1957; Kernberg, 1991; Akhtar, Kramer & Parens, 1995) and a few
other theorists (Gilligan, 1996) are
exceptions, but in general I believe it is correct to say that hatred and its
associated states such as rage and resentment have been neglected.
The
present short report is a modest attempt to remedy this neglect, at least to
some degree. First, we will need some definitions and then we will look at some
psychological theories about hatred’s origin. Next we will turn to why hatred
is so popular especially in relatively normal people (like you and me) and in
particular how it contributes to personal identity. We will then take up the
Christian understanding of hatred and of identity.
The
understanding of hatred developed here raises the basic theological issue of
sin and its origin. (This is not to imply that psychological theorists think in
terms of concepts like sin.) However, the familiar ease with which human beings
develop and then hold on to hatred in response to pain and trauma and even to
insult and criticism is an obvious sign of a natural human condition central to
so much aggression and harmful conflict, in short our fallen nature.
Anger and Hatred: The Difference between
them
Anger
is a natural reaction to almost any actual or perceived attack hurt or threat.
Anger is both the immediate emotional and behavioral response to such attacks
and it is familiar to all. This kind of anger is so immediate that it is
presumably part of how we are made and part of a natural requirement for
survival. Therefore, anger is often normal and appropriate, not psychologically
harmful. Such quite normal anger, created by actually threatening stimuli, can
be called reflexive anger.
Hatred,
by contrast, is not an immediate reaction, but commonly, perhaps always,
depends upon the cultivation of anger. This cultivation creates supporting
cognitive structures, which produce new anger and negative affect long after
the original reflexive anger. For example, I might collect all the negatives I
could find about a person and weave them into a summary of my enemy’s presumed
character. Then various imagined scenarios where I triumph over this “bad” guy
or get even might be built up and enjoyed. There are many such
possibilities. Such chronic anger or
resentment is really a response to our personally constructed cognitive
structures and can be called cultivated
anger or hatred. For present
purposes, this kind of hatred will be restricted to hatred of another person
not hatred of injustice or harmful social structures or of evil. These latter
hatreds are, of course, often valid. Instead the focus here is on situations
where hatred of the person has eclipsed the actual bad behavior. Thus, as a
psychologist I am addressing only interpersonal cultivated anger or hatred. The
scriptural injunction “Be angry but sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your
anger” (Ephesians 4:26) is presumably aimed at preventing the development of
such cultivated anger and the resulting personal hatred with the serious
problems which go with it.
Hatred as Choice
Hatred
in childhood can exist primarily as an affect with associated thoughts and not
as a willed decision, for example, as a response to severe abuse. Presumably
very little true volition is involved in the experiences that set up
developmental arrest and pathological conditions in children. An essential
point however is that hatred in most adults at its core is not just affect and
thoughts but intrinsically involves volition. Of course, the emotional or
affective component of hatred plus the associated cognitions remain a major
part of adult hatreds, but with maturity the will now becomes a crucial and
little acknowledged part of hatred.
The
point is that adults either freely decide to accept their previously built up
hatred and to continue maintaining it or to work at rejecting it. In psychotherapy itself, the patient is often
explicitly confronted with this kind of choice. He or she must decide to start,
or not to start, the process of letting go of hatred. Also, as previously
noted, for the adult, the affect is connected with previously built cognitive
structures, at least some of which involved acts of the person’s willing
acceptance of the constructed scenarios of revenge and resentment. Continued
adult hatred, therefore, involves a decision, a refusal to love; and often a
refusal to request, accept, or give forgiveness. In the sense that it is
willed, hatred for others (and also hatred of self) is never healthy. It is
natural in the sense of being common but it never produces psychological
health.
Obviously,
the patient does not have the freedom to stop hating in the sense of easily
abandoning hate filled structures built up over many years. But, as stated,
patients do have the freedom to begin to stop hating, although the process is
hard and requires sustained effort. One of the major helps provided by a
psychotherapist or by a spiritual advisor is to focus people on their need to
let go of hatreds and to maintain that focus over time, since it is common that
the choice to let go of hatred and often to forgive has to be made many times
and with respect to different memories and interpretations of the “enemy”.
(This emphasis on the patient’s will can be interpreted as an example of
Meissner’s (1993) “self as agent.” Meissner, a well known psychoanalyst
interprets the self as a super-ordinate structural construct representing the
whole person and containing the willing or responsible self as agent, as
actor.)
As
noted, it is an assumption here that hatred of a person, not of a behavior or
injustice, is at bottom harmful to mental well being. From a psychological
perspective hatred can viewed as a type of defense mechanism—which is not to
imply that all defense mechanisms are inherently pathological. Some (e.g.,
sublimation) are healthy when employed properly. The development of a person’s
basic ego strength and an adequate measure of self worth often require
defensive or protective psychological responsesas the body wards
off threats to its integrity. This is especially true in childhood when many
defenses are set up because few other options are available or known to the
child. However, in a subsequent article, we will focus on the reasons why
adults seem to like hating other people.
References
Akhtar,
S., Kramer, S., & Parens, H. (1995). The
birth of hatred: Developmental, clinical, and technical aspects of intense
aggression. Northvale, NJ:
Jason Aronson.
Gilligan,
J. (1996). Violence: Our deadly epidemic
and its causes. New York, NY:
Putnam.
Kernberg,
O. (1991). The psychopathology of hatred. Journal
of the American Psychoanalytic Association,
39, 209-238.
Klein,
M. (1957). Envy and gratitude. New
York, NY:
Basic Books
Meissner,
W.W. (1993). Self as agent in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 16, 459-495.
Paul
C. Vitz
Professor
The
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
No comments:
Post a Comment