Rage, Power, and Aggression

Rage, aggression, and the "will-to-power" are significant human characteristics that have been relatively neglected in psychoanalytic literature. In the past, rage has been viewed as a response to threat or frustration, aggression as an instinctual drive, and the will-to-power as causing destructive and maladaptive behavior. In this volume, the authors probe these dimensions of human experience to show how they serve adaptive needs, assuage anxiety, protect against threat, and foster maturation. Rage, aggression, and power are not necessarily destructive, say the authors. They are requisites to individual growth and development and to the maintenance of a viable social structure. The authors address such topics as competition, frustration, fear, and violence as intrinsic features of communal life, both human and animal; the nature of hatred; women as victims in a male-dominated world; male sexuality and power; the development of rage and aggression in early childhood; and the righteous wrath and fears of evil that characterize pagan, Hebrew, and Christian myths. The book offers valuable insights to clinicians and scholars alike.

This volume is the second in a series on affects that brings together psychoanalytic clinicians, theoreticians, neuroscientists, philosophers, and social scientists to reconsider the origins and meanings of fundamental emotions that influence our inner lives and our society.