Fathers Conquering Anger

yes. no.

Have you ever met you father?

sure

What's your relationship with him like?

Since he died my relationship with him has been great. In all of the dreams I have had in which he has made an appearance he has been positive and very supportive. I guess some people are far better dead than alive. Of course, my reflections upon my late father are substantially influenced by how he behaved toward me. Some men have all of their positive qualities in reference to their Social Lives, and just deal poorly with their domestic life. It was part of his Culture, after all, that Men were expected to get married and have families. If he had stayed single and been a confirmed Man of the World he would undoubtedly been universally admired for it.

Well, I'm sorry to here about your dad's passing. I really never knew much about my dad and I'm thinking this could be the cause of my anger.

Dear M. Goodmas,
Have you heard much about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? That is the Methodology most commonly in use today as Therapy for Anger Issues. Before Cognitive Behavioral Therapy came along you had Psychoanalysis, which tried to deal with anger by uncovering the Cause. That is what you seem to be into. But it turns out that just Knowing the Cause for our Anger turns into a big “So What?”. You might know the Cause perfectly well and still be saddled with the Effect. But Psychoanalysis was a Psychiatric Thing, and Psychoanalysis created this huge Industry, and developed the momentum of any established Special Interest – people would go to their Psychiatrists once a week, year in year out, paying out a fortune, while they never seemed to mind that they never got any better. But the Psychiatrists were making tons of money and so they weren’t about to change it. But then came along the Psychologists – different Animals all together. Psychologists used to be part of the University System and they were only about Studying the workings of the Mind and Behavior… they never ‘treated’ anybody… they just did a bunch of Experiments on People and Animals. They only started going into Treatment and Therapy because the Psychiatrists had sort of abandoned the Field, and somebody had to actually Treat People. It started slowly. The Psychologists would establish a Hypothesis for an Effective Treatment for such and such a Mental Dysfunction and then Implement their Experimental Treatment Plan on a Control Group of Test Subjects, not so they could benefit the Test Subjects, but just to collect Data. But when they found they had Effective Treatments, and the Psychiatric Community ignored their findings, they decided to expand their Mission into Treatment and Therapy. The end result is that Psychologists developed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in which Patients are trained to Review and Revise the Thinking and Behavioral Habits that they consider to be problematic.

So if you have Thoughts that are stirring up your Anger, well, stop encouraging such thinking. Don’t indulge in negativity. Review and Revise your thinking. And if you have bad Behavioral Habits, such as cussing every other word, then stop that too. Review and Revise.

You say that a Father you never knew much about is the cause of your Anger. Well, don’t you think that is going kind of far to assign blame? Now, I could assign a lot of blame on my father because he was a Role Model of Adult Behavior for me while I was growing up. The Habits I had to learn to break were habits I picked up from Him. But you don’t have any of that. I suppose you mean that while you were growing up all you did was stew and simmer about how your Life would have been so much better if you had a Rich and Caring Father who would have smoothed the way for you in everything you did – do your homework for you, set you up with your first girlfriend, pay the entire ticket for College and Higher Degrees – the ‘whole nine yards’, as they say. Well, it Never works like that. Some fathers are better than others but mostly we have to live our own lives.