Introspection, Reflection, and the Theory of Aggressive Behavior - Essay Example

? CRITICAL INCIDENT ANALYSIS SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED INSTITUTE: People meet with many accidents in their lives and some of these are indeed unforgettable. I also went through one such incident. Back in 2006, it so happened that I and my three children were travelling to school in a seven seater hirer car. It was a routine journey; we were in pleasant humor and were chatting on the way. We had stopped in some stationary traffic when from nowhere a transit van smashed into the back of our car, throwing us all forward. Since our car was not in motion, this accident was very unexpected and frightening. There was a lot of noise. I heard a loud bang and a frightening crunching sound. I remember thinking ‘Oh my god something has hit us’. I was repeatedly telling my children that everything was all right, but before I knew it I had jumped out of the car and was so angry at the man in the van that I ran towards him aggresively shouting that he was an idiot and that I had three kids in the car. The man put his hands up in front of his face, acting in defence saying he was sorry and begging me to calm down. I ran back round to the children and opened the car doors. They all looked shocked. Zanna, my daughter was saying she couldn’t breathe properly because the seat belt had tightened and she was also wearing a back brace at the time; however she had released her seat belt. My son, Harvey was saying that his neck hurt. He was sitting in the very back of the car; Oliver who was sitting next to me complained that his neck hurt too. I felt very frightened that they were hurt. By then, the man who had hit us also came round to the car and started to talk to the children. He soon realised that Zanna had a back brace on and that Harvey couldn’t communicate very well; the man looked at me and said he was sorry and that he could see my children had problems and that he had children too. He looked quite upset, by that time, I was crying. Then I also felt sorry for the man, I realized that he was upset too and he didn’t hit us on purpose. I tried to calm him down by telling him that we’d be fine. Soon after the accident, I telephoned my husband explaining what had happened, we went home and my husband came home and took us to hospital to get our necks checked, where to my great relief, we were told we had muscular injuries; no bone damage. I used to be very aggressive. Agression was the basic defense mechanism I was in the habit of using whenever I was under stress. At the time of the accident, I suddenly felt like a lioness with her cubs, I was definitely ready to eat the man! It was my anger that made me act the way I did and also nearly drove me to attack the man. Though it’s a great feeling that I was protective towards my children; however after thinking on this behavior of mine, I came to the conclusion that I don’t really like my angry side very much. Seeing my children hurt trigerred my anger, but then I had to deal with the hurt and pain that it caused and thoughts of how much worse it could have been; over useage of my imagination. When I say ‘hurt’, it has a personal meaning. It means that I feel uncomfortable and out of control. Some times I feel that my anger is not in my grasp and it makes me do things I later regret, it’s a feeling of being exposed and I’m not comfortable with that feeling. Defense mechanisms are ways by which the human ego strives to rid off any form of anxiety (Zeldow, 2000: P. 138). I believe I use anger as a defense against anxiety and it often gets translated into agression or aggressive behavior. This accident was a while ago, I was unaware of my defensive anger at that time and I had no clue of how my anger was being processed and expressed; and also what impact it was having on others around me. Today when I think of that incident, I feel ashamed of my childish behavior. I regret acting so agressively towards the man who hit us. I mean how would I feel if I were in an accident and the other party acted the way I did? I know for sure that I’d be very terribly upset on hitting a car with children inside. When the man apologized and told me he had children too, I felt he was being very empathetic and to my surprise, I started crying. I expected myself to shout at him a bit more. However I now realize that I was propbably weeping because of the shock. When I was crying I thought of what the man was thinking, ‘what do I do with this over emotional woman?’ He was probably totally confused; one minute I was going to pull his head off. The next minute I was weeping, looking fragile as a kitten. I still feel more comfortable being the lion though. I don’t like to create a weak image; but im also not comfortable with my angry self. I smile when I write this today; because I am making assumptions of what he was thinking, how do I know what he was thinking? I didn’t ask him. When we are in stress, we often face negative automatic thougths. These thoughts process on a level just below the conscious level, are private and unspoken and occur in a rapid fire like manner (Wright, Basco & Thase, 2005: P.7). At the time we were hit and for many days to follow there were also thoughts of how vulnerable we were, even when we were just sitting stationary in the car. I often find my self over using my imagination and exagerrating the situation. Thinking how much more worse it could have been.When I realise I am doing this I have now found I can distract myself from doing this, I tell myself it’s a waste of energy. Automatic thoughts can be understood and challenged if attention is drawn to them (Wright, Basco & Thase, 2005: P.8). Schemas are mental concepts that humans have regarding all things that are around them and are part of their daily lives (Wright, Basco & Thase, 2005: P.10). I believe I have some safety related belifs about environment that lead me to anxiety and consequently to agression. For instance, I feel that safety is very important, if I don’t feel safe I will feel anxious. A while after the accident we bought a seven-seater S-Max because the car felt strong, and there wasn’t a lot of damage to the car even though it was a large van that hit us, I feel really quite safe in the car now. I now know that when we are emotionally aroused we often act in inappropriate, stupid ways. We are unable to make sensible decisions, we are almost trance like, this is why it very important to calm down because one cannot think straight and be angry at the same time (Griffin & Tyrrell, 2003). I think even today, I would feel angry if someone drove into me with my children in the car, but hopefully I would not be so aggressive, and I would have more self control. I now have more of an understanding of what is going on inside me when im stressed. I like to be in control of myself, being in an accident was out of my control. As a reaction, I over used my imagination and possibly magnified the impact of the situation. Magnification refers to the human ability to exagerrate the significance of a situation (Wright, Basco & Thase, 2005: P.11). The psychodynamic approach to human psychology claims that human behavior and underlying mental processes are actually a reflection of constant and usually unconscious psychological struggles within humans (Bernstein, et al; 2009: P. 19). Reflecting back on my past, I recall that throughout my life I have been carrying tremendous responsibility. I have often played the role of a nurturing elder sister and a responsible daughter since I was very young. I used to take care of my mother who had a mental health illness. My dad was in ill health too and I had a sister who was younger than me, I felt as a child they all needed my help and care, I often cleaned the house, and looked after my family in different ways. May be this life style or this unusual family scenario developed a nurturing sensibility inside me unconsciously and that is why I become so emotional when it comes to the question of taking the responsibility for my children. Alfred Adler, who also belonged to the psychodynamic school of thought, gave a unique theory of agression. I can also relate the roots of my aggressive behavior with this theory to some extent. According to Adlerian theory of agression, feelings of anger often originate from anxiety or inferiority with in the family. When a person feels inferior due to some reason, he/she utilizes anger to protect and safeguard self esteem (Smith, et al; 1999: P.135). In my case, I believe since I am a responsible person, I felt inferior and insulted due to the fact that I could not protect my own children. To counter this insecurity and maintain my self esteem, I made use of anger. I have always taken pride in my ability to care for others and to nurture those who need me. This pride was attacked due to the fact that my children got hurt in my poresence. Now that I understand the reasons why I behaved agressively, I am hopeful that I will not do so in future. Analysing my case of incident in light of cognitive behavioral approach, my behavior can be explained as follows. I had a strong physical schema regarding my environment, that physical safety and security is a very important thing and life can be a night mare without that. One misfortunate event occurred. This event in light of my above mentioned schema trigerred two processes: automatic thinking and magnification. The automatic thoughts led me to believe that this was an extremely misfortunate event and that it could not be rectified, I’d never forget it, it will hurt my children permanently etc, while magnification led me to exaggerate the seriousness and significance of the accident. As a result, I acted agressively towards the person who had accidently hit us and was obviously enough upset already due to the fact that he had driven into a van full of three children. According to Wright and colleagues (2005: P. 5), behavior originates after undergoing three stages. Right after an event occurs, it is cognitively appraised, and emotion occurs in light of this appraisal and is followed by behavior which is in accordance with the emotion. If the cognitive appraisal is realistic, it will never trigger negative emotions and the behavior will definitely not be aggressive. I have worked on my cognitions and schemas a lot by now. I now attempt to understand and explain all faulty behaviors in light of my cognitions and I try my best to rectify these cognitions if I diagnose a fault in them. I believe that this accident has been an eye opener for me. It has helped me understand the causes of agression in me and it has helped me understand the factors that control my behavior. References Bernstein, D; Penner, L.A; Stewart, A.C & Roy, E.J. (2008). Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin company. Griffin, J & Tyrril, I. (2003). Human Givens. London: HG Publishing. Smith, S; Mullis, F; Kern, R.M & Brack, G. (1999). An Adlerian Model for the Etiology of Aggression in Adjudicated Adolescents. The Family Journal. Vol. 7 (2): P. 134-147. Wright, J.H; Basco, M.R & Thase, M.E. (2005). Learning cognitive behavioral therapy: An illustrated guide. New York: American Psychiatric Publishing. Zeldow, P.B. (2000). Psychodynamic Approaches to human behavior. (Online). Available at: http://www.mimh.edu/Portals/0/BAM4_SampleCHap10.pdf Accessed: July 1st, 2011. Read More