Five Emotional patterns that underlie primitive conflicts and violence
By Stefan Sandström
Types of conflict
It is possible to divide interpersonal conflicts into two distinct categories: the rational and the primitive.
- Rational conflicts are substantial. They do not give rise to aggression in the parties concerned and is often felt to be stimulating and positive.
- Primitive conflicts are personal and characterized by feelings of fear and anger. Primitive conflicts are generally seen as negative. They can range from minor games of Uproar to deadly violence.
Biological basis for primitive conflict
Primitive conflicts connect with the innate biologic fight-and-flight system that mankind shares with many animal species. In primitive conflicts we tend to exhibit various kinds of animal-like behaviours, such as raising the voice, shouting, tensing the muscles, blushing, sweating etc. These signs show that the conflict is not merely a mental conflict, but that it involves our entire biological being.
The typical biological reactions depend on a rapid shift between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. The most important biological changes that influence the nature of the conflict development is the excretions of epinephrine (adrenaline) and nor epinephrine.
Most people are from personal experience familiar with the effects of these stress hormones that are rapidly released in threatening situations and in fits of fear or fury, and slower in less acute stressful situations. Among their diverse effects those that are of most interest for our topic are:
- Total activation of the musculature, sometimes to an extent that lets the subject have a “Hulk”-experience such as lifting cars etc.
- Effectively limiting the range of emotional responses to either anger or fear. This corresponds to the three behavioural alternatives: fight, flight or freeze.
- The nor epinephrine inhibits the activity of the frontal lobes of the brain, leaving a rather primitive and rudimentary thinking based on feelings of anger and fear, and the above-mentioned behavioural options. This leaves no room for empathy, sympathy, thinking, sophisticated problem solving etc.
The release of these stress hormones leads to a situation where a person in an acute primitive conflict is in a situation where he or she is angry or frighten and prone to act out from these feelings, while at the same time cognitively disabled when it comes to finding mature resolutions to the problem.
Other physical reactions to prepare for fight or flight include, but are not limited to: releases of the stress hormone cortisole, increase in blood pressure, pulse and breathing, liver changes metabolism to start burning fuel fats, in order to do this high level of cholesterol needs to be created, the blood stream is changed to primarily insure supply for internal organs and muscles, the bloods clotting-ability is greatly enhanced, as is the production of white corpuscles. All these reactions and more may spring into action merely because we get very angry or scared.
Psychological process in fight-and-flight reactions
Fight and flight behaviours are psychologically based on the “I’m OK – You’re not OK” position (Berne, 19XX) and include the various processes that result from this position (below). This leads to some important features of this process:
- Monopolising of goodness. “I’m OK – You’re not OK”.
- Projectivity responsibility and negative actions, motives and personality-traits are projected unto others.
- Other primitive defensive mechanisms such as projective identification and acting out.
- Empathy disorder The capacity to change perspective and see someone else situation is greatly diminished.
These attributes apply also when normal people that are temporary in a + – position is concerned.
Five Patterns for primitive conflicts
Pragmatically I have been able to distinguish five distinctive emotional-cognitive patterns for primitive conflicts (Sandström 1996, 2000a, 2000b, 2007). These patterns have proved to be sufficient to analyze all primitive conflicts that I have encountered while working with interpersonal violence for a period of more than 20 years and which has resulted in three major books on the subject. Three of them are based on the “substitution factor” in rackets (English 19xx), one on the collection of red stamps (Berne, 19XX) and one on instrumental process. These are:
- The paranoid conflict-pattern.
- The sadistic conflict-pattern.
- The narcissistic conflict-pattern.
- The crusader-for-justice conflict-pattern.
- The instrumental conflict-pattern
It is of primary importance to understand that these terms are used here to diagnose a conflict and not a person (e.g. a paranoid person may use a sadistic conflict pattern). Normal people tend to go in to several or all of these conflict patterns at different times, whereas severely disturbed individuals will often – but not always – limit themselves to one ore two.
The paranoid conflict-pattern
Aggressiveness (toughness) as a reaction to fear.
This conflict pattern is based on the escalation of anger over fear (substitution) a pattern that is common in Paranoia. The person is scared but feels that if they show it they will be worse of and instead they toughen up in order to scare the other (“Get them before they get you!”).
They tend to cathect a Child ego state or go into a contamination where they reverse causality in a child-like manner, believing that it is only a person that is scared that has anything to fear, as if fear produced danger instead of the opposite.
From this pattern two psychological laws may be deduced:
- The degree of toughness is always directly proportional to the degree of fear in a person. This is evident since toughness serves no practical purpose if there is no threat or danger.
- When a person acts tough and there is no danger outside of him or her, the danger is within – that is, a trauma.
When confronted with people who act from the paranoid conflict pattern there is a strong tendency that the counterpart also goes in to the same pattern, leading to a cockfight type conflict. The outcome of this may range from practically harmless to murder.
Summary of paranoid pattern
Reaction to: Fear
Behaviour: Escalating anger over fear.
Process: Paranoid
Feeling transmitted to counterpart: Fear
Escalate conflict by: Using the same conflict pattern.
Decrease conflict level by: Helping the counterpart to feel safe.
Sadistic conflict pattern
Aggressiveness (oppression) as a reaction to impotence
One may well ask why it is so common that a paranoid conflict pattern is met with the same behaviour from the counterpart. The answer is that our basic training in primitive conflicts is related to a different pattern – the sadistic. The sadistic conflict pattern is the basic pattern in bullying, that most people are well acquainted with from the schoolyard, and that is marked by contempt for weakness and idealising of strength. This is also the pattern at the base of authoritarian ideology like, fascism, Nazism, racism, sexism, communism and many fundamentalist religions. Furthermore, sadistic conflict patterns underlie phenomena like men’s violence towards women, sexual violence, sexual harassment, paedophilia, serial killings, some of the honorary killings, child abuse. It is also found in controlling behaviours and in jealousy. The common factor of these examples is, of course, oppression.
The emotional drive behind the sadistic pattern is impotence, in severe cases resulting from multiple traumatic memories. A person feeling impotent may annul the feeling by exerting power over others. If this power-exertion is ruthless enough the feeling of impotence will be transported to the victims.
In dealing with people who act from sadistic patterns it is not functional to be soft and sympathetic, since this will be perceived as weakness and arouse contempt. Instead it is necessary to be firm and put power behind one’s words, which will instead lead to respect. In order to cure the conditions behind sadistic behaviours it is necessary to cure the traumas that are at the root of them.
Summary of sadistic pattern
Reaction to: Impotence
Behaviour: Escalating power over impotence.
Process: Sadistic
Feeling transmitted to counterpart: Impotence
Escalate conflict by: Showing weakness, being conciliatory
Decrease conflict level by: Firmness, power
Narcissistic conflict patterns
Aggression as a reaction to infringement
At the centre of the narcissistic conflict pattern there is the threatened self-esteem and self-confidence of persons feeling unsure of themselves, defending their self-image by adopting a more or less grandiose attitude towards others. While this is not uncommon for normal people, the conflict-pattern becomes particularly enhanced when the person has a narcissistic personality disorder, seeing themselves as “an intelligent (rich, beautiful) person in a world of blockheads”.
Any infringement, insult or even unwillingness to accept the grandiose self-image of such a person can, when the person has a narcissistic personality disorder, be perceived as a life or death matter. The reason for this is that the narcissistic person uses grandiosity to defend against an emptiness depression (Guntrip 1983) with feelings of abandonment, loneliness and meaninglessness that are felt to be intolerable. There are also important feelings of shame at the base of this syndrome.
Defending against infringement may take the form of defending against actual people. In it’s most dramatic form it can be exemplified by the woman that has “brought shame” on the family because of her sexual behaviour and who is then executed in a honorary killing, or the person who is thrown out of a pub and who returns half an hour later with a shotgun to even up the score. This is also the most common conflict pattern underlying mass-murder such as when a person goes in to a Mac Donald’s restaurant and begins firing at random with a sub-machine gun. School-massacres, however, I attribute to the next conflict-pattern.
Summary of narcissistic pattern
Reaction to: Infringement
Behaviour: Escalating grandiosity over shame and insignificance
Process: Narcissistic
Feeling transmitted to counterpart: Shame and insignificance
Escalate conflict by: Competing with the person for self-esteem
Decrease conflict level by: Correct behaviour, show respect
Crusader for justice conflict-pattern
The drop that makes the cup run over
A crusader for justice –that has given name to this conflict-pattern – is a person that is in disputes with authorities, neighbours, relatives etc, or anyone else that cannot easily get away. These disputes can last forever, or at least for several years. During this time the crusader collects evidence of how unjustly treated he or she has been, and what evil things the counterpart has done.
The major mechanism of this pattern is the collection of red stamps, particularly “injustice-stamps”, and once the book is full it depends on the pathology of the individual what the prize will be. Relatively normal people may trade it in for minor prizes whereas severely pathological persons with personality disorders and + – as their basic existential position, may trade it in for murder.
The basic processes underlying this conflict-pattern are:
- schizoid which insures the persons ability to rely on a more or less independent internal reality and to meticulously carry on with their highly organised strategy.
- paranoid promoting the feeling that others are essentially hostile to you and that you must defend yourself.
- narcissistic seeing oneself as “a just person in a world of corruption”.
In school-massacres the perpetrators typically collect red stamps against teachers and fellow students, perceive them-selves as “outsiders” and “misunderstood”, and have a particular interest in guns. The narcissistic process is generally the most dominant one in these cases.
Summary of crusader for justice pattern
Reaction to: Perceived injustices
Behaviour: Collecting red stamps
Process: Schizoid, paranoid and narcissistic
Escalate conflict by: Denying injustices, aggressive behaviour
Decrease conflict level by: Correct behaviour, show respect
Instrumental conflict-pattern
Violence and threats to get one’s way
The instrumental conflict-pattern is based on the use of violence or threats to get what one want. The most classical example is robbery (“Hands up or I’ll shoot!”), and the gravest case therefore affects particularly those who handle money and valuables. The psychological process here is psychopathic, and the pattern becomes increasingly destructive when combined with a person with a personality disorder, such as criminals. Lighter patterns can be exemplified by the famous strategy of Lysistrate (sex-strike) or generally threatening to take action if one’s demands are not met (other kinds of strikes, etc).
When confronted with an instrumental conflict-pattern it is of primary importance to judge whether one is in a superior or inferior position and to base one’s action on that. When in an inferior position one should give way to the counterpart in order not to get hurt. After the immediate threat is over it is often important to take action, maybe by reporting to police etc. This is particularly important in order to assure that the situation is not repeated.
Instrumental conflict-patterns can be escalated by refusing to “cooperate” when in an inferior position or by moralising (“What would society be like if everybody robbed each other?!). A psychopath will generally understand all moralising as hypocrisy.
Summary of instrumental pattern
Reaction to: Wanting something.
Behaviour: Threats to get one’s way.
Process: Psychopathic
Escalate conflict by: Not cooperating when in an inferior position, moralising
Decrease conflict level by: Cooperate when needed, and then act to rectify the situation.
