Dealing with criticism, conflict and discomfort around anger

I've been practicing as a therapist now for over 25 years, and its interesting how certain patterns emerge again and again, across different populations, ages, genders, etc. One, of course, is anxiety and addictions and another is the relationship between being criticized, and a deep fear around conflict and expressing one's anger related to the situation. We can think of addictions as responses calculated to avoid and mitigate the sorts of feelings to be discussed in this post, but how do we get to this point, where do these difficult thoughts and feelings come from?

Attachment and child developmental theory

Though typically cognitive behavioral and mindfulness therapies emphasize working in the present, I think most therapists would agree on the importance of one's childhood experiences in establishing patterns that people come into therapy for in the here and now. One of the best, and most scientifically validated approaches to personality development is attachment theory, which stresses the quality and nature of the child's relationship with her primary caretaker(s), the attachment figure, who is usually, but not always the mother. This approach began with the earlier tradition of psychoanalytic developmental theory.

We can think of the newborn infant as essentially fused with mother, not having the psychological and neurological capacities to think of herself as a separate being. The Psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler and her colleagues (1986) were among the first to put forward a detailed framework of child developmental stages. Here she describes the main findings of the research: "We refer to the psychological birth of the infant as the separation-individuation process: the establishment of a sense of separateness from and relation to, a world of reality, particularly with regards to the experience of one’s own body and to the principal representative of the world as the infant experiences it, the principal love object." (p. 3). She conceived of this process as having two complementary aspects, the separation occurring as the child emerges from a “symbiotic fusion” (p. 4) with the mother, and the individuation occurring as "the child assumes…his own individual characteristics.” (2000, p. 4).   

Summarizing a large amount of research over the past decades, we can sum up the process as first, the development of a separate ego-identity that occurs gradually in a dyadic or relational manner during interactions with the caregiver(s), and that the results of these interactions are stored in the infant and child mind as self and other (object) representations i.e self images and images of what to expect from others. And second, as Mahler makes clear, that even though these are essentially primitive mental constructions, they are nevertheless critical to the healthy growth of ego-identity, our sense of self.

Combining the research of psychoanalytic and attachment theories, we can say that these foundational ideas of who we are and who others are, become part of our personality and result in the attachment categories of secure, or insecure (anxious, avoidant, or disorganized).

Sensitivity to criticism and interpersonal conflict

Having established how each of us comes to a sense of ourselves as secure, insecure, avoidant, and so on, and the related image we have of ourselves and others, we can begin to see how this might affect our sensitivity to criticism and the judgment of others. Bearing in mind, always, that at the social and community level, there is always pressure on us all to fit in, to belong, regardless of our personal history.

Broadly speaking, one's discomfort with criticism, conflict, and one's own anger are deeply interconnected, typically stemming from a core fear of relational disconnection or a threat to one's emotional safety stemming form the nature of one's early relational history.

When we find we have been triggered by, say, harsh words from someone we care about, it can feel like an attack; similarly, conflict feels like an unsafe battlefield, and anger feels like a dangerous emotion that could destroy your relationships.

The core belief is that we could be rejected or abandoned, which for a child is especially concerning, and we might carry this fear into adulthood. At the core of these worries is often a subconscious belief that disharmony equals loss of love or safety.

In summary, criticism is interpreted as proof that you are flawed or failing someone else, and conflict is feared as the moment the relationship will break permanently.

Discomfort around anger

Criticism on its own will make us feel hurt and vulnerable and can lead to withdrawal and self-medicating, but when we add conflict and anger at how we have been treated to the dynamic, this often adds the fear of driving others away. This applies both to the anger of others, and and also to difficulties in feeling and expressing our own anger.

This sort of conditioning is clearly related to the widespread investment many of us have in being a "nice guy or girl." If you grew up in an environment where anger was discouraged or even explosive, or where love was conditional on you being "perfect" and accomodating, it would be quite natural to believe that expressing a different opinion (conflict) is dangerous, that making a mistake (criticism) jeopardizes your safety, or feeling and/or expressing anger makes you the "bad guy."

Consequently, you may have developed a people-pleasing coping mechanism to keep the peace at all costs, sacrificing your own healthy boundaries to ensure others remain happy with you. If you have ever felt that you were the one doing all the work managing a relationship, this is a sure sign that a healthy boundary about how you would like to be treated should be established.

How to progress with all this - the Earned Secure attachment style

Most of us have a mixture of attachment styles, more secure with this person, less so with others, or in certain environments. Insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, or disorganized) and the related feelings of insecurity that often accompany them can be addressed and meaningfully changed throughout life.

Recent developments in brain science support this view. According to the model of neuroplasticity, the brain remains capable of updating relational patterns well into adulthood - noticeable shifts in reactive patterns often appear within months to a couple of years of consistent corrective experience; deeper changes typically take longer.

Attachment patterns show moderate stability over time, but they are not fixed traits. Research, including studies tracking people across decades, demonstrates that attachment classifications can and do shift in response to new experiences, relationships, therapy, and major life events.

A key concept is earned secure attachment. This refers to adults who experienced insecure or difficult early caregiving yet develop a coherent, secure way of relating in adulthood. They can discuss their past clearly without being overwhelmed or dismissive, can allow themselves to feel and express different opinions and even anger in an appropriate way without too much fear or guilt, and their relationship outcomes are comparable to those of people who were continuously secure from childhood. Earned security is well-documented and relatively common among securely attached adults.

On average, people also tend to move toward greater attachment security as they age, partly due to maturation, accumulating relationship experience, and taking on roles (such as partner or parent) that encourage emotional regulation and responsiveness.

Change typically happens through corrective emotional and relational experiences that update the self and other images and ideas. The ones I have seen to be most effective are therapy, supportive relationships and meditation.

Therapy and close relationships of all kinds (including with animals), are closely related. Long standing romantic relationships are themselves attachment relationships, and thus, not surprisingly, tend to bring up old relational injuries, trust issues and so forth. In fact, we may even unconsciously choose partners based on similarities with original attachment figures, in the hope that this time we'll get it right, and get what we need from them. You can ask yourself if this sounds familiar, and if so, has it worked out in the way you wanted? Sometimes it does, as the right person can support us as we work through our insecurities and doubts, which allows us to learn what trust feels and looks like; and sometimes, we end up frustrated at repeating old patterns.

And again, it is important to point out that all of us, securely attached or not, go through some version of this working through process - none of us are given a relationship or living manual early on to help us avoid any mistakes; indeed, mistakes if they happen, are what can orient us in the right direction of understanding these parts of ourselves and making better choices going forward.

The Secure Base

Both relationships and meditation can help us establish what is called the inner secure base. If we are securely attached, the positive interactions with caregivers gave us a sense that people could be trusted, that we were loved and appreciated, and this became internalized in the self and other images.

As mentioned above, we can change our insecure sense of ourselves through deep and sustained contact with others in relationships, including therapy, but what is not as well known is that we can also do so through long term meditation.

If you have had any experience of meditation, or can imagine from what I'm saying what it might be like, you will know that when we start meditation, we are pulled every which way by our thoughts and inner emotions and sensations, and calming down can seem impossibly distant. If we stick with it, however, we can learn to stay with whatever is arising, including increasingly difficult inner experiences, memories and thoughts, without losing awareness, without automatically defaulting to old responses and judging, or trying to "fix" ourselves.

We establish an inner secure base from the awareness that is always there, whatever the changing content might be, such as reactivity from the sort of criticism and anger we have been discussing. We learn that thoughts are just thoughts, it is getting caught up in them that causes most of the inner struggle, and that we can learn to allow them to come and go on their own. We can learn, in short, to depend on ourselves, that whatever comes up, we will no longer be overwhelmed and destabilized. If we stay conscious, this also allows us some space to make good, not impulsive choices as to what to do next, how best to respond to what has triggered us.

The meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, uses this metaphor: if we put a tablespoon of salt into a tumbler of water, it will likely taste salty. If we put the same tablespoon into a bathtub, it will be much harder to taste. In the same way, we are always trying to reduce the amount of salt we encounter in our life, so to speak, when we could be increasing our container, i.e. our ability to make space for and compassionately include anything that arises.

Both healthy relationships and meditation, then, allow us to learn emotional regulation skills we might not have been taught in childhood, and this is very much part of the gradual shift from insecure to secure attachment, less susceptible to over-react to criticism, conflict, or express anger unskillfully.

Naturally, this is a practice, and takes time, though you can start right away, and see results relatively quickly with the right therapist, partner, or after several months of meditation.

Change is possible for adults at any stage, but it is rarely instantaneous or effortless—especially when insecurity is rooted in trauma or has been reinforced over many years. Intellectual understanding alone is usually insufficient; repeated felt experiences of safety and responsiveness are what shift the automatic responses. Some people change more readily than others, and meditation and support greatly improve the odds.

References

Mahler, M. S. (1986). On human symbiosis and the vicissitudes of individuation. In P. Buckley (Ed.), Essential papers on object relations (pp. 200-221). New York, NY: New York University Press.

Mahler, M. S., Pine, F., & Bergman, A. (2000). The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Freud and Beyond