“At origin aggressiveness is almost synonymous with activity.” — D.W. Winnicott
This quote opens the chapter “The Astrology of Aggression” by Howard Sasportas in the book The Dynamics of the Unconscious. In it, the author reveals through astrological examples how the aggressive impulse is naturally embedded within us (the energy of the planet Mars) and how vital it is that this impulse is not repressed, but rather finds a healthy expression in life. The core thesis is: aggression is a healthy thing—only the way it is expressed can be unhealthy.
In the previous publication, “Healthy Aggression,” I shared the story of the snake that stopped biting and fell into a wretched state. It serves as an excellent example of how to express aggression healthily—the snake gave up killing, but it could have continued to hiss. Now, I want to add something from this chapter that resonates with what I know about the mental health scale: the five percent of the population at the very top of this scale (the most psychologically healthy people) have no problem expressing their aggression if the need arises.
When Healthy Aggression is Appropriate
Healthy aggression is not about violence; it is about the “teeth” of our soul. Here are the instances where it is appropriate to “show our teeth”:
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Healthy aggression serves as a defense against a predator’s attack.
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Healthy aggression is the foundation for achieving independence and detaching from those who seek to dominate us or protect us excessively.
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Healthy aggression grants us the will to unfold who we are and to grow into who we are destined to be.
It becomes clear that if we are not in contact with this vital part of ourselves, we lack the means for self-assertion and the ability to maintain our independence. We lose the most important pillar of inner strength.
Unfortunately, in the majority of families where we grew up, our parents punished us when they saw our angry outbursts. Thus, we learned that having such impulses is “bad,” and we suppressed them.
The Three Failures of Integrated Aggression
According to Sasportas, there are three common ways we fail to come to terms with our own aggressive drives:
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We suppress aggression and turn it inward against ourselves — this is how we become depressed.
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We express aggression in explosive and childish forms.
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We deny our aggression by attributing it to others — we project our Shadow.
I have found that one of the traits of people suffering from panic attacks is the fear of their own dark side (specifically, the expression of anger and aggression). This is the “revenge of Mars“—a natural principle that demands to be honored, not cast into a dungeon. Its combination with other natural principles (symbolized by other planets) gives individuality to its expression.
For example, commenting on Mars aspects to Uranus, Sasportas writes:
“A short temper is an impulse for self-assertion gone wild… I have done many charts for people with Mars conjunct, square or opposite Uranus who did not relate to their own power… You wouldn’t be born with a Mars-Uranus contact unless you were destined at times to be a bit shocking and disruptive.”
Regardless of how Mars is placed in our horoscope, every single one of us has this natural principle in our birth chart. And it needs us to give it a healthy expression in our lives.
“If you deny the Mars in you because you are afraid of its more negative sides, then you are in danger of losing contact with that part of you which wants you to become what you are. By rejecting Mars and the other aggressive planets, you not only get depressed, ill or repressed, but you are also guilty of the fourth deadly sin known as accidie, or sloth, which is interpreted as the sin of failing to make of your life all you know you could do. You are left with the guilt of having failed to actualize your possibilities.”
— H. Sasportas, The Dynamics of the Unconscious
The Sin of Failing Our Potential
Sometimes the greater sin is not expressing our anger roughly; the greater sin is failing to do the best we can with our lives. I conclude this topic with a quote from another renowned psychologist—Abraham Maslow, the founder of humanistic psychotherapy:
“If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick—sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes subtly, sometimes immediately, sometimes later… every falling away from specieshood, every crime against one’s own nature… records itself in our unconscious and makes us despise ourselves.”
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
