Dreams can be a form of poison. This is true for individuals whose sole angry outlet is dreams and who continually have dreams that are slushladen. Dreams are exceedingly complicated psychological manifestations, and their interpretation is a complex business. Many volumes have been written on the subject, and the last word is far from said. All psychoanalysts agree, however, that a dream can be meaningful only in the terms of the dreamer himself. This means that it is necessary to know the history of the dreamer and the particular and individual meaning of his particular symbols (the words and pictures that appear in his dreams). We must approach any kind of generalization or general symbol-meaning with great care. Every analyst, however, is aware that certain kinds of dreams appear again and again in people with

Hedwig's manager, Phyllis Stein, as seen in the movie, is mentioned in the script, though she's since been dropped in the Broadway version. Beginnings In this section I want to describe some general considerations as well as some of the beginnings or origins of angry troubles.

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The "You, Kant, Always Get What You Want" joke doesn't have it's second half ("but if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you Nietzsche") I mean the process of writing any poison-pen letter? This is a poison, first, because it is nearly always generated, not by a single event or act, but rather by the whole slush fund. It is only the slush fund that can generate and sustain the pressure necessary to produce the motivation to write these letters. But it is more than that. T h e writer does not really accept his stand and does not stand behind it. He is actually ashamed of it and refuses to affix his name to and to identify with it. And there is an even more destructive aspect here. T h e poison-pen writer has no desire to communicate or to relate. He wants only to hurt and to feel himself the master of his stabbing missive. His goal has nothing to do with the purposes involved in communicating healthy anger. He is not interested in the recipient's feelings, thoughts, or explanations. He is not interested in clearing the air, improving understanding, or bettering relations. If anything, he wants to maintain his hostility (more about hostility versus anger in the next chapter), his own bad feelings, and the bad feelings he hopes to produce in others. The hit-and-runner, though usually not as sadistic in his intent as the poison-penner, functions largely in the same way. He, too, kills off any possibility of meaningful, constructive emotional interchange. He, too, leaves his victim Hedwig/John Cameron Mitchell's commitment to the play is brutally honest and inspiring. I don't happen to like the play a whole lot, but I can't deny in any way shape or form its artistic integrity. Shakespeare is famous for coining the phrase: "all the world's a stage," and readers and audiences since his time who've read or watched his plays performed have taken that thinking into account. But for Shakespeare the phrase had more literal implications. While he was growing up, Shakespeare participated in a troupe of traveling performers: for them the world was literally a stage and their livelihoods depended on their performance. isn't he letting his listeners in on confidential, secret, and potentially destructive information? He is not only sharing great treasures with them but is also providing them with entertainment through stimulation and excitement. Isn't he giving them material to pique the imagination? For this he expects to be liked and admired. This puts him ( h e thinks) in a position of power and prestige. So he feels that he can have his cake and eat it, too. He has discovered the perfect comprehensive stratagem: just quietly slip into loose, easy talk and he can give vent to slush, be liked, and achieve social power. All these effects exist only in his own imagination. Gossip, much like envy and jealousy, exacts its corrosive toll on the easy talker and his relationships. People, especially healthy ones, do not exactly become endeared to gossips. Indeed, relationships with mature people are inevitably destroyed by easy talk.

If you’ve struggled with anger management treatment in the past, maybe it’s time for a change of pace. Or rather, a change of mind. Hedwig is an internationally ignored song stylist from East Berlin. Her ex-boyfriend, Tommy Gnosis, has found international stardom as a result of stealing Hedwig's music. Not one to take this injustice lying down, Hedwig is on the road. She shadows Tommy's tour at cheaper venues close by, telling her story and performing her songs.

putters. The on-putter in fact is one of the most flagrant destroyers of human relationships. He is dishonestly and inappropriately "nice" at the wrong times, and he is consistently and inappropriately angry nearly all the rest of the time —inevitably putting a great strain on all his relationships, often to the point of utter destruction. bounds are very flexible. I'm talking about a specific condition here, namely, the constant search for mechanical sexual action devoid of anything else. These are the true sex-and-run people.) Some sex athletes in fact show intense hostility and real hatred, and among them are those who are overtly sadistic in their sexual practices. Yet with many there is so great an interest vested in keeping their hostility hidden that they are in no way aware of any hostile feelings. When they are confronted with their sadism, the rationalizations abound: "Oh, it's just for variety," "Oh, she likes it," and so on. It is interesting to note here that psychiatric workers have found that a good many male slushfunders have problems with impotency. Many are premature ejaculators. Their unconscious hostility is such that they would prefer (unconsciously) to ejaculate prematurely—making it impossible for coitus to take place—rather than give women any significant satisfaction. I have found that impotence is only one side of slushfund operations. Many "frigid women" are also tremendous slush-funders—too full of unconscious hatred to permit letting-go close harmony with another human being to take place. After they resolve their angry problems, closeness, including sex- A surprisingly engaging play about life's injustices and the drive to strive forward in the face of devastating failure. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is brilliantly written but extremely vulgar. It centers around a transgender individual whose botched sex-change leaves them without genitalia and mutilated. Things go from bad to worse as Hedwig is brutally betrayed for millions of dollars and a career in music. Despite the horrific themes and circumstances of the play, Hedwig and the Angry Inch manages to humour and charm so effectively that viewers and readers can easily forget how tragic Hedwig's journey truly is. In this section I want to describe some general considerations as well as some of the beginnings or origins of angry troubles.

bage that one hardly feels the knife as it slips between the ribs. I remember one woman who talked and talked and talked about all manner of things. In the middle of each verbal barrage, however, she always stealthily managed to twist the talk to the subject of husbands' deaths, widowhood, and insurance. She simply could not understand why her husband got irritated— even though he was still very much alive. Another kind of sneak speaker who may be relatively quiet most of the time is the individual who always manages to find the one flaw in a plan, painting, party, situation, ambition, and so on. He does this as a sneak expression of poison, but when confronted with his wetblanket effect, he will invariably tell you that he speaks as he does only for the sake of constructive truth. He will never admit his angry intent. How can he when he has a neurotic interest in not ever being angry, let alone sadistic? I call these sneaks the "but people." Here are some of their typical statements: "That dress is nice, but it would be nicer if you lost weight." "I love your apartment, but isn't it a little dark?" "That's a great idea you have, but do you think you are really up to it?" Of course they feel that others' anger at them Auto poison is not carbon monoxide. Auto poison is the very special but deadly stuff found throughout the world which chronic car-accident makers use to kill and maim other people and themselves. I feel very strongly that many automobile accidents are not accidental at all. T h e chronic auto killer may not be aware of any hostile intent, but his chronicity in this matter is evidence of unconscious intent. Slush is the fuel, the automobile is the weapon, and the results are only too obvious. Of course people who cause accidents may also suffer from a multiplicity of emotional difficulties, but the principal stuff of auto poison is perverted anger. How often we see a so-called nice, easy-going guy become omnipotently maniacal on the road. He is full of auto poison, and he is spewing it out all over the highway. On the road he is Tomorrow and Tomorrow: Chronic Anticipation, Obsessive Ruminating, Peculiar Thoughts These poisons are still a few other depressed bedfellows. Much slush is twisted into useless anticipation of events that have no importance or will never occur or over which there can be no control. Much slush is twisted into obsessive ruminating or endless, useless, intertwined worries that go on with no object other than selftorture, self-deception (avoidance of anger), and dissipation of perverted anger. There are people who spend half a lifetime and nearly all their energy in self-destructive preoccupation with pasts that can not be undone and futures that will never arrive. These first two bedfellows —chronic anticipation and obsessive ruminating —are particularly evident in very angry, depressed people who have particularly large slush funds. Of course they have no idea that they are angry. H o w many times I v e heard these statements linked together: "If only I to get angry, but sometimes you can't, even though the circumstances are identical. It all depends on my mood—which there is no w a y of knowing." " W h y can't you be like me—I never get angry, but when I do, I don't show it. All I do is get cold and sullen and withdraw my attention and affection from you." "If you get angry, I'll know you don't love me." "Nice boys and girls don't get angry—especially at adults." "If you must get angry, at least be polite." "If you get angry, you will not be liked." "If you continue to get angry, you will surely get into great trouble." "Civilized people don't get angry, but if you get angry I'll have to tell Daddy, and he will get angry and will have to punish you when he gets home." Parents in this environment will very often produce what is known as a double-bind situation which goes like this: "Don't hold it in— I can't stand you when you do—let it out! But when you let it out, I will hit you for being disrespectful." This damned-if-you-do, damnedif-you-don't approach promotes severe conflict, much anxiety, great angry problems, and emotional paralysis. When you lose your temper honestly, it can be good for you. In this perennially bestselling book, eminent psychiatrist and bestselling author Dr. Theodore Isaac Rubin shows how one of the most powerful human emotions can change your life. Suppressed or twisted anger can lead to anxiety, depression, insomnia, psychosomatic illness, alcoholism, frigidity, impotence, and downright misery. But understanding and releasing anger can lead to greater health, happiness, and emotional wholeness.A free newsletter from Choosing Therapy for those interested in mental health issues and fighting the stigma. Get helpful tips and the latest information. Sign Up Twisting It: The Assorted Poisons 53 well did they awake to the fact that they had been "somber and heavy-hearted" for years. While there may be very natural reasons for depression (though often the reasons are quite neurotic), it cannot continue without benefit of a slush fund. One may be depressed because of loss of a loved one, but continued depression needs a slush fund to fuel it. Depression almost always derives from twisting. This poison is produced by turning anger inward upon oneself. Sustained depression equals sustained self-hate. Some victims know they hate themselves. T h e y spend hours haranguing themselves—torturing themselves and telling all who will listen how dastardly they are. Other victims have no idea they are self-hating. But they are sometimes depressed enough to commit suicide. It is appropriate to be sad at a loss, but to hate oneself, to sustain hatred of oneself for that loss, is invariably self-punishing, neurotic, perverse, poisonous, and destructive. potential. We also know people who do well for a while and then somehow but inevitably manage to lose all the profits of their efforts on a "good deal" that turns out to be a disaster. Have you known any severe alcoholics, drug addicts, or chronic gamblers? Obsessive gambling and alcoholism are complicated illnesses, but think of the self-hate involved that literally drags a man into the gutter. I have interviewed gamblers who feel relieved of tension only after they have lost eveiything and are absolutely ruined. T h e list obviously goes on and on. Self-sabotage can be acute or chronic, subtle or blatant, mild or severe enough to result in loss of life (there are people who insist on working in disaster areas or as daredevils). Self-sabotage often has many roots and can be extraordinarily complicated. But I have yet to see a case that was not fed by perverted anger, and I have seen cases in which self-hate was the prime motivating force. burdening conscience of a parent or parents. Of course there are many conditions, possibilities, and complications. However subtle, perverted anger and all the poisons are always terribly destructive to human relations. In this particular form of "I'm with you" some of the destructive possibilities in the all-important parent-child relationship can be disastrous. Having just seen this live onstage this weekend (a genuine cabaret-style experience at the Alley Theater in Louisville) several years after seeing the film version -- which to me is the best movie musical to have been made in the past decade -- I was anxious to read the text and lyrics. What's remarkable to me about it, apart from how funny it is, is how effectively Mitchell and Trask capture the essence of a life in so few words.

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Freezing it is the total perversion. It combines the perversions I've already described with its own peculiar refinements. We can say that if there was an accurate w a y (and there isn't) to measure the degree of perverting anger, we would then know the degree of freezing it. T h e various preversions are not mutually exclusive. W e — a l l of us—combine putting it off, and putting it down, and so on. Some of us use one perversion more than another. Those of us with great angry problems will undoubtedly make much use of all the perversions. Our healthier confreres will pervert anger to a lesser degree. The particular combination of perversions (or the particular perversion we use most) will depend on our total personal histories and character structures. Of course, consciousness and unconsciousness regarding our difficulties with anger and our perverting of anger will also be His old feud with George Warleggan still flares – as does the illicit love between Morwenna and Drake, Demelza's brother. To four of my friends and colleagues: Jerome Fass, M.D. Bella Van Bark, M.D. Harvey Kaye, M.D. Bernard Spector, M.D,