Empathic Anger Management
Social attitudes to anger
“Most clients have rage difficulties because they have never developed the capacity to process their emotions because they have never been allowed to feel their feelings or, if they had felt them, were repeatedly talked out of them; their anger would have been ignored, framed as unreasonable, pathological or ridiculous.” (Sue Parker Hall – Anger, Rage and Relationship, 2009.)
This quote from Sue Parker Hall describes how anger can become perceived as a negative emotion– something to be avoided, suppressed or condemned. A lack of social acceptance can lead to some of the following common misunderstandings about the expression of anger:-
• anger’s presence indicates an absence of love
• anger will escalate into violence
• anger indicates that there is a problem so someone is to blame (and it’s not going to be me!)
• anger indicates that there is a problem and someone has to fix it (and I don’t know how!)
The resulting fear of loss of important relationships can lead to anger being distorted rather than being expressed in a helpful and healthy way.
Anger as a healthy and necessary emotion
Anger is a form of emotional intelligence providing the information and energy to protect an individual physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. Pure, healthily expressed anger is characterised by: a medium amount of arousal; ‘in the moment’ expression; being proportionate to the situation and directed at the appropriate person; a calm and respectful delivery; it being used for a positive purpose; and being short-lived. When angry, the person is able to think and feel simultaneously. If any of these aren’t present then it is likely to be rage rather than anger. Anger as a pure emotion, expressed cleanly and without manipulation or coercion, is likely to result in needs being met, rage on the other hand doesn’t.
Rage
When a person does not feel able to express the naturally occurring emotions arising when difficult events occur, because they are deemed to be unimportant or dangerous, then the individual doesn’t come to terms with their feelings or learn to contain and soothe difficult emotional experiences. These unprocessed events and feelings then get stored in an ‘internal pot’ until something, often relatively trivial, causes the lid to fly off and all the contents rush out simultaneously. This can be a shock and difficult to understand because all of the feelings are jumbled up together and have the force of all the previous events added together. There is a loss of rational thinking and often a sense of ‘fighting for your life’.
Rage can also be experienced as a result of a recent unprocessed trauma, or traumas, such as: bereavement; relationship breakdown or some other kind of loss; an accident; or shock of some kind.
So, anger and rage are entirely different. Anger is a healthy response to a current unacceptable situation, whereas rage is a defence or coping mechanism which is an emotional response to previously experienced feelings of not existing; of not being seen or heard, and can result from multiple unprocessed life experiences.
Anger management
Many ‘Anger Management’ programmes seem to blame and shame people seeking help with anger issues, either seeing the problem rooted in a desire to dominate or control others, or as a result of irrational thinking that needs to be changed and subsequent behaviour that needs to be managed. Strategies can include avoiding triggers, learning relaxation and rationalisation. Whilst these approaches offer simple practical advice, they often disregard the effort already undertaken by the person to change their behaviour, and the all too common ‘blindness’ or ‘seeing red’ that makes cognition, and an ability to be rational, temporarily impossible .
Empathic anger therapy
The empathic anger therapy offered by Nottinghamshire Counselling provides a safe, containing atmosphere where individuals can begin to process their rage by exploring significant life events, whilst being supported to find new, more effective ways of expressing their anger healthily in order to get their needs met.
If you are experiencing difficulties in this area and would like to discuss the possibility Empathic Anger Management, please contact Natalie or Kate for further information or to make an initial appointment.
on 07952 892458 or e-mail natcoupland@aol.com
or
on 07766 256359 or e-mail katemaclellan@hotmail.com
We will do our best to answer any further questions you may have.
To visit Sue Parker Hall's website on Empathic Anger Management click here.
