Anger
is a natural emotion that is often felt by people but is also often not
understood or managed appropriately.
Anger is a feeling or emotion that ranges from irritation to fury and
rage. Anger is a response that is
natural to feel in a situation when a person feels threatened. During this time, a person feels that they
are in danger or that another person has wronged them in some way. Also, anger can be an emotion that is
triggered when needs or desires are not met.
There
are several myths about anger that are often believed that need to be
addressed. The first myth is that anger
in inherited: It is often believed that
anger is inherited and cannot be changed but this is in correct. Studies have shown that people are not born
with a set specific ways of expressing anger and this is actually learned
behavior; which means people can learn ways to control anger
appropriately.
The second myth is that
anger automatically leads to aggression.
There is a misconception that the only way to express anger is through
aggression. In fact, effective anger management is done by using learned coping
skills that help control the escalation of anger. This can be done by learning how to use
positive self-talk, using behavioral strategies, and challenging irrational
beliefs.
The third myth is that people
must be aggressive to get what they want.
This is actually a confusion between aggression and assertiveness. The goal of aggression is to dominate others
to get what you want while the goal of assertiveness is to express feelings of
anger in a way that is respectful to other people.
The fourth myth is that venting anger is
always desirable. It was a thought for
many years among mental health professionals that expressing anger by screaming
or beating a pillow was the most effective way to manage anger. This is not so, and studies have shown that
expressing anger this way only leads to becoming better at being angry.
The
first step in learning to manage anger appropriately is to become aware of the
anger which includes triggers and cues.
A trigger is an event, circumstance or behavior of others that caused a
person to become angry. A cue is how a
person’s body identifies the anger they are feeling such as; increased heart
rate, knots in stomach, and the body feeling flushed. In addition to learning how to recognize
anger, a person needs to learn skills to manage their anger. These skills should include immediate skills
to reduce anger when it increases and preventative strategies to help not become
angry. A few immediate skills could be
taking timeouts, deep breathing exercises, and thought stopping. An example of preventative strategy is
learning how to interact appropriately with others and being assertive instead
of aggressive.
Anger is
a natural emotion that everyone feels but people can learn skills to be able to
prevent their anger from increasing or manage it appropriately so it does not
become a problem for them in their lives.
Dave Homer, LCSW