Psychology 101: Frustration causes emocional discomfort, then anger, follows by uncontrollable anger and finally rage

 Psychology 101: FRUSTRATION causes emotional discomfort, then ANGER, then uncontrollable anger, and finally RAGE - all these emotional processes are created by our brain -

By Hector Williams Zorrilla, psychologist and university professor

Neurosciences know for a fact, proven in rigorous research, that our emotions originate and emanate from specific portions of our brains, specifically from the tonsils.

A predominant human emotion is the emotion of anger and this emotion emanates and originates in the brain like all other human emotions.

The emotion of anger has contributed, and continues to contribute to the survival and protection of the human race. Anger is a positive emotion just as all human emotions are. There are different spectra and gradients of human emotions, but in reality, there are no emotions with negative valences.

All human emotions have positive valences or charges, and contribute to the psycho-emotional and socio-cultural well-being of the humans who express them, including the emotion of anger, even to their degree of uncontrollable anger. No human emotion has negative connotations, so it has to be rejected because it is inferior to other emotions. The opposite of this criterion is true: all human emotions contain positive and healthy properties for healthy human interactions and they are beneficial for the mental health of their exponents.

Emotional differences are only marked in the ways we express them, where, why, when and with whom.

And it is here, in the forms and psycho-emotional and socio-cultural nuances of emotional expressions, where one of the most valuable and important learning for each human being begins since childhood. This important and valuable learning is one that teaches us and prepares us to healthily express all our affective states, in all and the various forms and nuances of our human interactions and our social relationships.

I have explained in my published books that all emotional or affective expressions have a single basic objective: to increase and / or protect our self-esteem and personal and social self-worth. That is, by expressing any human emotion, we are automatically trying to increase or grow our self-esteem and self-worth, or we are trying to protect ourselves from someone or something that tries to decrease our sense of self-worth and / or hurting our self-esteem and we could have both goals at the same time.

The emotional reaction we call ANGER, which like all other human emotions originates and emanates from the brain, has staggered processes or phases in its outward interactional expression. Let's look at the basic phases of the natural expression of the emotion of anger.

The first act or phase is FRUSTRATION. This emotional reaction is shown as discomfort and emotional discomfort, because the frustrated person feels that a desire, motivation or expectation that she/he had at that moment and during that particular interaction, has NOT been satisfied.

The second act or phase is ANGER. It is a completely natural emotional reaction that the person feels, when the organism, that is, his/her body, realizes that a goal, desire, motivation or personal expectation that he/she had cannot be fulfilled or realized within that specific interaction regarding the emotion expressed.

The third act or phase is the uncontrollable anger. This is the emotional reaction to an anger that the person has experienced and that has not been resolved satisfactorily, that is, that it has not been resolved in a healthy way that satisfies and compensates the natural demands of the human organism in the way how it emotion requires by anger emotion. Already in this phase, the emotional expression of anger has in itself a conflict that needs immediate healthy resolution, so that it does not escalate to the next phase.

The fourth act or phase is the RAGE. At this level, the emotion of ANGER is expressed as an emotional reaction with an uncontrolled explosion, which generally clouds the cerebral rationality that is located in the frontal portion of the brain. During the emotional expression of RAGE, the person may do things that she/he does not even remember after doing them. This irrational reaction to the emotion of the ANGER in the RAGE phase, is called "temporary insanity" in some professional and legal circles.

Since all of these emotional reactions originate in and emanate from the brain, the techniques for managing them healthily come from the application of the functioning of the brain system.

A procedure or approach used in psychology for the healthy management of the emotion of the uncontrollable anger and rage is Mindfulness. I will return to the subject of mindfulness in other writings.

Meanwhile, I leave you the saying of Buddha that illustrates this writing.

"Who angers you (that is, who has the power given by yourself to anger you to the degree of uncontrollable anger and rage), control you”).