Information for Clients on Common Mental Health Issues

Anger Management

Anger is a feeling and like all feelings, it is your human right to experience it and express it. Validating your anger prevents you from trying to suppress or deny it. Anger arises when we perceive that something might happen to frighten us, threaten us or make us feel powerless. Anger can be broken down into four components – our thoughts, feelings, physical responses and behaviours. Understanding how our anger works helps us to make changes in how we deal with anger by influencing any one of the four components.

Many factors influence your beliefs and attitudes about anger, how you experience it personally and your style of coping with angry situations. How you were raised, how people responded to your anger, abuse, exposure to a traumatic life experience, lack of opportunities and biological factors can all influence how a person learns to deal with their anger as an adult. Because much of how we deal with anger is learned, we can also learn healthier, more effective ways of managing and expressing our anger.

Our response to anger usually involves the interaction of a number of factors:

1. something happens to trigger our anger
2. the state of mind you were in at the time of the provocation
3. how you interpret what’s happening (your self talk)
4. your physical and emotional response
5. your behaviour or reactions
6. the consequences of your behaviour

Learning to recognize these stages and develop coping strategies around each of these factors can help prevent the full escalation of anger.

People have many styles of expressing their anger. One style is an aggressive or overreacting stance, which can include physical and verbal aggression. Underlying this anger is often a feeling of “fear”; fear of losing the battle, fear of losing control, fear of our true feelings being found out. This person often feels powerless and tries to control others by directing their anger outward. Another style of anger is the passive or under reacting stance. This style can include self–punishing behaviours, passive aggressiveness, and physical problems if the anger is repeatedly “stuffed”. This person is also motivated by fear but tries to deal with the feelings by turning the anger inward. This can result in depression and low self- esteem. The best way to deal with situations that cause us to feel angry is to adopt an assertive stance. This means confronting others openly and directly with our concerns in an honest and respectful way. In this style, we use anger in a positive way to solve problems and set appropriate boundaries with others.

Problems with anger can arise if it happens too often, if it goes on too long, if it is too intense, if it disturbs our relationships at home or at work, or if it affects our health. We want to utilize more of anger’s positive benefits. These can include giving us added energy to solve a problem, giving us determination, motivating us to take control of our lives and setting boundaries with others. The feeling of anger is simply a cue that something is feeling not quite right in our world. It is then up to us to get more information so we can decide the best way to handle our anger. Do we need to accept it, express it or talk ourselves out of feeling angry? There are two questions we can ask ourselves to see if our anger is working for us in any given situation. The first one: Is my anger helping me in this situation? Am I getting the results that I want? If the answer is no, then you need to develop a more productive response. The second question to ask: Is my anger directed towards someone who has knowingly and intentionally acted in a hurtful manner towards me? If your answer is yes, then you are using your anger well - as a way to defend yourself from being abused or treated unfairly. However, even if your anger is justified, the way you express it may not be.

At the Personal Development Centre, we recognize that chronic anger is costly both emotionally and physically. If anger is handled incorrectly or not at all, it can contribute to cardiovascular disease, headaches, depression, relationship problems, abuse, low self esteem, lowered job productivity and chronic distress, just to name a few. We offer an Anger Management group to help clients learn to manage and express their anger more effectively. Techniques are shared on de-escalating anger, learning to “let go” of old anger, identifying and changing destructive angry patterns, handling conflict and dealing with the anger of others. Clients can also access individual counselling through our centre to work through personal issues. Learning to manage your anger can convert it from a negative force in your life to a creative and powerful source of energy.