How to Turn a Temper Tantrum into a Work of Art, Part Two

How to Turn a Temper Tantrum into a Work of Art, Part Two

Acting Out and Sublimation

In part one, I wrote about how your daughter can work her emotions into art. The first step is acting out. Acting out is a common phrase anyone would use to describe your daughter’s behavior in the first stage, but it’s also an accurate use of a psychoanalytic term. Acting Out is an immature defense mechanism, a direct expression of an unconscious impulse by putting it into action. When your daughter chose acting out as a defense, it was because an emotion was creating such distress inside her that she sought to get rid of it by taking some action that put it outside. Punching a pillow when you’re angry is another example of acting out. So is punching a person. The reason it’s called an immature defense mechanism is because people begin to utilize it early on and it’s likely to cause more problems than a mature defense mechanism.

When immature defense mechanisms cause problems, maturing people develop mature defense mechanisms as a better alternative. The mature version of acting out is sublimation, the channeling of intolerable emotions towards socially acceptable modes of expression. I think you’d agree that shouting I hate you, stomping off, sobbing for an hour, and giving you the silent treatment is not a socially acceptable mode of expression, even if it vividly expresses her emotions. Writing a poem about the experience is better, even if it’s a bad poem.

I see a lot of clients who utilize acting out. Whenever they’re beset by an uncomfortable emotion, they simply must get rid of it as soon as possible by taking some symbolic action that expresses it. There are myriad ways of doing this. The woman who gets stinking drunk, the guy who beats his wife, the kleptomaniac, the pathological gambler, the compulsive hand washer; what they all have in common is they’re utilizing the defense of Acting Out. They seek through alcoholism, violence, theft, gambling, and needless handwashing to discharge unwanted emotions. Therapy for those who act out involves what parents of three year olds say to their children. Use your words. Talk about your feelings, rather than act upon them.

When your daughter shouted, I hate you, she began to do just that. Talking is action, but it lets the steam out slowly. If you picture a boiler, acting out would be the vent that lets the steam out. Talking about your feelings is a vent, as well, but it’s a vent where the steam must pass through some baffles before it escapes, some baffling baffles. Before you can talk about a feeling, you must first be conscious of it and find the words for it.

Remember the difference between a feeling and an emotion? Feelings are conscious emotions; emotions are unconscious feelings. When you first told your daughter she couldn’t go to the mall, she had emotion, but no feelings. She experienced the emotion as the frown and some physiological changes within herself. Once the frown and the physiological changes occurred, she had something to be conscious of, but she didn’t know what it was because she had no words for it yet. Then she found the words, I hate you. At that moment, she had converted the emotion into a feeling. She chose those words because they captured the gist of what she was feeling, a combination of her internal state, the frown, and you saying no. Once she said the words, the steam started to escape, but these words were not enough for her. There was more to feel than just hate. She chose to let more steam out directly, without first passing through the baffles of consciousness and verbalization. Then you saw the stomping, slamming, sobbing, and silent treatment.

If she hadn’t elected to go stomping off to her room but instead, continued to talk about her feelings, this is what she might have said:

Not only do I hate you for not letting me go to the mall, I also hate you for having to say I hate you. I thought we had an understanding that I could go to the mall to see my friends, but you changed the rules on me, so now I’m confused. I can’t trust you anymore. I’m afraid of being further disappointed in you. I believe I’ve got to punish you for letting me down, so I guess I’m also feeling vindictive. On top of it all, I’m feeling grief for losing the chance to see my friends. For that matter, I’m also grieving the loss of our relationship, which used to be good. Now I must protect myself from you. The only way is to practice being numb and pretending you don’t mean anything to me.

If I was being honest with myself, my reaction to you was not entirely about you. School is stressful because the teachers assign a lot of homework and most of the kids are mean and immature. I’m worried about college, student loans, and whether I’ll be a successful grown up. I need you to trust me so I can practice independence now. I’m freaked out by climate change and the political environment. These are problems your generation failed to fix. You just passed them on to us, and now you think you’re qualified to tell me what to do. There’s only one thing in my life that relieves me of this stress, my friends. They get it, but you kept me from seeing them.

Some parents would not tolerate a teenage daughter talking about her feelings so openly and directly, which may be why she would elect to act out, instead. It also takes a remarkably poised and self-reflective individual to be able to talk that way. Few teenagers have those qualities yet, but if she could talk about her feelings, and if you could listen to her doing so, then you’d have more to work with and could come to an agreement about the mall both of you could be happy with.

If I was your daughter’s therapist, I’d help her construct something like the above. Once she developed a fuller understanding of her feelings and committed them to words like those, she will have created a piece of art. You could call it a personal essay, a literary form that’s gotten very popular since people started talking about their feelings.

Do you see what she did by creating that personal essay? She took the steam generated by her emotions and, instead of venting it by acting out, she channeled it through the baffles of sublimation. She took the raw material of her emotions, recollected them in a state of relative tranquility, and expressed them in the form of a personal essay. That’s art.

Literature was not the only art form she could have created. She might have done the same in music, visual arts, or in dance, for instance. Any of these would involve sublimation, a necessary stage of the transformation of emotion into art. In those cases, she would not be conscious of the feelings in words, at least as we generally understand words to be. But she would have represented them, somehow, in the language of music, visual arts, or dance.

And so, there you have my Artistic Theory of Emotional Expression. It’s an artwork, itself. Time will tell if it’s a good one. In it, I was able to put flesh to some vague feelings I’ve had towards both art and feelings. I hope I’ve evoked some curiosity in you and a confidence that you too, can shape your feelings through sublimation into some form of art, instead of wasting it all in acting out.