How Schema Therapy Can Help 'Grievance Addiction'

In a recent article in Politico, James Kimmel Jr. (co-director of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Control Studies) writes about how the science of addiction can explain the allure of grievance. He explains how brain scans show that holding a grievance activates the same neural pathways as narcotics. Kimmel emphasizes that this is not a metaphor, but actual brain chemistry involving dopamine activation.

Kimmel examines how Donald Trump's life-long history of using grievance as a means to "exact retribution" from others appears to be "compulsive and uncontrollable." Kimmel also explains how this destructive behavior impacts not just the targets of Trump's rage, but also countless others who through the process of "social contagion" inspire others to engage in similar behaviors. Kimmel adds that this "vicious cycle" leads to "Trump’s targets and their supporters to feel aggrieved and want to retaliate, too."

Much of Kimmel's description of grievance parallels the schema-mode conceptualization of Overcompensatory Modes (including Bully & Attack Mode). When those aggrieved feel rebuked or marginalized, this process likely involves activation of core unmet needs from childhood. For example, persons who developed a Defectiveness/Shame Schema due to an upbringing involving caregivers who were emotionally withholding or abusive, explosive, or unpredictable, might grow up to overcompensate for these feelings by lashing out at others who make them feel defective or marginalized. This lashing out takes the form of an Overcompensatory Mode - specifically a Bully & Attack Mode. Other mode forms are certainly possible, but when grievance and anger are displayed in the ways discussed by Kimmel, schema therapists identify and treat them as Overcompensatory Modes.

Thankfully Kimmel discusses possible solutions to the growing social contagion of grievance. First, he notes the ways media and political groups too readily rely on grievance and revenge-seeking to motivate others and attract audiences. Kimmel writes, "More people need to become savvy about how, why and for whose benefit they are being made to feel aggrieved and must decide to stop dealing in the drug of their own destruction."

Kimmel also notes the growing dangers of brains that for years have been "primed for revenge-seeking." He urges that "we must also increase public education, from school age through adulthood, about healthy ways to process feelings of hurt or humiliation." A central component to schema therapy is helping clients identify and bypass destructive modes of behavior (such as Bully & Attack Mode) in order to access core hurts like humiliation, experience and process them in healthier ways, and ultimately heal them.

Drawing from his work at Yale, Kimmel references the "motive control method," which "allows people with grievances to put those who have hurt or offended them through imaginary but highly realistic criminal trials." Kimmel explains how this "Unjustice System" is "a safe and satisfying way of controlling revenge cravings that works like a kind of methadone for revenge addicts." Schema therapists frequently use imagery rescripting as an experiential therapeutic exercise to help clients link current destructive behaviors to their roots in unmet needs in childhood.  For a client with a Bully & Attack Mode, a schema therapist will guide him to feel his anger in the present as an emotion, float back to a time in childhood when this emotion was also present, understand the circumstances and unmet needs that gave rise to this emotion, and be guided through the felt experience of actually having his emotional needs met. Over time in schema therapy, these imagery exercises provide a corrective emotional experience, leading to new meaning being made about past pain. In the process, the need to rely on unhealthy behaviors (like the Bully & Attack Mode) diminish in favor of healthy expressions of emotions and needs.

Kimmel goes on to outline the costs of doing nothing to stem the tide of grievance: "relationship problems and conflicts...periods of euphoria followed by depression and restlessness...[failure] to meet...responsibilities or fulfill... professional obligations." Schema therapists use the stance of the "healthy parent" to help clients see that continuing such destructive patterns will lead to these outcomes.

Perhaps most controversially, Kimmel supports having "compassion" for persons like Trump. He notes "attacking Trump for his retaliatory behavior only fuels it by making him feel more aggrieved." While compassion for such individuals is often difficult, accessing our own healthy parts in our responses is essential to break the cycle. Schema therapists use the "empathic confrontation" when working with clients with Bully & Attack Mode. Over time, this therapist stance helps such clients understand that their anger and grievance stem from life patterns that reach back into painful childhood experiences, while at the same time asserts that continuing destructive behavior is unacceptable and will ultimately maintain pain.

Please peruse this website and related links to learn more about schema therapy. Also please contact me if you are interested in starting schema therapy.