How to Know If You, or Someone You Love, Needs Counseling for Anger Management

Each of us is supposed to experience a wide range of emotions. We are supposed to be able to feel all the positive emotions like wonder, joy and pleasure.  Equally, we should be able to feel the entire range of difficult emotions like shame, guilt and regret.  This is the full human experience. Sometimes people have trouble feeling, expressing and/or coping with the more difficult emotions.  We can fall into a pattern of expressing anger as a replacement for those emotions that make us feel vulnerable.

Anger is one of our natural emotions. It’s normal to feel angry when we feel we have been treated unjustly. Our anger becomes a problem when it is premature, rigid, disproportionate and it does not run its course. Keeping score and holding grudges is not healthy. 

Anger can be a slippery slope. Are the following things familiar?

·      Anger becomes the default strategy for managing difficult situations or difficult conversations.

·      Anger becomes a preferred shortcut.  It is a conversation stopper. It is a the quick way to get agreement or cooperation. Also, it quickly puts control of the situation into the hands of the angry person.

·      Anger becomes the replacement for healthy relationship skills like active listening, negotiation, and compromise.

·      Anger is a filter.  We start to view others and situations through that filter.  It makes our position defensive, uncompromising, vigilant, and guarded.  We stop being able to give others the benefit of the doubt. We start to start to see things in stark black or white, when, in reality, life is nuanced and complex.  Mostly, things happen in the shades of grey.

·      Anger can be a defense mechanism.  Once it takes over, we temporarily forget about everything but our own pain and needs.

·      People who have trouble managing their anger will, eventually, experience consequences from their aggressive words and behaviors.

As a counselor, I help with the education and skills training to move someone from being an angry person to a person who is in control and someone who others can more easily connect with.

I offer the following interventions:

·      Anger can kick in so fast; it feels automatic. However, we can learn to catch warning signs and triggers for your anger early. This creates an opening for you to use anger management techniques, coping skills and communication skills instead of aggressive words and behaviors. 

·      Anger happens in the part of the brain that is genetically programmed to manage threat.  We can move from using that part of the brain to using the part of our brain that houses our self-control, flexible thinking, problem-solving, planning, and our ability to consider the future. Learn how to control anger with emotional self-regulation.  Self-regulation is a series of skills that begins with education, self-awareness, and mindfulness.

·      You can learn to interrupt your patterns, gain impulse control, and stop the domino-effect from your anger with de-escalation.

Learning to control your anger is not quick and easy. However, I help with education, the CBT interventions I described above and skills training. I help by explaining and demonstrating.  Then I practice with you. So, learning these life skills is attainable. I hope you will schedule a free consultation to discuss your needs here.