Author: Talia Teptsova The article uses materials from the Moscow Gestalt InstituteAgression. Defense & Attack From this object relations point of view, the consequences of trauma are understood as the influences that it has on the experience of self and other. The experience of, for example, caring for oneself causes, at the same time as the feeling of a loving other, also the feeling of oneself as loved. In the opposite case (when experiencing hatred from another), the experience of oneself as “bad” arises. In adult life, aggression may not be a defensive reaction (as a defense), but a stable pattern of indignation from an instant feeling of one’s own “badness”, from childhood. What is the difference? Aggression as a defense is used in the case when there is integrity and stability of the self. The feeling of one’s own “goodness”, the correctness of one’s actions and actions gives inner confidence and stability. Aggression in this case is nothing more than a way to show one’s boundaries. Stop! This is no longer your territory! When Aggression is an attack pattern, it is caused by a sharp, deep trauma that floods immediately as soon as the active intentions of another are interpreted in a similar way. A psychic can consider anything as an attack - from a simple remark to a prolonged gaze. Imagine that you were followed by a remark in a store/bus/on a Facebook page; your reaction, if you are internally stable in your own correctness, may be, for example, indifference, a grin, with the remark “yeah, I’m like that myself,” “it doesn’t concern you,” “it’s none of your business.” It is important to show with a bit of aggression - stop, this is not your territory. If Aggression is a pattern, then you can fly into the air and throw fists or go straight to insults. From the outside, this seems to some to be too much, inadequate for the given situation. While for another it is just that unbearable feeling of “badness” with which he lives. He seems to disagree with him (the term is egodystonic for the individual), intrapsychically, unconsciously, and outwardly this manifests itself in the redundancy of the reaction to a certain trigger precisely in the I-Other contact. As A.N. writes in his article. Mokhovikov (“Crises and Traumas”): “For a child developing under conditions of dominance of chronic aggression or abuse, such an exchange of ideas “evil self / evil other” becomes a key aspect of his interpersonal and intrapsychic organization. His framework for knowing himself and others is very narrow. Because the emotional environment of such a child is dangerous and negligent, the adult other begins to appear as a perpetuation of abuse. A distortion of the experience of reality arises, the protective function of the adult fails and - most importantly - the Yarebenka collapses as a result of being used by an adult as a “thing”. The child’s sense of self becomes essentially bad, shameful and guilty.” In the case of intra-family abuse, the ability to understand the world on the basis of reliable and predictable situations is distorted. Neither the role of the mother nor the role of the father provides security anymore. The friend, the therapist, the lover, the mother now act as agents of both pain and love. And in adult life, we approach people with a set of experiential expectations. If we are sure that dad loves, then we must exclude the possibility that he might cause harm. In order to receive consolation, it is necessary to renounce, deny or dissociate the rapist dad. To feel comfort, the child must renounce, deny or dissociate the very possibility of abuse. The feeling of helplessness is a consequence of the inability to influence events and people. When a child is used as a thing to serve the needs and desires of an adult, he relies on the adult’s ideas about him, in of which he is deprived of personal initiative and will. What are the consequences of such a situation? An individual's sense of Self depends on his ability to find Self in another. For a child developing in conditions of dominance, devaluation, aggression, such an exchange of ideas