Hate and Its Ramifications

A psychoanalytic perspective on hatred can provide useful insights. Freud wrote about ambivalence toward the mother as the origin of the emotion of hate. Hate and love are experienced by all. Hate is aroused initially by the experience of being fed when breast feeding was once the almost sole method of nurturing the infant. Satisfaction is always temporary and deprivation is a given for all of us from the very beginning of life. This mix of satisfaction and frustration is played out at all phases of life, but is hardest to bear during the earliest. Caregivers control the instinctual desires of the infant.

Obviously the emotion of hate is mostly antisocial. The exception would be hating Hitler, Nazis, ISIS, killers, and such. However, experiencing hatred toward a loved one is filled with conflict and not often openly expressed.

When working with patients in my psychoanalytic practice this issue is a common struggle. A shy grown man was on a crowded train standing opposite an attractive woman. He was thrilled to be close to her and shyly eyed her. A man got on the train and stood in front of my patient, blocking his view of the woman. He became furiously angry at the man and fantasied that the man would have a heart attack, fall down, and he then could see the woman again. His hateful fantasy was readily interpreted as it related to competitive feeling toward an older brother.

The same patient dreamed that he had enormous power. He was given a contraption handed him by Donald Trump. It had a button, and if he pushed it all Muslims in the world would die. He was contemplating what to do when he suddenly woke up. He was embarrassed to tell me the dream. He also stated he was a secret admirer of Trump. He thought Trump stated and stood for all the ugly, hateful thoughts that many people have but never admit. He jokingly said that if he actually had control of the button he would never use it. Again, free association led to his powerful older brother who he idealized and secretly hated. In these examples ha-

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tred and jealousy of the brother are initially buried and slowly unfolded during treatment.

Idealization itself is a mixed bag. It is such an extreme emotion that it hides all negative feelings. In psychoanalysis some patients tend to idealize the analyst. When this is slowly and carefully analyzed the underlying opposite emotion will be revealed.

Hatred not expressed and unconscious can lead to a masochistic lifestyle. The extreme of this process is suicidal thoughts or actual suicide. Freud labeled suicide as the symbolic murder of an incorporated family member and/or spouse. Suicide leads to the terrible suffering of all those close to the person acting this out. There is sometimes an actual awareness by the suicidal person of the hateful misery resulting from the awful act of self-destruction.

In the West, ISIS is considered the worst purveyor of hate today. Killing innocent people and feeling justified is an affront to humanity. Their hatred and control of women is striking. Recently in Syria a woman was arrested for wearing clothing which was form-fitting and revealed her bodily curves. She was whipped, receiving 25 lashes. When her veil was removed, makeup was discovered and she received an extra five lashes. This raises the issue of some of the sources of hatred in some Arab societies.

The Qur’an states that newborns should be breastfed for two years. In discussion with Muslim colleagues they reported that most Arab countries have gotten away from that requirement. Two years of breast feeding may well lead to a sense of control over the mother. Often breastfeeding ceases when pain is inflicted by the infant biting on the nipple. I wonder if prolonged breastfeeding could be a factor in control and consequent hatred of women by ISIS. Slowly but surely women are becoming more liberated. For the first time in Saudi Arabia women just voted in a general election.
Hatred is an underlying issue among certain diagnostic categories, with paranoid people being a prime example. They deny and project onto others thoughts and feelings that they repress and attribute to others. For example, blacks in America were seen as dirty, promiscuous, pushy, etc., and in some cases still are. Prejudice was, among other reasons, a convenient albeit unconscious style of relieving the hater of his own unacceptable thoughts and instincts. Hatred can lead to a temporary peace of mind.

In summary, hatred is an emotion all humanity has experi-

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enced. It gets played out among countries, cultures, class levels, individuals, families, marriages, etc. We all can hate or have hateful feelings. However, most decent people do not act out this destructive emotion. Awareness of the emotion and its origins should lead to an easing of hateful intensity and finally more acceptance and loving feelings.

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