On the Relationship between Anger, Sadness and Depression

I haven't been on II or IL for a while.  I posted this as a comment on a thread my daughter started and didn't get any response so I thought I see what happened if I posted it as a blog.

http://integrallife.com/member/ali-tataryn/blog/approach-anger#comment-60010

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My daughter Ali asked that I take a look at this thread and see if I might add anything or clarify some of what's she's tried to explain from the Bio-Emotive Integral Therapy (BEIT) practice I've developed over the past 30+ years (I'm a clinical and research psychologist with an extensive background in expressive therapies and Eastern meditation).

In this system most anger and depression is a result of unprocessed sadness. (I'll do this with broad strokes, cover a lot of ground, and leave the details out for now).  First sadness and anger.  Someone says something that hurts you.  You have two choices (at least in theory).  1) Turn your attention inward and process the hurt or 2) turn your attention outward and focus on what/ who hurt you.  If you do the former, you get sad and express your feeling and cry and it all gets processed and resolves itself.  If you choose the latter, you get angry, attack the person (e.g., verbally, physically, covertly, etc).  It usually escalates, never gets resolved, and the experience became part of your baggage that will sensitize you to experience that type of hurt again in the future (but I digress).   The point is, getting angry when you are hurt will never resolve the hurt.  Only processing and crying will.  You can express inter-personal/ social anger over and over for decades and it will never go away till you process the part that hurts.  The only time expressing anger resolves anger is when you are being physically attacked.  The only time it is an appropriate response to an inter-personal threat/ hurt (i.e. non-physical threat/ hurt) is when you have expressed the hurt/ sadness/ crying one or two times and the other person continues to hurt you.  Then anger is an appropriate attempt to scare away the attacker/ hurter and create a safe space in which the sadness/ crying can be processed.

Now depression.  The central nervous system (CNS) divides into two main branches: the autonomic nervous system and the muscular skeletal system.  While both systems are involved in the expression of both, the former is predominantly involved in crying, while the latter is predominantly involved in the expression of anger.  If you get hurt and do not cry (e.g., too rational, too dissociated, too repressed, too scared, etc), and/or get angry (the other possible response to being hurt) but do not express the anger (e.g., its not OK to get mad, afraid of getting mad, etc), then both systems are activated and neither are being expressed - the engines revving at 10,000 RPM and the brakes are on - dangerous. Under these circumstances the CNS seems to have a built in safety switch or fuse, and flicks it.  It shuts down and no more (vital) autonomic energy is allowed to flow.  The result is lethargy, increased need/ yearning for sleep, lack of interest, lack of sex drive, etc.  Otherwise known as depression.

An interesting story from my clinical practice.  When I was first working with these ideas, and helping a (long time chronically) depressed client get in touch with their feelings, they had just started to get sad, their eyes teared up a bit and suddenly,. as they were talking, they passed out in mid stream.   I was shocked and not sure how to respond.  The person came back to consciousness in a few minutes and had lost all the contact with the feeling process.  It took quite a number of passes over the material over the next few months before the person could maintain consciousness and process the feelings.  Eventually they got over their depression and went on to live a much fuller and happier life.   Over the next ten years I have had three or four other clients do the same thing in session.  Apparently an emotionally induced narcolepsy, perhaps one we don't notice in real-life situations, when the person can get upset and then say "I'm tired and need to get some sleep - 'night".

Anyway, hope this is all coherent, not too terse, and helpful.

Namaste.