| Is anger an illness? |
| No - anger is not an illness; it's a very normal, healthy emotion! And we all have felt it.
It is an innate emotional state that can vary in its intensity from annoyance and frustration to intense fury and rage. And like other emotions, it is accompanied by physiological and biological changes.
Anger can be caused by both internal and external events: you could be upset and ruminating about your relationship with your spouse; or be angry at a friend for forgetting an important date; or be angry at the airline for canceling your flight.
So, though anger is not cancer or heart disease, if it's not expressed safely, appropriately, and without hurting anyone, it can lead to high blood pressure, severe stress reactions in people, and cardiac problems.
Anger is a natural, adaptive response when we feel threatened by someone or by something. It's an empowering feeling that allows us to fight or to defend ourselves when we are attacked. So we need our anger for our survival! It also helps us set boundaries and can be a positive thrust toward getting our needs met (if we know what our needs are!!).
However, when anger gets out of control, it can turn destructive and lead to problems at work, in your personal relationships, or in the overall quality of your life.
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| Do therapists push you to become angry in therapy? |
| I hope not! This would most likely just apply to people who have trouble experiencing their anger in the first place. (People who easily experience their anger will have no trouble doing so in the treatment room either!) People who deny or avoid their anger are probably quite fearful of anger - theirs or anyone else's.
Depending on whether the person is even aware their responses are inappropriate to the situations they are talking about, I would just help them explore and talk about their emotions to see which emotions they recognize and which ones they can tolerate. I would also help them track what they do with their anger if they are not expressing it. Where does it go? Does it turn into depression?
I would talk about anger and reveal my anger at certain situations (if it was appropriate) in order to de-mystify the emotion of anger.
In one of my "Anger Workshops" I might urge someone to express their anger (since they're at the workshop because of having anger); however, if they decline, I will always respect their boundaries. Pushing someone to be angry will most often just bring up their resistance!
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| Define anger management. |
| Firstly, anger doesn't have to be managed; it's a normal, mostly healthy emotion. It's our physiological arousal that leads to our anger reactions that need to be managed! We can't go through life avoiding the things or the people that enrage us, nor can we change them, but we can learn to control our reactions.
You need to know what makes you angry and how you respond to feeling angry. Do you pace the room with clenched fists? Is your chest burning and your face hot? Do you feel tense or rigid? Are your thoughts or internal dialogues of an angry, critical nature?
Becoming conscious of your emotional, physical and cognitive responses to anger allows you "choice" in how you will respond to the person or situation.
I also work with my clients on using breathing exercises to reduce our anger arousal, meditation, cognitive restructuring, (so they can think about things differently) safe and appropriate emotional and physical techniques to release their anger, increasing their communication skills, and using the process of forgiveness, if its appropriate.
Being able to handle our anger more constructively will help us navigate our lives more successfully.
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| What is better for anger management - individual therapy or group therapy? |
| Both, together and separately can all work well.
I believe when someone's anger is out-of-control or their anger is having a destructive impact on their personal and professional relationships and on the quality of their life, they need to seek out some individual therapy. Initially, individual therapy with a licensed mental health professional will be more helpful because the therapist can immediately help you develop a range of skills and techniques for changing your thinking and your behaviors that will be designed for your particular set of circumstances. A mental health professional can help you reduce the physiological arousal that leads to your angry reactions in approximately 8-10 weeks, again depending on your particular circumstances.
At some point in the person's individual therapy, I will always suggest a group to further their progress. A group is a wonderful adjunct to individual therapy to release one's shame (because everyone in the group is dealing with their shame); increase your self-esteem through helping others; and to realize they are not alone.
It's possible to do group therapy without also participating in individual therapy since the group process is very powerful. However, I would personally need to evaluate the client's "anger quotient" to be sure they wouldn't disrupt the on-going group. When a therapist runs groups, as I do, I am not just responsible to one person but I am responsible to the seven others as well. So I would need to be sure (for the new client as well) if the group could handle the new person and that the group wouldn't intimidate the new client, making him or her feel worse than before they joined it.
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