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Anger
Management
What Is Anger
Management?
Anger
management is a course of treatment that seeks to help people whose tempers
sometimes get the better of them and who---either verbally or physically---lash
out against family members, friends, acquaintances or coworkers. In some cases,
anger management is court-ordered; this is usually the case when a defendant is
brought up on charges of domestic violence. In other cases it is an outcropping
of psychotherapy during which a person seeks to learn not only about the causes
of his anger, but also how to deal with the actual expression of the emotion.
Misconceptions
It is a common
misconception that anger is a direct emotional response to an immediate adverse
situation. Instead, anger may be a symptom of a mental illness, a response to
severe stress, the result of previously not expressed negative emotions or
simply a sudden flashback to a traumatic event in one's past. To this end,
anger management is a highly personalized form of treatment. Granted, in most
cases a class will cover the same kind of materials, but in most anger
management groups there is also ample room for individual exploration of the
trigger events, the physical presentation of the building rage, and finally a
search for alternative ways of blowing off steam.
Function
The primary
functions of anger management are to help class participants recognize whether
they are more likely to experience aggressive anger outbursts or passive anger,
how to notice that an anger episode is coming on and how to appropriately
express anger to family members and others. Anger management does not seek to
help those in need of counseling find ways of avoiding their anger altogether,
since this branches off into psychotherapy and therefore goes beyond the scope
of anger management classes.
Identification
Anger
management treatment identifies passive anger as the kind of emotion that does
not result in an overt lashing out at another person, but instead manifests
itself by giving someone the silent treatment, manipulating the emotions of
others, evidencing emotional distance from the object of the anger, engaging in
obsessive compulsive behavior traits or avoiding conflicts at all costs. On the
flip side, those engaged in anger management counseling also work hard to help
participants in the various programs recognize the diverse facets of aggressive
anger. Some of these are intentionally threatening behavior, the use of foul
language, the deliberate injuring of animals or people and also drug use.
Effects
The effects of
anger management are far reaching. The techniques allow the individual to learn
how to recognize the onset of anger, and seek to diffuse the emotion before it
takes over the thought processes. Moreover, he learns how to focus the anger on
the issue at hand, rather than transferring it onto another person or on
situations that have been resolved in the past. By far the most important
effects are the changes that take place in family dynamics, fighting within a
family unit and also how those in the anger management program---and their
loved ones---interact with one another in the long term. By working together
and judiciously applying anger management techniques, a permanent change in
anger expression may be affected.
Warning
It is
tempting---as a family member of someone undergoing anger management---to
expect the person with the anger problem to do all the changing and growing.
Granted, if the individual employs aggressive anger, he should be expected to
stop the destructive patterns that have harmed family relationships thus far;
however, those around him are also required to change the ways they interact
with him. This may involve the avoidance of certain trigger words or gestures,
cooperation when the anger management graduate works on employing various
techniques learned to control the bodily manifestations of anger and also a
willingness to control their own anger and its expression. Sylvia Cochran http://www.ehow.com/about_4586355_what-anger-management.html
Anger
Management
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