When anger becomes the predominant emotion in interactions with others, it has significant potential to become dysfunctional anger.
Many people have trouble processing, coping with, expressing,
and managing their anger. This in turn negatively effects their capacity to form and/or maintain friendships, deeper relationships, and excel in their employment.
When people experience anger too intensely for too long there are further consequences: negative emotions (e.g., sadness, fear), physical and verbal aggression, alcohol and drug use aggression, intentional and unintentional self-injury, and damaged relationships.
It's important to recognise that there are different levels of anger. These scales may range from annoyed to furious. Interestingly, most people fail to understand that anger generally does not simply come forth from nowhere.
Anger follows a cycle. The cycle is listed herewith.
1. Triggering Event
2. Negative Thoughts
3. Emotional Response
4. Physical Symptoms
5. Behavioural Response
Learning how to break the cycle and understanding the 'ABC' of anger is fundamental is managing anger.
Here at Hills Couples Counselling we work with individuals and groups teaching skills for coping with the underlying factors igniting your anger.
Please take a read of the information below. If you have any questions about our sessions contact us Here
Anger is an emotional response to
frustration or stress; a way to protect
ourselves from boundary violations.
Anger like all emotions, anger
tries to give us information and alerts
us to injustice/ unfair treatment.
Anger is present early in human
development, designed to keep us safe
and surviving.
Anger is difficult for everyone. It needs to be managed with tools and resources to help you keep anger from becoming destructive.
This is where your anger becomes the only response you have in all situations. You start to live in a cycle of anger as your constant partner. Those you love may find you angry and hostile at all times.
This is where your anger becomes your point of view on most things in life. You're holding so much anger that being angry seems comfortable and normal.
When anger is instrumental it becomes a tool for manipulating people to obtain a certain outcome.
Instrumental anger is often threatening and based on intimidation.
When people experience anger too intensely for too long there are further
consequences: negative emotions (e.g., sadness, fear), physical and verbal
aggression, alcohol and drug use, intentional and unintentional self-injury, and
damaged relationships.
When people cannot tolerate angry emotions, they tend to:
Act out their anger inappropriately.
They find it difficult to control and are hurtful or abusive to themselves and
others.
Often, they act against their own best interests.
Bypassing anger can have four ill effects: (1) developing psychosomatic
symptoms (2) projecting anger outward onto others (3) acting out hostile,
negative behaviors (4) turning the anger against oneself.
Bypassing Your Anger can manifest in the following ways:
Misplaced or externalised anger.
People who avoid or suppress anger frequently externalize their anger by disowning it in themselves and projecting it onto other people.
You may perceive others as being angry or hostile.
It may cause you to experience the external environment as alien and dangerous.
Reactions to these perceived enemies consist of counter-aggression or paranoia, often triggering a dangerous downward spiral of progressive maladaptation and misery.
Passive Aggression
Passive-aggression
Withholding behaviors, such as being forgetful,
habitually late, procrastinating and otherwise provoking, alienate others; in particular, they
create distance between partners in intimate relationships and bring about problems in the
workplace.
In general, passive-aggression is dysfunctional, drives people away, increases guilt feelings and
has a bad overall effect on the perpetrator.
Anger Turned Inwards
Anger Turned Inward
When people internalize feelings of anger, it causes them to turn against themselves and become self-critical and self-hating.
If this process reaches serious proportions, it plays a significant role in feelings of depression and worthlessness.
It can lead to selfdefeating,
self-destructive and, at times, suicidal behaviours.
At Hills Couples Counselling we offer Individual Anger Management Counselling sessions and also a 6 week anger management group program that is regularly accepted by local courts as a certified anger management course.
For a full course outline please contact us Here
