Anger — a Process That Can Clarify

Anger, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, can have something clarifying about it (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 55:22–55:28). Of herself she says: “When I let the anger in me run through as a process, it naturally brings clarity to the surface” (ibid., 48:58). Perhaps you know the opposing view that a viewer’s comment put to her: wrath, anger and hatred are destructive emotions, and love is the strongest force (cf. ibid., 44:23–44:47). Gwendolin Kirchhoff spoke about anger and wrath in two conversations with Elisa Gratias, published on TransitionTV in 2026. This essay follows her answers, her question about the office of wrath, and three voices from her circle and her tradition: Bert Hellinger, Laozi and Jochen Kirchhoff.

#Is anger a destructive emotion?

For Gwendolin Kirchhoff, destructiveness is only one of two levels of anger: “there is anger as such, and there is anger as destructive” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 48:52). The opposing view deserves to be heard in its strongest form. In the conversation, Elisa Gratias read Gwendolin Kirchhoff a viewer’s comment that calls wrath, anger and hatred destructive emotions: “I do not share the view that wrath, anger and hatred are good motivators” (ibid., 44:24). It is repeatedly taken for granted and therefore not justified, the viewer wrote; if someone shouts at the viewer in anger, the viewer will answer at most in spite of that anger, not because of it (cf. ibid., 44:28–44:40). “For me, these destructive emotions are an important indicator, but not a path to strive for. Love is the strongest force.” (ibid., 44:40)

In her answer, Gwendolin Kirchhoff distinguishes these two levels (cf. ibid., 48:50–48:57). What she then describes is the anger she lets run through her as a process.

Bert Hellinger, to whose family constellation Gwendolin Kirchhoff’s constellation work refers, also distinguishes two kinds of anger. In his conversations with Gabriele ten Hövel, he distinguishes original feelings, which serve action, from derived ones, which serve as a substitute for action (cf. Hellinger, 1996, p. 107). For anger, this means: “Original anger arises where I am attacked. This anger gives me the strength to defend myself and is therefore good.” (ibid., p. 107) Against this he sets: “Most anger, by contrast, arises merely from an idea.” (ibid., p. 108) What triggers such anger, according to Hellinger, is an inner image; it carries no information and rests on projection and suspicion (cf. ibid.).

#What happens when you let anger run its course?

When Gwendolin Kirchhoff lets the anger in her run through as a process, it brings clarity to the surface, in her words. The anger informs her about her needs, and in it things also fall back into order (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 48:58–49:11). She describes this as an experience she has regularly: when she is angry about something and allows the process of anger, after a while a structure emerges “which, however, is balanced and fair” and that also includes the other person (ibid., 49:19; cf. 49:08–49:26). She puts what happens into a sentence about space: when the feeling of anger passes through her body, “order becomes visible in the space” (ibid., 49:33). She herself calls it a strange experience (cf. ibid., 49:35).

Gwendolin Kirchhoff speaks here from her own path. Beneath a very disciplined attitude, she says, there was an incredible amount of suppressed anger in her (cf. ibid., 45:43–45:51; 47:43–48:03). From her personal process, she can only say that it was essential that she allowed all these emotional processes (cf. ibid., 48:15–48:32).

#How can anger set a boundary without clouding the mind?

When anger is allowed, or when it has a normal place in life, it can, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, appear “as a brief, flaring warmth” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 49:47; cf. 49:37–49:53). Her example: someone crosses a boundary, and the boundary is already set without anyone having to say much (cf. ibid., 49:51–50:02). She compares it to an energetic presence in the body: you do not walk around open; the system responds in a living way (cf. ibid., 50:01–50:13).

What is remarkable in this description is the mind. The system responds, Gwendolin Kirchhoff says, with a neutral and still unimpressed mind (cf. ibid., 50:09–50:17): “The mind remains completely neutral and peaceful”, the anger circulates once like energy in the body, and the setting of the boundary happens that way (ibid., 50:17; cf. 50:18–50:24). This too, she says, is a way in which anger can arise (cf. ibid., 50:24–50:29).

#Is giving up anger already love?

Many people who do not want to have anger “are not necessarily in love, but in weakness”, says Gwendolin Kirchhoff (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 50:31). They are not in the place where they have genuinely moved beyond something and are in a space that is free; for them, the process of going through the anger is still ahead, and they avoid certain information (cf. ibid., 50:34–50:50). Of those who are unable ever to be angry and who bend themselves, perhaps in a misunderstood Christian way, into a form of loving attitude that is not called for, she says: “then they remain in abusive situations” (ibid., 51:01; cf. 50:47–51:05).

A place beyond this fence does exist, in her conviction: the genuine neutral mind, in which autonomy is experienced differently (cf. ibid., 51:08–51:26). But on the way there, in her words, insights also want to burn their way up through the body (cf. ibid., 51:26–51:33). “And it is pointless to suppress that.” (ibid., 51:33) If it is suppressed for a long time, smouldering fires and very unhealthy social dynamics arise, in her words (cf. ibid., 51:33–51:44). What matters, she says, is that you truly come into your autonomy, “that your autonomy appears in the context of the relationship” (ibid., 52:00; cf. 51:47–52:04).

#Why does aggression create contact?

“Aggression actually creates contact,” says Gwendolin Kirchhoff (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 52:42). That is something one would not think of, she says, and there is also the question of how one expresses anger and all these things (cf. ibid., 52:42–52:55). For anger and aggression, she thereby raises the question of expression. She says this after Elisa Gratias had told her that, after anger has been felt and expressed, a feeling of love comes to her, in the sense of being at peace and back in contact with someone (cf. ibid., 52:15–52:39).

On the how, Gwendolin Kirchhoff talks about the Sikh tradition, to which Kundalini yoga refers, and about an idea she attributes to this tradition, “the idea of a karma-free cut” (ibid., 53:44; cf. 52:56–53:48): one can make a cut that entangles one karmically, or a blow that does not entangle (cf. ibid., 53:46–54:00). The state to strive for is a simple deed, not out of hatred, just like a movement of defence (cf. ibid., 54:03–54:15). Then she applies the thought to saying no: a no can come from a quite spontaneous movement of autonomy that is not directed against the other person in any flat sense but is “an expression of myself” (ibid., 54:25; cf. 54:12–54:27).

She makes the difference audible with two sentences: “oh no, I don’t want to right now” and “I don’t want that. Could you please respect my boundaries?” Then she asks: “Do you notice the difference in how it feels” (ibid., 54:29–54:45)? What matters to her is whether it is one’s own energy that simply expresses itself, or whether some posturing or an attack on the other person is mixed in; where do the movements we have come from (cf. ibid., 54:46–55:08)? It is quite normal, she says, that we follow movements of autonomy that nobody else can decide for us, but that come from ourselves (cf. ibid., 55:05–55:16). The processes of anger play a part in this, in her words: “anger can have something clarifying about it” and can then turn into simply pure strength (ibid., 55:25; cf. 55:22–55:34).

#What is the difference between anger and wrath?

In the German dictionary, Wut (anger) is a wrathful agitation heightened to the point of frenzy, and Zorn (wrath) a violent, passionate indignation. German has two words here, Wut and Zorn, which this essay renders as anger and wrath. The Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (DWDS) defines Zorn as “violent, passionate indignation, violently surging annoyance” and Wut as “violent, wrathful agitation heightened to the point of frenzy” (DWDS, 2026, “Zorn”; “Wut”).

Gwendolin Kirchhoff speaks of wrath with the Greeks. She names Hermann Schmitz and his book Der Leib, der Raum und die Gefühle (The Body, Space and the Feelings): for the Greeks, she says, feelings are in space, and when Achilles is wrathful, wrath has seized him. “It is a magnitude in space that seizes him.” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Wie frei sind wir wirklich?”, 43:05; cf. 42:54–43:10) That, she says, is first of all a different way of dealing with feelings (cf. ibid., 43:07–43:15). Jochen Kirchhoff, too, spoke in a conversation with her of wrath, which in antiquity, also as thymos, was a real force that seizes you (cf. G. Kirchhoff / J. Kirchhoff, 2024, Außenwelt Innenwelt, 54:52–55:10); how he links this to Hermann Schmitz is followed up in the entry Encounter.

#What is the office of wrath?

The office of wrath, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, is to protect something; at the same time, wrath can also protect the ego. In a conversation about Homer’s Odyssey, Elisa Gratias read her a viewer’s question about the right place for the warlike masculine (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Das Schicksal ist größer als wir”, 1:15:12–1:15:24). Gwendolin Kirchhoff first described the warlike masculine as a certain will to power, competition, rivalry, also brutality and revenge (cf. ibid., 1:15:33–1:15:52), and then suggested asking differently: “what is the office of wrath in the world?” (ibid., 1:16:06) Her answer: “Wrath is a great protector”; it appears as a protector (ibid., 1:16:13; cf. 1:16:12–1:16:17). “But it can also be a protector of your ego.” (ibid., 1:16:16) Then it is pride, where you think something is due to you, and you are furiously angry; perhaps, if one looks more deeply at the situation, it is not due to you at all, even though you believed it was (cf. ibid., 1:16:19–1:16:34).

As an example she names the Iliad, which in her words is built entirely around wrath: a great wrath seized Achilles (cf. ibid., 1:16:35–1:16:43). The Iliad names the wrath of Achilles in its very first word, mēnin, “wrath” (Homer, Iliad I, 1).

Our wrath, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, is something we cannot completely suppress; that leads to very negative manifestations (cf. ibid., 1:22:05–1:22:12). She says, explicitly speaking psychologically: “our wrath wants to tell us something about boundaries and needs”; it also tells us something about injustice; in a certain way it needs some place, and these processes of insight cannot be bypassed (ibid., 1:22:11; cf. 1:22:13–1:22:28).

On the other side, for her, stands a certain form of pride, when we follow it for too long. Here she points to Laozi, who, she says, indeed recommends: “accept disgrace willingly” (ibid., 1:22:48; cf. 1:22:28–1:22:51). All disgrace and all misfortune come from our having a body; accepting this willingly creates harmony with the whole again on another level and makes one strong and upright within (cf. ibid., 1:22:52–1:23:12). For comparison: chapter 13 of the Tao Te King, headed “Abscheu vor Beschämung” (aversion to shaming) in Richard Wilhelm’s German translation, deals with disgrace and the self (Laozi, 1952, Tao Te King, ch. 13, pp. 14 f., trans. Wilhelm):

Not everywhere we think we must intervene with our wrath must we actually intervene, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff; it is worth looking more deeply, for instance at the feuds of honour that widened into endless cycles of revenge (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Das Schicksal ist größer als wir”, 1:23:09–1:23:26). “I simply want to let this whole contradiction stand,” she says (ibid., 1:23:41). Wrath, for her, is “a force that protects something”, a force that both harms and protects; it can harm the person who carries it within as well as others (ibid., 1:23:46; cf. 1:23:47–1:24:06). When it is integrated, it can, in her words, carry the self and life and “become a source of energy” (ibid., 1:24:18; cf. 1:24:02–1:24:20).

#What can lie beneath anger?

Beneath anger, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, there can lie something other than what the anger is aimed at. In an interview about her practice, she describes the deeper, systemic layer of a feeling: there the actual movements and relations become visible or tangible; someone may feel all sorts of states of anger on the surface, and one layer or a few layers further down it is really about the father. The anger then concerns the father; that is where the first movement lies, the first experience of injustice (cf. Interview with Gwendolin Kirchhoff, 2026, unpublished).

She gives an example in her introduction to family constellation: a child who looks forward so much to its parents and, in its first years of life, experiences an interruption of contact with the mother, because the mother is away for quite a while (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Systemisches Familienstellen”, 26:53–27:21). Then the mother is simply gone, the feeling shrivels into mistrust and anger, and the child no longer trusts her and reproaches her (cf. ibid., 27:31–27:43). Behind this, she says, is the innocent movement of life and love that wants to go all the way to the mother (cf. ibid., 27:43–27:50). In the constellation, a resolving sentence is then spoken in which the child tells the mother how much it has missed her; beneath all the anger, she says, is the missing (cf. ibid., 28:08–28:22). What such an interrupted movement of the child towards the mother looks like is described in the essay on attachment trauma.

Other feelings beneath anger are described in other texts on this site. The entry Shame treats anger as a mask of shame; the essay on the stages of grief describes the anger that breaks open in grief. What respect for oneself consists of is explored in the entry Self-respect.

#Where does a philosophical conversation about anger end?

What this essay describes is a philosophical view of anger, not a medical statement and not a diagnosis. Where anger turns into violence against others or against yourself, where it floods you for weeks or takes away your control over what you do, it belongs in the hands of a licensed psychotherapist or a doctor; when that is the right path is set out under When psychotherapy rather than philosophical accompaniment? (in German).

Below this threshold, anger is a question one can begin with in a conversation. Gwendolin Kirchhoff asks of anger where the movement comes from: whether it is one’s own energy expressing itself, or an attack on the other person. If you would like to follow up an anger that is occupying you right now in such a conversation, a philosophical consultation is a place for it; what to expect there is described in What is a philosophical consultation?. What does your anger protect? And what would show itself if you let it pass all the way through you for once?

#Sources

• DWDS – Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (2026). “Wut” and “Zorn”, definitions from the Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (eWDG, 1977). https://www.dwds.de/wb/Wut, https://www.dwds.de/wb/Zorn (accessed 13 October 2026).
• Hellinger, B. (1996). Anerkennen, was ist. Conversations with Gabriele ten Hövel. Munich: Kösel. Chapter “Die Unterscheidung der Gefühle”, pp. 107 f.
• Homer. Iliad, Book I, line 1.
• Kirchhoff, G. (2024). “Systemisches Familienstellen (nach Bert Hellinger), eine Einführung – SYMPOSIUM” [Video]. YouTube, 28 August 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwd1x1RzNoE (26:53–28:22).
• Kirchhoff, G. / Kirchhoff, J. (2024). “Außenwelt Innenwelt – Das Doppelwesen Mensch” [Video]. YouTube, Jochen Kirchhoff – In Memoriam, 5 February 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUypSVSIyI (Jochen Kirchhoff 54:52–55:10; times from the audio track).
• Kirchhoff, G. (2026). “«Das Schicksal ist größer als wir» Gwendolin Walter-Kirchhoff über Christopher Nolan und das Leben” [Video]. Conversation with Elisa Gratias, TransitionTV, YouTube, 18 September 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smlQFizE8Lg (1:15:12–1:16:43, 1:22:05–1:24:20).
• Kirchhoff, G. (2026). “«Wie frei sind wir wirklich?» Gwendolin Kirchhoff über Fremdbestimmung, Wut & die Macht der Gedanken” [Video]. Conversation with Elisa Gratias, TransitionTV, YouTube, 10 October 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTW7B162RPs (42:54–43:15, 44:09–55:40).
• Kirchhoff, G. (2026). Interview with Gwendolin Kirchhoff, 24 February 2026 (unpublished).
• Laozi (1952). Tao Te King – Das Buch des Alten vom Sinn und Leben. Translated into German by Richard Wilhelm (first edition 1911). Düsseldorf/Cologne 1952, chapter 13, pp. 14–15. Text: zeno.org.
• Schmitz, H. (1998). Der Leib, der Raum und die Gefühle. Ostfildern: Edition Tertium.