Anger management

What is anger?

Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and hostile response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.

A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, such as increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Some view anger as an emotion which triggers part of the fight or flight response. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically when a person makes the conscious choice to take action to immediately stop the threatening behavior of another outside force.

Anger can have many physical and mental consequences. The external expression of anger can be found in facial expressions, body language, physiological responses, and at times public acts of aggression. Facial expressions can range from inward angling of the eyebrows to a full frown. While most of those who experience anger explain its arousal as a result of “what has happened to them,” psychologists point out that an angry person can very well be mistaken because anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability.

Modern psychologists view anger as a normal, natural, and mature emotion experienced by virtually all humans at times, and as something that has functional value for survival. Uncontrolled anger can, however, negatively affect personal or social well-being and impact negatively on those around them.

Source: Wikipedia

ANGER MANAGEMENT THERAPY

Everyone grows angry from time to time. Although anger is a normal emotion that it is perfectly healthy to experience, holding onto anger for too long can create an emotional barrier that prevents individuals from engaging happily in many areas of life. When an individual experiences difficulty moving past feelings of anger and finds that being angry is interfering with the ability to maintain healthy relationships, employment, or personal happiness, then anger management therapy may be a useful tool. More specifically, when anger with a single person, situation, or idea starts to create tension and unhappiness in other areas of a person’s life, then it is often helpful to engage in some sort of anger management therapy to learn how to quell that emotional response.

There is nothing wrong with experiencing anger, but uncontrolled anger or anger that does not subside is a sign that a person should seek professional support to deal with the source of the volatile emotion and find healthy ways to cope with it.

What Is Anger Management Therapy?

Anger management therapy is a goal-oriented therapeutic strategy that targets the emotional response to external factors that cause anger. Factors such as the setting, number of sessions, length of sessions, and even whether the sessions are individual or group vary depending on individual circumstances.

The goal of anger management therapy is to help individuals:

• express their feelings and needs in an assertive and appropriate way;
• identify situations that are likely to upset them, so they can be emotionally prepared;
• recognize when they aren’t thinking logically;
• focus on problem-solving rather than on the problem itself; and
• calm down when faced with situations that cause them to become upset or angry.
• Anger management therapy is available as individualized counseling or via group therapy. There are benefits to both forms of anger management counseling. Individualized therapy offers an excellent platform to discuss personal concerns and to develop highly individualized strategies for coping with and responding to anger. Group therapy provides an opportunity to gain insight into how other people feel and how they react to similar situations, and it can help individuals understand their anger better by relating to others with similar emotional responses.

Anger Management Strategies

Anger management therapy focuses on helping the client overcome an emotional block. The goal of the therapy is to help the individual identify and overcome emotional stressors, especially stressors that cause hyperemotional reactions such as anger.

Common strategies introduced during anger management therapy include:

• impulse control,
• increased self-awareness,
• meditation,
• breathing techniques,
• relaxation strategies,
• personal reflection, and
• emotional awareness.

Source: Careers in Ψn Psychology