Managing Anger Effectively

Controlling our anger is critical. There are two issues. One revolves around controlling your own angry reaction to disappointment, and the other deals with how you react to those subjecting you to their angry reactions to a real or imagined grievance.

Anger can be an extremely negative reaction. Uncontrolled anger can trigger a large number of anti-social behaviors and other negative consequences including violence, crime, spouse and child abuse, divorce, troubled relationships, fouled working conditions, headaches, hypertension, ulcers, heart conditions, emotional problems, etc. Think carefully, how many times has an angry and uncontrolled outburst solved a problem. How many times has an uncontrolled and angry reaction aggravated an already negative situation. Can you recall how you felt when you reacted in anger vs. a cool and reasoned approach?

Exactly What Is Anger?

Anger is feeling mad in response to frustration or injury and expressing yourself in an impulsive manner without thought. You do not like the circumstances and usually you would like to get revenge. Anger is a mixture of emotional, physiological, and cognitive elements. It should be seen as distinct from the behavior it might provoke. In some instances, angry emotions are beneficial in that we take an appropriate and measured response to a real, not imagined threat.

Anger can be caused by damaged pride, unrealized expectations, or repeated hostile fantasies. The goal of anger is to accomplish a purpose or to blame others for our own shortcomings (externalizing blame). Anger can be used to justify oppressing others, to elevate our low self-worth, to hide other feelings, and to displace other emotions such as using aggression to hide fear.

Beyond the cognitive and emotional state is actual aggression, or attacking someone or a group. It's intent is to harm. These attacks can be verbal - threats, insults, sarcasm, or questioning motives-or it can be physical. Fantasies of aggression often precede actual acts. Hostility is a permanent of anger and antipathy toward people. Rage is when anger, which is episodic, explodes into completely irrational behavior, as in road rage. Frustration can be more legitimate and productive. We are disappointed in ourselves or others, and wish for a different outcome. Frustration may result in positive change or, if it does not result in positive change, it could morph into anger, hostility or rage.

Assertiveness is different than aggression, and suggests proactive dealing with facts and circumstances in a rational fashion. However, aggression can be cold and calculating.

Aggression has been classified as either instrumental aggression (to get some reward, not to get revenge), hostile aggression (to hurt someone or get revenge), and annoyance aggression (to stop an irritant). When our aggression results in a complete loss of control and rationality, it becomes rage.

The Types of Anger

Behavioral anger consists of assaultive, aggressive, hurtful or rebellious behavior. Assaultive behavior implies a physically destructive attack on the perceived source of the anger. Aggression can be verbal and be typified by criticism, fault finding, nagging, whining, sarcasm, prejudice, and imputing immoral motives. Hurtful behavior is typified by gossip, stealing, trouble making, etc. Rebellious behavior reveals open defiance, refusal to talk, in effect, attacking authority in a somewhat subtle fashion.

Verbal and cognitive signs of anger include open hatred and insults, expressing contempt, criticism, suspicion, accusing, or name calling.

While many types of anger are overt, some are slightly suppressed, and reveal themselves in ways different. Veiled anger can emerge as distrust, skepticism, argumentation, irritation, resentment, jealousy, envy, disruption, sullenness, abstinence, cynicism, or adoption of a superior attitude. This can lead or be accompanied by veiled anger in speech patterns. Undermining the credibility of others with catty, untrue remarks are typical of this.

Tremendously veiled or hidden anger can morph itself into silence, lack of communication, tiredness, anxiety, high blood pressure, heart disease, depression, guilt, self-defeating behavior (resorting to drinking or drugs), submissiveness, crying, or, in its extreme form, paranoid schizophrenia.

Anger in many cases is not overtly and obviously expressed. It is suppressed. As such, it has been named passive-aggressiveness. Such person engaging in passive aggressiveness may be unresponsive, argumentative, overly nice, play dumb, arrive late, exaggerate the faults of others, and engage in nasty gossip that is hurtful.

Another form of passive-aggressive is perpetual victimhood. Afraid to confront the supposed source of anger, the person feels victimized and feels persecuted. They feel there is nothing they can do to change the situation and accept no accountability.

Dealing with Anger

Venting or catharsis is a long standing approach. This involves unearthing the emotional traumas and venting the feelings until we can assess the trauma and drain the stored anger. However, there is considerable debate over catharsis and the nature of venting. If venting works to express the conscious and unconscious emotions for the purpose of feeling better and gaining insight, it might mitigate an unwanted and unproductive emotion.

Half of our anger is directed at family. This indicates anger may have as much to do with love (or perceptions of unrequited love) than it does with hate.

Controlling Anger Through Behavior Modification and Therapy

It is understood that suppressing anger may have as many negative consequences as expressing the anger. Here are some approaches that social scientists have found helpful.

• Reduce your frustrations. Find the source of your frustration, whether they be people or subjects or situations and attempt to reduce or eliminate your exposure to these negative stimuli.
• Reduce Violent Stimuli in your Life. Choosing to avoid violent movies, violent and aggressive friends is part of this approach. Be very selective with your friends so that they do not goad you into anger and rage. Eliminate drugs and alchohol as stimulants of anger.
• Reveal Yourself and Understand Others - Announce you may be having a bad day to others. Attempt to indicate to others they are having a bad day and offer to listen or let them vent.
• Stop hostile fantasies. Cease dwelling on issues or people which aggravate. Think smooth. Think cool.
• Do not escalate the violence. Aggressive action on your part may cause an equally aggressive response which starts a vicious cycle.
• Suppress or Convert Your Violent Reaction - Count to ten, take a deep breath, or go work out are variations on this theme. Think of the source of the aggravation and whether a violent reaction will accomplish any purpose other than remorse, which is not a goal.
• Cease using temper to get your way- While successful in the short term, using anger to win points is a losing strategy in the long run.
• Use Stress inoculation- This approach involves awareness of our own irrational fantasies, learning better understanding of why others are weak when they show rage, and rehearsing how to be calm in the face of angering stimulation.
• Disconnect Anger from Frustrating People or Issues or desensitization
• Consider Meditation and Mild Exercise to relax.

References
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