Anger Management - News

This is one of the most commonly believed myths in my experience. In fact, now just that 'getting the anger out' is good for you, but in fact expressing any emotion is the way to emotional health.

Good anger management is not about getting angry when you feel like it (as the article says, it is extremely bad for you - especially men), and of course for your relationships too.

It is about not generating the anger in the first place.

I think I have good control over my emotions (anger included).

spherica has been living with me for 2 years now and got to see my "lost of control twice" (neither at him - he just got to see a side that rarely surfaces).

Not up on the psyche of this, but I personally believe like anything else negative is best in private. Blowing off steam, sure you need to once in a well, but the less public it is the better - in my honest opinion.

I agree on an interpersonal level. Intrapersonally though, some people generate a lot of anger by the way they think, interpret others' actions and so on.

For them, the damage is to their health, chronic anger having been shown (as this article outlines) to be extremely damaging to health.

It used to be thought that 'Type A Personalities' were prone to heart attacks, but it turned out when the data was analysed more closely that those 'Type A's' who were chronically angry were so prone to heart attacks that they skewed the data on the whole group.

I have read more than once that chronic anger is a stronger predictor of heart attack than smoking or drinking. Pretty important stuff!

RogerE wrote:
Good anger management is not about getting angry when you feel like it. . . . It is about not generating the anger in the first place.

What might be a good way to do that, Roger?

Louise

Counting backwards from 10?

Heh, heh, yes that's about the best way

Heck Louise, always with the difficult questions

Well, put simply, if you can generate multiple interpretations for others' behaviour, external events or whatever is making you angry, the anger will not be able to take hold.

To get angry, you need to make a single interpretation such as "He did that because he is trying to humiliate me", "she did that on purpose and I'm going to show her I won't take it", or whatever.

Once people can generate multiple explanations, their anger levels drop. Sometimes other things need to be done around helping them get enough time to do that when something occurs.

Well, a difficult question well answered, though, eh?!

Thanks

Louise

Nice of you to say so

I thought I would share something that once happened to me personally. I was going through a difficult time myself, and was getting help from an excellent therapist who first introduced me to the notion of "parts" (this was long before I entertained the idea of becoming a therapist myself!). I was intrigued by this idea and was finding it helpful in working with a number of things.

An issue I was struggling with at the time was related to the prohibition in my childhood on showing anger. It was taboo. People misunderstand how taboos work - they think that we all know what is taboo and what isn't, and that we know when we are operating under a taboo. This is not so. A taboo is not just something which cannot be said or done or thought. It is something outside the conscious awareness of the members of the group where the taboo operates. This means that it cannot be challenged or discussed because (obviously) it does not exist!

So... I had got to the point where the existence of this taboo had been revealed to me, and I had begun to understand some of the effects it had had on me and my siblings. But I still experienced great difficulty in allowing myself to feel angry. I used to wonder if I could! Gradually I realised that I was terribly afraid of being angry, because I had somehow acquired a belief that my anger would be completely destructive - so it must never be allowed to happen.

One day I was sitting at home meditating (as opposed to ruminating - see thread over in practitioner's lounge) when suddenly my angry "part" (get this: a tall, slim, pale girl with long loose blonde hair, who looked totally harmless, and whose name is Anghared!) appeared and told me that we could detonate the bomb safely if we surrounded it with sandbags. The two of us built a huge circular wall of sandbags by the side of the lake (part of my safe place). The bomb was placed in the centre. Anghared and I then withdrew to a safe distance, with the detonator. We both put our hands on the plunger, and on a count of three we pushed it down.

There was a deafening explosion, a cloud of dust and flame rose up from the centre of the sandbag circle, but no damage occurred anywhere outside the circle. When the dust had settled, we went to look in the centre of the circle. There was a large hole in the ground, and the innner sandbags had all been blown to bits, but the outer ones were still complete. We buried the remaining sandbags in the hole and built a cairn on top to mark the spot. It is still there when I go to my safe place.

The effect of this "waking dream" was remarkable. My fear of getting angry disappeared, and I find that I can be angry without hurting myself or others. I can't say that I enjoy it particularly, but I now feel that I know how to do it, when to do it, and how to use the energy of anger safely. I notice that it is possible to be angry without becoming so aroused that I fall into black and white thinking, and I also notice that I can bring my anger to an end myself.

And I am glad to say that it doesn't happen very often - I usually have multiple explanations!javascript:emoticon(':lol:')

Kathleen

Love how you started that off "bomb disposal".

I am generally a very passive person, and usually look to see if a disadvantaging situation can be turned to an advantage.

With this mindset rarely do things anger me.

But bombs can expode in the attempt to dispose.

Human nature is a difficult emotion to control -- all the time.

Roger said:-

To get angry, you need to make a single interpretation such as "He did that because he is trying to humiliate me", "she did that on purpose and I'm going to show her I won't take it", or whatever.

Isn't that paranoia?

Seriously, though, I tend to agree that a lack of anger management can be a bad thing on the whole. During interaction with other people, it won't make you a lot of friends, and according to the article, it won't improve your health much either.

However, I believe that we all need to release at some point. It just needs to be a controlled release.

I am quite a placid person and find it incredibly easy to be understanding and calm during a work environment. I have a great empathy with people and can always achieve a good rapport. However, at home, I CAN blow up over the smallest things. Only at an irritable level understand, but it is noticable to me and my family.

Now, what form that release is can be another matter. It could be a martial arts class, squash, dancing in the night club or shooting at a computer game. But I do believe, that unless that energy is released in some form, it could be suppressed and cause some later complication.

I do happen to know a person who vents anger at the slightest thing and makes enemies wherever he goes. He thinks he is happy, while all the time, he thinks the world is against him. He expresses his frustration by cheating on his wife and then fails to understand when she makes his life miserable.

What he fails to realise is, that he is creating all these problems for himself.

Oh, if only he were a client (sigh)

kfedouloff wrote:an excellent therapist who first introduced me to the notion of "parts"

Hi Kathleen,
Mind sharing what "parts" are?
Ciao

RogerE wrote:Good anger management is not about getting angry when you feel like it (as the article says, it is extremely bad for you - especially men), and of course for your relationships too.
It is about not generating the anger in the first place.

On Characteristics of Genuinely Low Self Esteem you read, "Treating yourself badly but NOT other people".
Does this mean you can treat people badly but you have to do so without showing anger? Or is it even possible to consciously treat someone badly without "feeling" anger?

This is something I wrote about 20 years ago for normal children.
'The painful state of anger can usually be avoided. It is the result of uncontrolled frustration.
Frustration is a feeling of stress which occurs when the world around us does not behave as we want it to, or is not as we want it to be. If this feeling of stress is allowed to reach a certain level anger begins to take over.
One of the first signs of frustration is when the normal feeling of a relaxed state is replaced by a feeling of tension. A lot of practice is needed to recognize the signs at an early stage. Having determined the cause, the first priority is to try to relax and to analyze the problem in a logical manner. That would be the way an emotionally mature person would behave. An immature person moves very quickly from a state of frustration to become angry and aggressive.
Revenge is an expression of hate. To encourage a person to hit back is training them to hate.'

Important would be the amount of stress in the individuals life, their lifestyle and their state of health.
Anger is the outward sign of a changed body chemistry - hormones are released - and other physical changes such as increased blood pressure and heart rate, so control becomes difficult.
http://users.tpg.com.au/raymac/psych.htm