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Dealing With Anger Effectively
We all experience anger from time to time. Nevertheless, most people find it uncomfortable, and many people fear it, believing that anger is always harmful.
Actually, anger does not need to be hurtful. It is one of various ways we internally become alerted to something that needs to be dealt with. Many people are ill-at-ease about anger because in their past they have experienced it as harsh, punishing, blaming or attacking. They don't realize that such intense expression is rarely warranted, and that there are more effective ways of managing anger.
Anger is a bodily sensation-our bodies tighten and contract, our stomach or teeth might clench. It's also a feeling. Anger is accompanied by a situation, either current, anticipated, or remembered. It's how we're currently viewing a circumstance that triggers the experience of anger. In the clutch of the feelings, it can be very hard to remember that our way of looking at something may not be the only way of seeing it, because intense emotion makes that sort of reasoning very difficult.
We learned how to express anger as kids-when we observed others dealing with it. Perhaps they were explosive, or held it in, or moved to blaming or even violence.
Assuming that people are born with different temperaments-some, more calm, others more easily aroused, the style of one's handling of anger is still largely an acquired habit. That's good news, because people can learn to convert ineffective or explosive anger into something more helpful and productive. Handling anger productively is a skill that can be learned.
There are some conditions under which anger is made worse-such as drinking or using drugs. Some kinds of depression lead to more irritability, and long-standing patterns of explosive anger exchanges between people tend to more easily break out and escalate. People who feel trapped, misunderstood or defensive sometimes use anger to manage the underlying feelings. Anger can also be used as a form of power or coercion-something often seen in domestic abuse situations.
Most anger, though, is the garden variety-everyday frustrations and obstacles. If we're using anger wisely, it can guide us through conflicts and situations that seem to block our way to things.
Anyone who experiences chronic anger, helpless/futile anger, or explosive and sometimes violent forms of anger, needs to have help in learning better ways to handle situations. Anger used well helps situations improve. But when it's ineffectual or even hurtful to one's self or others, it's putting people at risk physically, emotionally, and in relationships.
Psychotherapy is a place to work on anger issues. You can explore anger trigger factors, and learn better methods of expression for a more helpful way of dealing with life stresses. Sometimes individual therapy is the most appropriate way to learn improved anger skills, but at other times, couple or family therapy is more effective. If you feel you (or someone you're close to) have an anger problem, an evaluation for treatment would be recommended.
