Anger Management

In his blog Exquisite Corpse, writer and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu this week offered his views on the dangers of anger management. He writes, "Anger is such a great feeling. I would hate to see it lost to management."

The poet and novelist goes on to list some historical horrors, such as slavery and child labor, that would still be common in this country were it not for anger. He also alludes to circumstances and people that would evoke outrage in practically anyone.

I realize that all of this is offered in the sublime, ironic style that Codrescu so deftly employs. It requires no rebuttal. In fact, his points are some of the same points that I would make to anyone seeking help due to anger issues: Anger can be justified. Anger can be useful. It is a basic emotion and therefore helps define us as human beings.

The point that I would add, coming from a CBT perspective, is that anger management is about staying focused on your goals. Say you're in a hurry to get to an important meeting, when you're stopped by a police officer for speeding. Now you're really running late, and that makes you angry. Your goal is to get through the interaction as soon as possible so you can be on your way. If you allow your anger to influence your behavior, perhaps getting mouthy with the cop, then you'll likely be kissing your goal goodbye. If, on the other hand, you're able to use techniques to temper your anger's intensity, you're more likely to move things along.

In other words, managing anger doesn't give others a free pass. It rather gives you a leg up.

Thinking in black and white

An important part of any therapy is helping people make sense of things. As a therapist, if I can help someone figure out what’s really driving their emotions and behaviors, then there’s a chance they can do something about it.

One of the ways that CBT makes sense of things is by helping people identify the thoughts behind their moods. Once you pinpoint the thoughts, then you can start to examine them for accuracy.

I’ve found that many of my clients benefit from a list of thought categories that drive moods. These lists have various names—cognitive distortions, irrational beliefs, thinking errors—none of which I particularly like because of their pejorative nature. They’re simply ways of thinking that everyone engages in from time to time. The important thing is to recognize when your thoughts fit into one of the categories.

In this post, I’d like to look at one of the most common thought categories: black-and-white thinking (a.k.a. all-or-nothing thinking or dichotomous thinking). This happens when you see yourself as having very limited options in a situation, and none of them is good. Further, the options often represent opposite extremes (hence the “all-or-nothing”).

Some examples:

“I’m either a complete success or a total failure.”
“I can either stay in my job forever or quit right now.”
“If I don’t bottle up my anger, then I explode.”

When feelings are running high, it’s easy to lose sight of your options. Depression and anger can narrow your view even further. The CBT way of addressing these kinds of thoughts is to challenge them by asking, “Are these really the only options?” “Is there some middle ground or alternative that I haven’t considered?” Often it’s helpful to see your options as a continuum, with extremes at either end. This can help highlight the possibility that other choices exist somewhere in between.

Anger: The guest that won't leave

Say you’re waiting in your car at a red light. It turns green. You start to go, when another car zips through the intersection, running their red light and nearly taking off your front end. Now you’re angry. How long does it take for you to cool down?

If you take a long time to cool off from anger, you may be doing one of two things: rehearsing or elaborating.

Rehearsing refers to playing out situations in your mind in which you act upon your anger. You tell the person off. You make cutting remarks. You scream. You might even exact revenge in creative ways. None of this actually happens, but it’s all very real inside your head.

What happens to your anger level while you’re imagining these elaborate scenes? Most likely, it’s on the way up. It’s only natural for your anger to intensify, or at least gain staying power, if you’re keeping it around in your thoughts. After all, you’re rehearsing for anger, and we tend to get better at what we rehearse.

Another mental activity that keeps anger around is elaborating. After getting angry at someone you know, have you ever found yourself thinking of every thing you don’t like about that person? Or you might make a mental list of every time they made you mad in the past. The current issue may even be forgotten by the time you’re through. In any case, you’ve just given yourself a lot more reasons to be angry.

Trying to stop rehearsing or elaborating altogether is a lofty goal, but there are ways to cut back. Using ideas from anger management self-help books, working with a therapist, and practicing mindfulness can all make a big difference. Just becoming aware of when you’re engaging in either of these activities can help. And when you’re able to shorten your cool-off time, just think of the extra time and energy you can devote to things that matter more to you than that person who just ran a red light.

From zero to 100 in a heartbeat

The last time you found yourself getting seriously angry, how long did it take? A lot of people say they go from feeling perfectly fine to feeling really angry in about two seconds. Some people even report feeling “blinded” by their anger. They do or say things they later regret.

How is it possible for something so powerful to sneak up on you so quickly? The answer may lie in self-awareness.

Self-awareness is knowing what’s going on in your mind and body at any given moment. When you react to a situation—like that driver who just cut you off on the freeway—changes happen in your body and mind. These are your anger cues. They tell you that unless you do something different quick, you might be headed for trouble.

There are at least four different types of anger cues to look for—body sensations (rapid heartbeat, for example), behaviors (such as slamming objects), emotions (embarrassment, fear, etc.), and thoughts (“Here we go again!”). Everyone’s cues are different. If anger is a problem for you, it’s important to become intimately familiar with your own unique anger cues.

This idea fits well with CBT, which can help people heighten their awareness of their own inner experience. This is often a first step toward managing moods and behaviors. When coupled with mindfulness practice, CBT can be used to foster tolerance of anger cues without necessarily acting on them.

For a lot more information on anger, check out AngerManagementExpert.