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Many people are alarmed by their own violent thoughts and impulses in response to a threat or a scare.

These are a natural part of our fear system, shared by all humanity.

The information they contain can be key to breaking free of trauma.

I’m generally a peaceable sort of person, but when the car pulled out in front of me without looking, nearly knocking me off my bike, I had a powerful impulse to put a brick through the back windshield. Now, as it happens, I don’t carry a brick with me for this purpose, but the impulse in the moment was powerful.

This was a retaliatory impulse, a fear-arousal response that expresses what we very badly want to do to someone else in response to a threat, a scare, an attack, or a humiliation.1

Many people are alarmed by the violence of their retaliatory impulses. They think that having violent thoughts makes them a psychopath or an evil person and sometimes even hide this from their therapist. However, everyone has these impulses as a normal part of their fear system, and being able to accept them and understand their purpose can be a pathway to restoring normal vitality after a long period of depressive paralysis. Here’s an example:

Working with Retaliatory Impulses

My client Christine was a young woman who had been driven from her job by a bully and abandoned by her husband. She had been forced to move to a different part of the country and accept a lower-grade job. She wanted to get a job at her original grade, but whenever she applied for a new job, she........

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