Anger, Forgiveness, and Trauma Archetypes

We are always seeking to heal ourselves, to find a way to cope with life and the things, both positive and negative that occur in our lives. This a fundamental tenant of humanistic psychology—the belief that people are always working toward self-actualization. But what happens when our trauma healing journey is hijacked by unconscious archetypal embodiment (i.e victim, perpetrator, or punisher)?

When the archetype of the perpetrator or the punisher comes into play as a trauma response, sometimes justified anger is misdirected and we find ourselves doing harm in the world, sometimes even reenacting the harm done to us. This is often the case in the cycle of abuse. It is well known that a large number of perpetrators of abuse were once abused themselves. It is also known that most people who are abused do not become abusers. Punishers seek vengeance on those who harmed them, but sometimes the people who harmed us aren’t around to seek vengeance on, and often aren’t even who/what we are really angry at.

Many clients in my office voice the fear of becoming a perpetrator or a punisher at some point during the journey of healing their trauma. They are afraid that they will do what was done to them to another, sometimes even confessing to having thoughts about what it would be like to hurt someone the way they were hurt and associated feelings of deep shame. Sometimes, they have hurt someone already by externalizing their shame onto another in a reactive moment of angry words, as have many of us, myself included.

I tell them that when they own their trauma history, they are making the decision to give themselves choice in their reactions and they can choose what energy and archetypes they want to embody. “Anger directed against the self or others is always a central problem in the lives of people who have been violated and this is itself a repetitive re-enactment of real events from the past.” (Van der Kolk, 1989).

When we bring our trauma into the light and all the anger that comes with it, we can choose how to direct that anger, rather than letting it become misdirected from an unconscious trauma response.

We get to choose what archetypes we embody, and the first step is owning our anger by examining what it is really trying to tell us. As a somatic therapist, I am biased toward examining anger through where it lives in the body and letting the body’s wisdom communicate what the anger is trying to say. Often anger is a boundary emotion, telling us where our boundaries are and where they were violated. Anger can also be about more than our personal stories, and in the case of relational trauma it often is about the collective as well.

When anger arises in my body around past traumas I recognize and honor the boundary violations. I also ask myself “what am I really angry at?” and then when I have an answer, I go a layer deeper “but what am I really angry at?” and often it is at what I call the shadow masculine (sometimes referred to as toxic masculinity, but I find that term non-holistic) or at systems of oppression. This is my specific experience, but for everyone it will be a little different. What I can say is for most people I’ve worked with the core of the anger is at an energy or system, not the human enacting that system or energy.

When we can recognize that our anger is actually directed at a system or archetypal energy, we can find forgiveness for the humans whom that energy worked through, because almost always, the same energy that harmed us through them is also actively doing harm to them.

A good example that many of us can relate to is recycling. I, like many of my clients feel guilt arise when I look on the bottom of a container and realize it is grade six plastic, but my county only recycles up to grade five. So inevitably, I have to throw that container in the trash, perhaps if I have the energy I may try to reuse it a few times first, but no matter what that container is going in a landfill. As a witchy spiritual healer I feel incredibly connected to the earth and harming the earth causes me pain. In this example I am the vessel through which our systemic failure to regulate plastic and better utilize recycling potential is enacted. Yet, I am also the one in pain because I am harming the earth that I care for.

In the environmental crisis almost all of us are both victims and perpetrators simultaneously. I use this example because it holds enough emotional charge for many of us that we can feel something, and ask “what am I angry at?” then ask ourselves again and hopefully recognize that anger at the self here isn’t justice, the justified anger is at the system. It is directed at an energy in the world.

So how do you move anger at a system or an archetype?

Yell, scream, go on a rage hike if your body allows, pound your fists into your pillows, put both hands on the wall like you’re doing a wall push up and walk your feet out then push from your core, scream again, cry, laugh, sing heavy metal music, shout at the universe from a mountain top, then breathe. Breathe deeply and feel the pain, feel the anger transform into compassion for yourself and those who have harmed you.

Forgiveness is not permission; it is not saying what they did was okay. Forgiveness is choosing to hold compassion with the anger and let them balance each other. Use the anger to decide how you want to uphold boundaries in your future, and use compassion to help release the hatred that can lead us into the punisher archetype. You deserve to let go, to move on with your life, and holding on to the victim, the punisher, or perpetrator takes precious energy you could be using to build a more beautiful world.

References

Van der Kolk, B. A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12(2), 389-411.