Managing Anger
When clients come to me for Anger Management, it is often because their anger has become uncontrollable, and resulted in some negative action with consequences. This action may or may not be severe. But the uncontrolled emotion of anger has led to an action - which is aggression.
Anger is an emotion. Aggression is a behavior. The distinction between emotion and behavior is especially important in anger management.
Anger is not inherently wrong. Anger becomes problematic when it is felt too intensely, too frequently, and there is a loss of control.
If you are struggling with anger management (or rather, aggression management), below are some steps to follow to increase insight and cope with anger:
1) Monitor Anger
In therapy, I use an “Anger Meter” to help monitor anger and associated behaviors. The purpose is to identify the intensity and frequency of anger.
What I’m also looking for is to identify patterns. Through monitoring, we can find patterns of behavior, thoughts, and emotions. Patterns for triggers will also likely emerge quite quickly. These can be external or internal.
What I find interesting (and fun in therapy) is identifying emotions that elicit anger as a secondary emotion. Common examples are embarrassment, anxiety, disrespect, or rejection. Interestingly, these are often in the broader realm of insecurity (and is where therapy can really shine to address these deeply held beliefs about ourselves).
Situation → Underlying Emotion → Anger
2) Know the Signs
A second component of monitoring anger is monitoring the signs, cues, or hints. I generally break them down into the following categories:
Physical
Cognitive
Behavioral
These cues help increase the awareness of your personal experience of anger and warning signs that anger is escalating. These signs of anger can help determine which coping skills may be most effective for your anger.
3) Coping Skills
While we are monitoring anger and your personalized signs/cues of anger, in therapy I begin teaching coping skills immediately.
We want to build skills in the domains that are “signs” of anger: physical, cognitive, behavioral. Coping skills might not totally eliminate anger; rather, the goal is to implement them to reduce your anger from becoming a 10/10, which is when control is lost and aggression or negative consequences occur.
Physical:
These tend to be the low-hanging fruit, as in they can be the quickest to learn with immediate physiological relief for anger. I have included hyperlinks (U of Michigan) with descriptions of three simple exercises:
Cognitive:
In the world of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), it is postulated that thoughts mediate emotions.
Situation → Thought → Emotion
To modify the emotion of anger, we can assess and change the thought. Here are a couple approaches:
Challenge Thoughts
Your thoughts are not always truths. Try challenging the validity of them
An example with challenging questions to ask:
“The driver in front of me is slowing down/cutting me off on purpose”
What is the evidence of this? (Seriously, consider the evidence with objective data)
What are the odds (1-100) that he/she changing their action just to mess with me?
Are there other explanations?
These can be realistic or fantasy. This depends on your personal style.
If considering they have a newborn baby in the back of the car and are terrified of driving him home, just like you were with your first kid, is an effective thought to reduce your anger — then use it.
Am I benefitting from being angered by this?
Positive Self-Talk
If your thoughts can influence your emotions negatively, consider that they can impact them positively.
Some suggestions of self-talk when angered:
Do I really want to react this way? Is this how I want to be perceived?
This is important, but it is more important that I stay calm because of my ____ (kids, spouse, job, health).
People don’t always act how I want them to, but I cannot control what they do. I can control my actions right now.
What would _____ (your positive role model / personal hero) do in this situation?
Behavioral:
Anger may take over rational thought. In those situations, use a behavior-based coping strategy.
Take action to create a pause before a reaction.
Take a step back or a “Time Out” from a situation.
If your anger is rising and feels like you may lose control, immediately remove yourself from the situation.
The goal is to give yourself space before reacting, use the pause to engage in some calming activities, and return to the situation when you are more in control of your anger.
Pause before you send an email or text
Don’t send or say something when your anger is boiling.
If you need to, consider setting a timer of 15 minutes. Come back with a fresh perspective and reread your message before sending.
Actions that reduce your baseline irritability
These are personalized to what works for you (e.g., music, hobbies), as well as standard wellness practices of sufficient sleep, healthy eating, and exercise as appropriate to your physician recommendations.
4) Create a Coping Plan
At this point, if you monitor anger consistently over time, you should have an idea of expected triggers and can begin to plan for those.
You wouldn’t step into a known work meeting without preparing in advance. Take that same approach of preparation into managing your anger. Know your triggers, signs of anger, and coping strategies to help plan for anger inducing situations.
In therapy, my goal is to help collaboratively develop a plan to cope with anger based on your specific experience of anger. If your signs are more cognitive in nature, cognitive strategies may be more effective for you. Experiment with the coping strategies to develop an effective coping plan.
5) Reduce Baseline Irritability
This is a broader concept of distress tolerance applied to anger management.
If you are entering a situation with a current irritability of 5/10, you have less of a buffer before you hit a 10/10 on the Anger Meter and lose control. If you can lower your stress or emotion to a 2/10, you have a greater ability to manage what comes your way without blowing your top.
This is particularly beneficial for situations in which you can predict activators. If you have identified a pattern of anger in a specific situation, attempt to enter the situation with a lower baseline of stress or emotion.
Reduce your anger before you encounter a known trigger.
Next Steps
In therapy, I combine these immediate direct skills with more complex skills (communication, mindfulness, cognitive defusion). We will also explore learned social behavior contributing to anger responses, secondary emotions contributing to poor anger and distress tolerance, and deep-seeded core beliefs.
If you are interested in therapy for anger management, please contact me. You can email me using this email submission form or call me at 314-915-2233.
