What is Passive Aggression?
Winter, Painting by David Teniers the Younger
Passive aggression is a form of indirect resistance where hostile feelings are expressed through subtle behaviours rather than confronting someone directly. Instead of openly stating anger, resentment, sadness, or disagreement, a person would instead engage in avoidance, withdrawal, sarcasm, or backhanded actions that can hurt communication. This defense mechanism can create confusion in relationships, since the hostility is concealed behind seemingly neutral or even cooperative behaviour which can cause mixed messaging. Within psychodynamic psychotherapy, passive aggression is understood as a defense against the anxiety of openly expressing conflict or anger.
George Eman Vaillant, in his well-known hierarchy of defense mechanisms, identified passive aggression as an immature defense. According to Vaillant, immature defenses reduce immediate distress but interfere with healthy long-term relationships and emotional development. Passive aggression temporarily protects the ego from guilt or fear associated with direct anger, but it often leaves unresolved conflict long-term. His classification shows the importance of recognizing these defenses in order to create better coping strategies.
Common forms of passive aggression can include procrastination, intentional inefficiency, forgetfulness, a sabotage of expectations, or withdrawal. For example, an employee who feels undervalued may miss deadlines or “accidentally” overlook tasks instead off voicing frustration directly. In personal relationships, this could show up as the silent treatment, sarcasm, backhanded comments, or vague answers. Such behaviours allow anger to come through indirectly, which gives the person an outlet without the risks they associate with direct confrontation.
Man Watching Volcano Lava Falls, Painting by Charles Furneaux, 1889
From a psychodynamic perspective, passive aggression reflects unconscious conflict about the legitimacy and safety of anger. Early developmental experiences can also play a role, especially in families where open expression of anger was discouraged, punished, shunned, or seen as unacceptable. The individual then learns to hide aggression but finds indirect and safe ways to assert it. Psychodynamic therapy provides a space to bring awareness to such patterns and offers a space to express frustration constructively.
In treatment, psychodynamic psychotherapy looks to interpret and slowly confront passive-aggressive behaviours as they come up in the therapeutic relationship itself. This way patients can begin to recognize their patterns while naming these defenses and exploring the anxieties behind them.