Evening. Kitchen. The cups contain aromatic green tea and a vase of honey. (My husband and I agreed to support each other: after 18.00 we give the body the opportunity to process the undigested. We don’t eat anything. At 19.00 - only a fruit smoothie). Husband: Well, as a psychologist, tell me: what are my shortcomings? Here we’ll take a freeze-frame of the family idylls. At the end of the article you will read how the matter ended. In the meantime, let’s answer an important question: why suddenly, in a relaxed moment, one of the spouses needed to sort things out according to the principle “first you attack, and then I will answer?” For this, it is important to talk about the psychological container. There are emotions (tears, screams, crying), the other side (the one in the resource) helps to digest it. This is the most ideal option. Such a container helps in relationships to live, enjoy, feel tenderness, move towards goals, prosper. But let’s be honest: modern families have few resources to also WITHstand OTHERS’ emotions. But there is a need to “regret”. And what unconscious mechanism was invented in the relationship? We cling to the shortcomings of another person, literally appropriate them to ourselves in order to get our portion of understanding from others. This is how a “secondary” container is created when, in an illegal way, we digest our own feelings about the Other through his shortcomings. For example. Is your husband lying on the sofa? The situation seems to be annoying and infuriating. But imagine: he gets up and starts doing things. He will do the cleaning, wash the dishes, and do homework with the children. AND? AND?? AND??? How will you then receive a portion of sympathy from your mother or friends? Or another situation. The house is clean, ironed, washed, dinner is cooked, the wife is beautiful, but something is wrong with the husband. We are afraid to say the simplest and most important things to each other. “I'm angry now. Most likely this has nothing to do with you. But give me the opportunity to be angry.” We are afraid (and this is normal) that the aggression directed at us is connected with us. And it is easier to defend ourselves (although it is much more costly in terms of resources) than to simply be with the anger of another person. So, we either get angry and drain our emotions through, clinging to the shortcomings of the Other. Or we try to extinguish emotions and pretend that nothing is happening. But the human nervous system works equally in both directions. If its owner suddenly decided not to be angry, then it is impossible to be happy either. And for some reason we cannot be angry for many reasons. And the channel from which anger should come out is densely concreted by parental attitudes, their own ideas about what a “good” mother, wife, colleague should be. And then the dense energy of aggression accumulates in the body. Very often clients talk about a lump in the throat, unpleasant sensations in the stomach, tingling in the legs and arms when they feel angry. - What do I need to do to make you angry with me? is an important tool in therapy to deconcrete the channel of anger. This is how the therapist turns aggression on himself. In a family, this is a dangerous technique. It’s more environmentally friendly to just be with a person.____________________________________ And as for our evening. When my husband asked about the shortcomings, I was silent. He started listing his shortcomings. She listened and was silent. He said that the tea was not tasty. I nodded my head and was silent. He said that he had been working all week, was tired and there was nothing in the refrigerator. (Remember I wrote about our joint agreement: not to eat after 18.00?). She nodded and was silent. Her husband flushed. Got up. Gone. I continued to drink delicious tea with honey. Aggression is contained. When the main seething, scalding steam of aggression came out of the husband’s internal multicooker, she approached her husband and asked: “Is there anything else to say or can we now go and drink tea together?” In a word, it’s hard to be the husband of a psychologist. They do not give reasons for a secondary container)) (IMPORTANT NOTE: we are not talking about physical violence. If something like this occurs, then it is not about anger and aggression, but about a destroyed psyche that does not know how to control its emotions. This is a disease. And from physical violence important.)