Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (28 page)
Read Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships Online
Authors: Harriet Lerner
Tags: #Anger Management, #Personal Growth, #Happiness, #Self-Help
I have many people to thank.
Sandra Elkin, my literary agent, steered me from professional to popular writing in 1979, and planted the seeds for this book. She saw me through an unanticipated series of literary ups and downs and demonstrated a remarkable capacity to maintain her sense of humor and clarity of direction, no matter what. Eleanor Rawson also helped me to develop as a popular writer by challenging my distant, scholarly style and encouraging me to connect more directly and personally with my readers.
In the early stages of this project, many friends and colleagues at the Menninger Foundation read manuscripts and offered valuable criticism and conversation. My thanks to Shirley Bonney, Nancy Gordon, Arthur Herman, Maria Luisa Leichtman, Arthur Mandelbaum, Sharon Nathan, Gavin Newsom, Dale Roskos, and especially to Meredith Titus. From outside of Topeka, Nancy Chodorow, Sally McNall, and Robert Seidenberg read chapters and offered feedback. While the bulk of my early writing did not find its way into the final version of this book, the feedback that I received from these people helped shape the course and direction of the final product.
Marianne Ault-Riché developed and named the “Talking Straight and Fighting Fair” workshops that we took on the road together as I gathered additional data about women and anger. Observing Marianne in action was inspirational to me; what I learned from her—of content, spirit, and courage—is reflected in this book.
I owe much to Sherry Levy-Reiner who carefully read and re-read chapters at the shortest notice, giving generously of time that she did not have. In addition to her vital suggestions, she offered me emotional support and feminist companionship at the Menninger Foundation, until her departure in 1982. I am similarly indebted to Emily Kofron whose loving friendship, camaraderie, and belief in my work nourished me through the good and bad times.
Katherine Glenn Kent has been, as always, an unfailing source of new ideas, which she translates with stunning lucidity and imagination into clinical work. She introduced me to Bowen Family Systems Theory and helped me to put it into practice in my own life. What I have learned from her over our many years of friendship is incalculable, although I suspect that she would credit Murray Bowen with as much vigor and enthusiasm as that with which I now credit her.
Betty Hoppes typed the bulk of this book and worked second hardest next to myself. In addition to her outstanding secretarial skills, her support, wisdom, and generosity of spirit helped see me through. Thanks also to Mary McLin, who helped with the typing of early final drafts and to Aleta Pennington, Debi Smith, and Jeannine Riddle, who worked magic with the word processor.
I could not have written this book had I not been relieved of other professional responsibilities. I am grateful to the Menninger Foundation for supporting part-time employment and for making it possible for me to pursue my own work. My particular thanks to Donald Colson, Leonard Horwitz, and Irwin Rosen. Thanks also to Roy Menninger, president of the Menninger Foundation, for his generous encouragement and support of my activities.
Under the superb direction of Alice Brand, the professional library at the Menninger Foundation is nothing short of a scholar’s dream. The library staff has retrieved all my requests with accuracy and expedience, and, in addition, has sent me numerous references that I did not request, but should have. The Menninger Library staff may be guilty of making it impossible for me to ever leave Topeka.
Janet Goldstein, my editor at Harper & Row, joined this project in its latter stages and proved to be everything that a writer could wish for. Her suggestions and criticisms were so clear, helpful, and wise, that the final rewriting of this book was . . . well, almost fun. It is a blessing that my manuscript ended up in her gifted and enthusiastic hands. Susan Philipson did an excellent job copyediting the final manuscript.
There is no way that I can adequately acknowledge or name the influence of my parents in shaping my life and writing. I thank my mother for her warmth, her intelligence, her quiet dignity and courage, her love of life and remarkable spirit of survival, and her capacity to give generously to others in even the most difficult of personal circumstances. I thank my father for his wonderful humor and wit, for his appreciation of words and language, which he taught both his daughters, and for his loving, albeit unsuccessful attempts to steer me away from comic books and rock-and-roll during my formative years in Brooklyn. Finally, I thank my sister, Susan, for her correspondence and companionship, for her help with this project, and for being the very best of big sisters.
I wish also to thank the following people: My women’s group for hand-holding and sympathy; Susi Kaplow for her pioneering article “Getting Angry”; Teresa Bernardez for inspiring the subject of this book and for being the most loving and demanding of critics; Judie Koontz for being such a good friend; Carol Tavris for providing long-distance, big-sisterly reassurance that this book would come out in my lifetime; Anthony Kowalski for having sensitively provided conditions for emotional and intellectual openness; Peter Novotny for encouraging my work all along; Susan Kraus for her special way of cheering me on; Ann Carver for reminding me through her gentle and graceful teaching of yoga that I cannot work and create as a disembodied spirit. I also want to thank the larger community of women, including many I have not met, who have reached out over long distances, even oceans, to encourage my ideas and to share their own. For this network, and for feminism itself, I will always stand in debt.
Last and most significantly, my love and gratitude goes to Stephen Lerner. He has been, along with everything else, the finest of editors, the best of friends, and the most nurturant of husbands. I thank him for his patience, his proddings, his all-around helpfulness and expert advice, for his seriousness as well as his irrepressible silliness. All this, combined with the bright faces and wonderful personalities of our two sons Matthew and Benjamin, have made me feel very lucky indeed.
This book, like others of its kind, is the product of many people’s work. While I have tried in my notes to acknowledge the specific contributions of others, those credited do not necessarily share my views. For example, I have used ideas and language from Bowen Family Systems Theory; however, my interpretation and application of Bowen’s work has been heavily influenced by my psychoanalytic and feminist background. In sum, others have influenced this book, but the final responsibility throughout is mine.
Chapter 1
The Challenge of Anger
Psychiatrist Teresa Bernardez was the first person to explore the powerful forces that prohibit female anger, rebellion, and protest, and to describe the psychological consequences of such prohibitions. See Teresa Bernardez-Bonesatti’s “Women and Anger: Conflicts with Aggression in Contemporary Women,” in the
Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association
33 (1978): 215–19. See also Harriet Lerner’s “Taboos Against Female Anger,” in
Menninger Perspective
8 (1977): 4–11, which also appeared in
Cosmopolitan
(November 1979, pp. 331–33).
A well-known advocate of the let-it-all-hang-out theory is Theodore Isaac Rubin, author of
The Angry Book
(New York: Collier, 1970).
For a critique of Rubin’s theory, as well as a comprehensive and enjoyable book on anger, see Carol Tavris’s
Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982).
Chapter 2
Old Moves, New Moves, and Countermoves
The concepts of “underfunctioning” and “overfunctioning” are from Bowen Family Systems Theory. However, Murray Bowen discounts the far-reaching implications of gender and sex-role stereotypes. For a comprehensive review of Bowen’s theory, see Michael Kerr’s “Family Systems Theory and Therapy,” in Alan S. Gurman and David P. Kniskern, eds.,
Handbook of Family Therapy
(New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1981), pp. 226–64.
In her book
Toward a New Psychology of Women
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1976), Jean Baker Miller discusses the subject of women as carriers of those aspects of the human experience that men fear and wish to deny in themselves.
On de-selfing and dependency in women, see Harriet Lerner’s “Female Dependency in Context: Some Theoretical and Technical Considerations,” in the
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
53 (1983): 697–705
,
which also appeared in P. Reiker and E. Carmen, eds.,
The Gender Gap in Psychotherapy
(New York: Plenum Press, 1984).
While women have been labeled “the dependent sex,” I have argued (ibid.) that women are not dependent enough. Most women are far more expert at attending to the needs of others than identifying and assertively claiming the needs of the self. Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach have illustrated how women learn to be depended
upon
and not to feel entitled to have their own emotional needs met. See
What Do Women Want
(New York: Coward McCann, 1983).
For a more technical discussion of the forces of separateness and togetherness in relationships, see Mark Karpel’s “From Fusion to Dialogue,” in
Family Process
15 (1976): 65–82.
Jean Baker Miller (op. cit., 1976) describes women’s fears of hurting or losing a relationship as they move toward greater authenticity and personal growth.
On countermoves and “change back!” reactions, see Murray Bowen,
Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
(New York: Jason Aronson, 1978), p. 495.
Chapter 3
Circular Dances in Couples
Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, and Richard Fisch have written about the “more of the same” (or “when the solution becomes the problem”) phenomenon of human nature. See Chapter 3 of
Change
(New York: Norton, 1974).
The marital pattern of distance and pursuit has been so widely described in the family literature that it is difficult to trace its origins. See especially Philip Guerin and Katherine Buckley Guerin’s article, “Theoretical Aspects and Clinical Relevance of the Multigenerational Model of Family Therapy,” in Philip Guerin, ed.,
Family Therapy
(New York: Gardner Press, 1976), pp. 91–110. Also see Marianne Ault-Riché’s article “Drowning in the Communication Gap,”
Menninger Perspective
(Summer 1977, pp. 10–14).
Chapter 4
Anger at Our Impossible Mothers
On the subject of emotional distance and emotional cutoffs in families, see Michael Kerr’s article on Bowen Family Systems Theory (op. cit., 1981).
On mothers and daughters, see
Mothers and Daughters,
by E. Carter, P. Papp, and O. Silverstein (Washington: The Women’s Project in Family Therapy, Monograph Series, vol. 1, no. 1). See also (by same authors)
Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters
(Monograph Series, vol. 2, no. 1, The Women’s Project, 2153 Newport Place, N.W., Washington, DC 20037).
At the societal level, the same emotional counterforce (“You’re wrong”; “Change Back!”; “Or else . . .”) will occur when a de-selfed or subordinate group moves to a higher level of autonomy and self-definition. Feminists, for example, have been labeled selfish, misguided, and neurotic and warned that if they persisted in their efforts toward self-definition and self-determination, they would diminish men, ruin children, and threaten the very fabric of American life. In both family and societal systems, it is a difficult challenge indeed to stay connected and remain on course in the face of countermoves that invite nonproductive fighting and/or emotional cutoffs.
For a brief and highly readable summary on moving differently in one’s own family system, see “Family Therapy with One Person and the Family Therapist’s own Family,” by Elizabeth Carter and Monica McGoldrick Orfanidis, in Philip Guerin’s book
Family Therapy
(op. cit., 1976).
Maggie’s story illustrates how we may resist change and sacrifice autonomy out of an unconscious belief that our further growth and self-definition will hurt other family members. It also illustrates that our resistance to change must be understood in the context of the powerful pressures against change exerted by the family system. For a more in-depth discussion of these concepts, see S. Lerner and H. Lerner’s “A Systemic Approach to Resistance: Theoretical and Technical Considerations,” in the
American Journal of Psychotherapy
37 (1983): 387–99.
Chapter 5
Using Anger as a Guide
My thanks to Thomas Gordon for his pioneering work on “I-messages.” I recommend
Parent Effectiveness Training
highly as a model of communication and relatedness that is applicable not only to parents and children but to adult relationships as well.
This vignette about Karen first appeared in “Good and Mad: How to Handle Anger on the Job,” in
Working Mother
(March 1983, pp. 43–49).
