With Thanks to Dr. Harriet Lerner

Most of the time, when I post here, I've already worked through the strong feeling surrounding an event, or a series of events, or a pattern -- at least far enough to be able to describe it and consider it without the feelings taking over completely as I do.

This is called detachment. It's not only healthy, it's essential for taking inventory and making meaningful changes. Those things happen from the inside out, and you have to be able to think clearly [and to "serenely bear the trial of being displeasing to yourself"] or they can't happen at all.

I'm going to be working through something in realtime, here, for once. This is probably a good thing. But you need to be aware, this series of posts will be different. I'm going to be exploring more than explaining, and I have no idea, myself, where I'll end up. But it's a necessary journey, and I'm already underway.

Before I get into that, though, I want to express serious thanks to Dr. Harriet Goldhor Lerner, whose book series "The Dance Of" [Intimacy, Deception, etc.] was started in the 1980s and continues to this day.

I'm reading one of the oldest books in the series now - you guessed it: The Dance of Anger. And would you believe: many concepts that I've learned through discussions with counselors, or by querying colleagues whose specialty is mental health, or by cogitation over coffee or prayer, or by rummaging about in the professional and popular literature online, are explained very well indeed in this very book. She discusses triangulation, the "Change-Back" reaction [in fact, that's what she calls it], and a number of other concepts that are old, familiar friends to me now.

I wonder how many of the people I've learned from ... learned what they taught me directly from her?

The Dance of Anger was published in 1985, so it is a bit limited by the mindset of the times, which did not address abusiveness directly. The prevailing emotional tone is thus 'there aint' no good guy, there ain't no bad guy, there's just you and me and we just disagree'. I.e., everyone is decent if you dig down far enough, and everyone tries to do their best by themselves and by others.

This reflects the 'values-free' approach to therapy which is still popular today, and is the main reason I found many self-help books to be no-help books when I was younger. I knew I was being abused, and all the case histories, in which two or more people all miraculously come to their senses and work out mutually satisfactory solutions to shared problems, sounded to me like fairytales.

But now I understand abuse. And I'm trying to find the root of specific, very inappropriate behavior that I 'acted out' all by myself, seemingly without provocation, just a few days ago.

I need to go back to the basics, the real fundamental stuff, and try to see and think clearly. Her explanations of the psychodynamics of anger look like a good starting point for necessary self-examination. I can adjust the perspectives myself, now, to factor in the reality and impact of abuse. And as I read, I catch little flickers here and there, turns of phrase, subordinate clauses, which do allow for the existence and impact of abuse, if I pay close attention. She knew it was there, of course. All along.

Thank you, Dr. Lerner.