Toward a predominantly male analysis of the annoyance/rage continuum in intimate heterosexual relationships

Abstract

This thesis operates, unashamedly, from the premise that every act of criticism

involves a self-reflexive gesture of one's own concerns and ideological imprintings. For this reason Chapter One establishes the writer's own involvement - both autobiographical and theoretical - in notions of male rage and the 'working through' of these concerns.

Chapter Two conducts an overview of male rage and the extant systemic literature on the subject. It sets out the various positions on the subject and posits the importance of gender (over generation) in the praxis of therapy. Furthermore, it explores the possibility that the male is equally, but differently, troubled by the hegemonic forces of patriarchy as is the woman. Without diminishing the legitimacy of the woman's experience in the face of male rage,

the argument is forwarded that the male is caught in a similar struggle but without the feminine articulatory resources. This chapter details the lack of male power in the face of his supposed muscular omnipotence.

Seminal analytic approaches to the question of gender are raised in Chapter Three. Working through Freud, Klein, Lacan and Masters and Johnson an attempt is made to plot the 'evolution' of the feminine and the masculine. Central to this debate is the bi-polarization of gender relations within the same sex (biology/construction) and without (phallic/vaginal, clitoral, passive/active). What emerges is that femininity is bi-focal and that the woman has more resources at

her disposal that hitherto acknowledged. While the woman is always double - as both clitoral and vaginal, as lover and mother- it appears that male sexuality is far more precarious than generally perceived. It is this dis-ease on the part of the male that translates itself into envy and, with it, the need to denigrate and belittle woman as the object of that envy.

In Chapter 4 an attempt is made to overlap the seemingly divergent fields of analytic and systemic methodologies via the involvement of the therapist in the eco-system of analysis. The substantial role of the therapist -- and the coercive forces placed on him/her by the couple -- is used to modify Elkaim's model and to introduce the need for a telling of the particular stories that concentrate on the

unique narratives of the warring couple rather than the patriarchal regime under which these stories are constrained.

Before encountering these narratives an essay is made at establishing a methodology of sorts. Newton's scientific formulations are used in order to question the binary opposition that has been, historically, established between quantitative (male) and qualitative (female) methodologies. In the process of questioning this binary opposition it becomes clear that any form of objectifying approach constitutes a refuge from the messiness that is intrinsic to the therapeutic process. The experimental methodology that is posited is precisely one that engages in the narratives of male violence - four extracts are

considered, each exposing different articulations of male violence.

The question of female subjectivity (and the attendant power of the sorority) is returned to in light of these stories. Central to this section is the notion that male subjectivity is far more convoluted - perhaps more that the feminine counterpart - than initially conceived. The original identification with the (m)other forever displaces him in that the later identification with the father remains distant and contrived. For the purposes of maintaining the dialogic nature of this work, a feminist appraisal of the rage narratives concludes the thesis. Don Quixote is used, by way of an Epilogue, to offer three representations of male subjectivity and to look towards alternative subject positions for the male under patriarchy.