It is Friday. You woke up, went to the kitchen, and poured some orange juice into a glass. Your week has been very productive so far, and today’s weather is particularly conducive to a good mood. To enhance that positivity, tomorrow the weekend will begin and you have some interesting travelling plans. You walk towards the door and grab the latest edition of the newspaper from your footpath. Ten seconds later, your facial expression has changed, your muscles have become tense, and your head feels a bit radiated. You have read that an innocent young man was murdered last night without any particular motive. You feel angry.

What is Anger?

Anger is a common part of our lives. Everyday we experience varied sorts of frustrations which derive both from ourselves and from external sources. In the previously cited scenario, feelings of anger would have been developed for many reasons, but they are all common to the fact that it was a situation that opposed your core convictions. Although you did not burst into tears or destroy the glass of orange juice sitting on the table ? the emotion was there. You may ask yourself: “But I don’t know this person, so why do I care?”

The answer to this question is not as clear as the emotion you felt, and nor is it simple ? but there are some leads. Let’s take a journey into the complex psychological mechanisms that produce this controversial (and mostly misunderstood) emotion.

The Physiological Framework

Fear, stress and anger are closely related processes. In previously published articles, we’ve discussed several mechanisms that create stress, and their natural purpose. In a nutshell, the Hypothalamus (region of the brain responsible for controlling the Autonomic Nervous System) identifies a stressor (which could be any event ? such as a noise) and automatically prepares the body to react to that stressor. This is done through sending signals to both the ANS and the limbic system ? which in turn, activate a ?response mechanism’ by stimulating body organs to change their regular activity. The outcomes are increased blood pressure, sugar levels, heart rate and redirection of the blood to selected organs. This is the process which creates stress, or the ?stressed physical state’. Both fear and anger are based on the incidence of stress.

In general, once the body has reached its stressed (?ready for fight or flight’) condition, it is our interpretation of the event which will denominate the emotion of fear or anger. The pre-cortex, responsible for decision-making, will send messages to other parts of the brain and the following reactions will be based on its decisions. For this reason, some researchers attest that every state of anger is a result of fear. In detailed physical terms, anger invokes a reaction in which the skin temperature and electrical conductance are increased (the ?firing sensation’) whilst the opposite occurs when fear is established (the ?cold sweat sensation’).

All these body responses are biologically designed for survival. There is no evidence that anger per se is hazardous to the human body ? the problem lies in the expression of anger, and how easily people get angry (it has been previously stated that excessive stress causes physical harm to the body).

For more information on the physiological basis and outcomes of stress, visit the AIPC Library (www.aipc.net.au/articles) and search for the article ‘Dealing with Stress’.

The Sociological Framework

The perspective on anger has changed over time. The initial societal approach to analysing this issue originated in the principles of several different religions and their particular codes of conduct. In three religions ? Buddhism, Islam and Christianity ? the view towards anger and violence were never favourable. Buddhists consider it one of the five major negative states (also known as hindrances or nivarana) which directly oppose the way to enlightment. The Islamic religion believes anger is a sign of weakness and an undesirable feeling, whilst early Christianity considered it one of the Seve

Science has also played its role in defining the perspective on anger. Before Sigmund Freud, most scientists believed that there was no direct biological disposition for the expression (and emotion) of anger. At the end of the 19th century, Freud proposed that individuals were born with an innate aggressive instinct ? which when neglected would instigate hostility and aggressive behaviour. This proposition was disregarded in 1988 when the American Psychological Association and the American Anthropological Association reviewed several research papers and concluded there was no clear indication that anger was genetically predisposed. After the human genome was mapped and other scientific advances were accomplished, however, such perspective towards anger began to shift again.

Nowadays, despite the biological or sociological premise of anger, the expression of this emotion is regarded as a highly negative trait in most societies. People that are prone to ?explode’ are less capable of forming healthy relationships with others, and usually develop a ?bad image’. Workplaces and social environments commonly object to violence and are intolerant to rage. However, there are some cultures in which violence is a common part of people’s lives ? usually in developing countries where there is a significant gap between social standards which cultivates hatred between different layers of society.

Most researchers agree that violent expressions of anger commonly result from ?behaviour modelling processes’. Children from violent domestic environments tend to behave like their violent parent(s) ? and, most of the time, this occurs because they assume it is the appropriate or ?normal’ way to express their angry emotional state. Violence and anger are also related with situations where being aggressive results in power and social recognition (or perceived respect). Many bullies (particularly male children) act violently upon others to gain status as the alpha male of the group, or simply to express their fears and frustrations by shifting attention and blaming external sources for their personal problems. As previously stated ? anger and fear are closely related emotions.

The Bright Side of Anger

If anger is a natural response of the body, why should we oppose it? Being angry is a synonym of being healthy and lively ? as much as stress works in the same way. People that express no anger are usually incapable of standing up for themselves, achieving important goals or surpassing difficult obstacles. Anger is not only part of human nature, but also beneficial to the existence of humanity.

Put yourself in the first scenario again: imagine if you felt nothing when you read that newspaper. Anger enables individuals to quickly create an emotional scale which is directly related to their ethical principles and to the avoidance of pain and particular experiences which have resulted in negative outcomes in the past. It is similar to stress defensive mechanisms. If we are completely numb towards something which is totally opposite to our ideals, we are likely to accept it, and as a result, not develop drive and passion towards our most desired goals in life.

The presence of fear, anger and stress helps create the alertness and readiness required to react to the environment. But the decision-making process plays a very important role in how anger will reflect in our behaviour. Most people tend to associate anger with the actual aggressive responses that may follow it. Being angry does not necessarily mean attacking someone or breaking something. Generally there are two types of behavioural responses to anger:

(1) Active responses (fighting, screaming, breaking objects, etc) and;
(2) Passive responses (retreating, sulking, showing hostility or tension, etc).

The actual response cannot really be classified in terms of good and bad – but the intensity and duration of the response, along with the individual’s anger threshold (how easy it is to make a person angry), are the main determinants of an unhealthy anger-responsive behaviour. So if you often get angry with minor problems or situations, or you are unable to control your ?temper’, or you often get extremely angry about something but simply ?take it’ and walk away (and then develop hatred) ? you may want to consider anger management. Furthermore, the propensity to experience anger can also be increased in particular (and inevitable) situations such as: menopause, PMS, birth, withdrawal (physical), bipolar disorder, etc.

The Dark Side of Anger

If you fit the description in the last paragraph, or know someone that does, there are many options for controlling anger responses in order to have a productive and healthy life. Anger Management has become a popular topic in the last decade. If you type in ?Anger Management’ on Google, you will find over 31 million pages on the subject and, along with them, numerous strategies and approaches to combat this ?dark side of the force’. It is important to note that anger and stress directly affect both psychological and physical health in a normal person ? therefore it needs to be considered as a ?real’ threat. Furthermore, it also has a very negative effect in the societal bonds that an individual may have, or could potentially gain.

Counsellors use various approaches in helping clients manage anger. The goal of anger management is to reduce both emotional and physiological arousal that anger causes. Like previously noted, you cannot constantly avoid or change every person, thing or situation which causes anger, but you can learn to control the reactions to them. ?Letting it out’ or ?releasing the bad energy’ is not a practical way to get rid of the problems which arise from anger: imagine if a person punches someone or something every time they are angry? This is a practice that is not physically or socially acceptable.

One of the main strategies used by counsellors is relaxation. Relaxation techniques such as imagery, meditation and breathing can assist with controlling feelings of anger and a tendency to violence. Cognitive restructuring provides the client with the opportunity to create a positive mindset towards the world. Using rational thinking and logic, clients aim to ?defeat’ anger and replace explosive and anti-social behaviour with reflective actions. If you do not believe, ask Anthony Robbins: “Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant”. Simple, yet effective.

Various other strategies include: changing the environment (when it is really inappropriate), using humour (silly humour can be a great substitute for anger), avoiding certain situations (there are some avoidable situations which can be, well, avoided), and improving communication (sometimes the core source of anger is plain miscommunication).

In the end, the objective is to provide the individual with tools he or she will use to become a person who can manage their anger ? from their perspective and within the social context.

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Use anger correctly and positive results can happen! This statement is very shocking, for it is in direct contradiction with experience. Most people have witnessed the sharp and cutting blade of anger as it slashes and cuts its victims and have experienced the unresolved anger that creates emotional distance be-tween themselves and their loved ones. It is natural to experience anger, but how can it achieve positive results?

When anger destroys a relationship, it was not used correctly. When the ex-pression of anger works in a positive direction, it clarifies to others the bounda-ries necessary for all successful and healthy relationships. Anger communicates a warning that a perceived violation has occurred and provides the necessary energy to do what is necessary to correct the situation. As strange as it may ap-pear, without anger there can be no successful relationships!

Anger has two distinct groups; new anger and old anger. Old anger is resent-ments, unmet expectations, and past emotional wounds. Old anger is each unre-solved anger event stored inside of us that when combined with a new annoy-ance adds to the emotional pressure cooker. Anger is energy and when this new anger is added to the boiling cauldron of unexpressed emotions, there is no place for this force to go blowing off the pot?s lid, as in the expression ?blowing my lid?!. The broken shoelace may be the last bit of energy added to the anger soup already cooking that result in the inevitable explosion! The sad part is that usually the targets of anger are the people that are the closest and loved the most.

Anger that is verbally expressed when it occurs, somehow does not add to the stockpile of old anger, and therefore loses its explosion potential. This is a simple rule of successful living. Appropriately expressing the anger as soon as possible keeps this anger energy from winding up in our internal ?anger pots?.

What is the best method of appropriately expressing this powerful emo-tion? A very simple, yet effective method of decreasing this energy is by actually saying the feeling word such as ?mad?, ?angry?, ?frustrated?, etc. In order for these words to release the energy, say them aloud. This verbal expression of emotions allows the person to connect with the energy behind the feeling, result-ing in a decrease in the intensity of the situation. If the relationship is important, then the direct expression of the anger toward that person is necessary for main-taining a healthily relationship. Other people need to know what the anger is about; for not many are

When people use anger to build relationships, each person has a clear under-standing of the other?s needs and boundaries. The expression of anger can be in normal conversational and even in a polite tone of voice; shouting, hitting, or the silent treatment is not confronting the anger in a healthy and successful manner.

A simple but effective method of confronting others in a non-threatening method is the ?See-Feel-Need? method. Confront the person who is the recipient of the anger using this simple model:? ?I see what happened? (describing the event)? ?this is how this made me feel?(use real feeling words, such as anger, hurt, etc) ? and ?I need this from you??(How can resolution ever begin until the anger person identifies what is needed for solution?)

Since becoming aware of individual anger is the key to this discussion, take personal responsibility for your anger by using ?I? statements. Use ?I? statements instead of the attacking the person by pointing the verbal ?you? finger; this puts the responsibility back where really belongs, on the person doing the confronting. Ask the question, whose problem is it? The answer is that it belongs to the per-son who is angry. Think about it this was, the person who is causing the anger might not even be aware of how their behavior is affection others and may even be surprised when confronted.

Take personal responsibility for the problem by using the non-threatening ?I? statements, as in ?I have got a problem?. Then use the ?See-Feel-Need? method for asking for what you need. This ?See-Feel-Need? system increases assertive-ness in a style that is non-threatening. Attack the problem, not the person!

The last part of this little equation is this? ?ask for what you want, be thankful for what you get, and then in a non-destructive methods to? negotiate the differ-ence?. Try to develop an attitude of allowing what others also need, commonly called a ?win-win? situation.

Personally deal with old anger by being willing to bring up wounds from the past with any associated pain but most importantly take responsibility for the emotion, don?t blame but talk about the situation. Grieving may be a necessary part of the healing process. The key is to examine the wounds of yesterday and their associated feelings then allow them to heal in the present time. Acknowl-edge the old anger, examine it, learn from the experience, and when that is com-pleted the anger is not needed, so let it go.

Many self-help groups are safe places to express anger, pain, and shame. If the anger is overwhelming and /or depression has occurred, a good starting place is a professional counselor. A trained mental health therapist can assist in unlocking the old anger and associated shame.

By choosing to use anger correctly allows the freedom to live today without the burden of yesterday. These few simple but very difficult steps will allow anger to work as nature designated, building not destroying relationships. Managing anger requires willingness to manage this emotion, direct expression of anger toward the correct person, and most importantly, the verbal expressing of the ac-tual feeling words. Although this is a simple plan, it is not easy. Use anger cor-rectly and positive results will happen.

Making Anger our Friend

Anger is an emotion, aggression is a behaviour and hostility is a behaviour style. Anger does not necessarily have to, or need to, lead to aggression. It is important for us to understand that we can become angry without acting aggressively. There is an often quoted phrase from the play ?The Mourning Bride’ by the 17th century playwright, William Congreve, “Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned or Heaven a rage as love to hatred turned”. Our rage can be righteous and constructive.

Anger can be a healthy, normal emotion but if we do not understand our anger we will allow it to take over our life making us destructive and violent, which is when it becomes a big problem. Not only does the anger eat away and destroy us but it also affects everyone and everything around us. It can emerge from one or a variety of causes and part of the process of therapy is helping to sort out the cause of our anger. In order to do this our anger must be acknowledged and felt. Naming our anger is a crucial stage in the healing process.

Our resistance to anger is no more wrong than the experience of our own anger. Both are very healthy human reactions. Once we learn to recognise that resistance we feel we need to look at it, try to understand it and then discuss it with a professional. Gradually, as we begin to acknowledge our resistances to anger it looses its power over us and we find it becomes easier to work through it and let it go.

Outbursts of anger, irritableness and being aware of having a short temper are very often symptoms of a form of depression. Often, when we feel depressed, we will feel angry that things are going so wrong for us, angry that we are in so much emotional pain and angry at the seemingly hopeless situation in which we find ourselves. As a child we may have been discouraged from showing the helpless, vulnerable sides of ourselves but we would still have had that urge to express how we feel. Examples around us as we grew older may have shown us that anger is a more acceptable way to us of expressing emotional pain than crying, or asking directly for help.

When we act out our anger other people see our breathing becoming more rapid, an initial reddening and then our face turning white, our voice will become louder and we will speak more quickly, our movements becoming erratic, our muscles tensing up, our face becoming distorted, our shoulders hunching up and we may probably clench our fists. If we continue down a path where we are constantly angry, whether we either suppress it or act it out, it will eventually cause major problems with very serious consequences to our health. We may also experience increasingly longer periods before we recover from i

Anger is designed to be our natural emotional response to protect us from danger. Anger is an essential part of our instinctual system for protection and preservation.?Anger can be used as a force of energy to be expressed when we need to push away or combat a threat.?However, if the threat is not real, anger will become a means of destroying our life and our relationships and cease to be a form of protection and

We need to use our intellect and discernment to identify whether a threat is imaginary or real. There is nothing irrational or wrong with experiencing anger from imagined scenarios and beliefs, it shows us that our emotional response system is working properly; our emotions will respond the same way in either scenario.?We need to understand that the scenarios which the mind project are often not rational at all which is where problems arise.? It is the thoughts, beliefs, and scenarios that our mind has become conditioned to which generate a response in anger.

Anger becomes a very real problem when we become dependent on it as a primary means of self expression, when we use our anger inappropriately or the threat of violence as a weapon to try to exert our will. Uncontrolled anger is harmful for both the targets of anger and the angry person. Inappropriately used, anger will destroy relationships, makes it difficult to hold down a job, and, as mentioned above, it takes a heavy toll on our physical and emotional health.

In some families, the expression of anger is not permitted. The children are taught that expressing anger is bad, selfish, etc. Children brought up in anger intolerant homes develop suppressed anger. Since the anger energy is not allowed to be channeled externally, the child learns ways of suppressing the anger inside.

A popular analogy for anger is the use water which is a good one as water is necessary for life. When water is channeled effectively, it sustains life, it allows us to drink, cook, bathe, etc. However, when water is channeled improperly, it causes massive damage. Water, as the equivalent of suppressed anger goes undetected, leaking from pipes that are behind walls. This leaky water creates mould, which will damage the supporting structures of the house. In a similar manner, suppressed anger harms our own being. It leads to feelings of guilt, depression, poor self-esteem and passive-aggressive behaviours such as seeking to get back at someone through passive-aggressive means.

It is a popular misconception that we inherit our anger, this is totally untrue. All this misconception achieves is to allow us to fool ourselves that our anger is an inevitable reaction over which we have no control. Our primary experiences with anger will be as children and, not only is the expression of anger learned, but it can become a routine, familiar, and predictable response to a variety of situations.

We need to learn the difference between being assertive and behaving aggressively. Assertiveness establishes our own authority and is respectful whilst aggression is threatening, bullying and intimidating. People listen when someone is speaking assertively but not when someone is being aggressive, they will only hear the anger

Many people believe that venting our anger is a positive thing in ways such as screaming at the wall or beating a pillow. This theory is absolutely wrong. The more we vent anger in an aggressive manner the more we learn to deal with situations in that manner. It does not achieve a positive result from others or within ourselves. Although we may feel better after an angry outburst, everyone else will feel worse. This is called an “apparent” payoff because the long-term negative consequences far outweigh any short-term gains.

With Counselling we learn to own our anger and allow it to manifest in ways which are healthy and positive. This can be a wonderful and powerful thing when learnt correctly. However, it can be counter-productive if not taught well. For example, a common approach to anger management is simply teaching people to control and repress their anger. This is not healthy! This will often redirect the anger to a different outcome which, as described above, could be depression, physical or psychological problems, or more serious physical ailments.

Counselling helps us learn to speak out, in ways that are safe and productive; this is particularly helpful when we suffer from suppressed anger. If we suffer from explosive anger, Counselling teaches us to learn how to calm down, think and find ways to discuss our thoughts and feelings in a productive manner. Counselling also helps us work out why we become angry and teaches us to make friends with our emotions and not be a slave to them.

In conclusion, anger is a natural part of our lives. There are many causes of anger and there are many ways to deal with anger. Once we recognise we have a problem with anger we should discuss this with a trusted professional.

Richard Gosling? www.sustainable-empowerment.co.uk

Anger Is Elusive And Can Creep Into The Most Benign Of Us All

No one wants to admit that they are angry. We may say that we get upset sometimes, but no one wants to say that they struggle with anger. Admitting we’re angry means admitting fault, and no one wants to do that.

But anger is like a poison to the soul and can destroy your life. Strong anger can be very damaging.

You’re friends and family can become afraid of you and your outbursts. If its not controlled, it can cause you to do things you never want to do. Anger can isolate you and leave you alone.

No one wants that.

• So even though it might be hard to admit you have trouble with anger, don’t you want to know ?
• Wouldn’t you want to know if something unseen was keeping you from being all that you could b

  Anger Stops You From Being The Very Best That You Can Be

  What causes anger ? That’s a good question. Many don’t know why they get angry, and finding the cause can seem impossible. The littlest thing can set them off – like someone cutting them off on the freeway, or putting the dishes away incorrectly. These obscure incidents do not appear to reveal the root of our anger.

  But there is a root, there always is. And more often than not, it is fear.

  You may be wondering: “What ? Fear ? Why would that make me angry“. This may seem far fetched, but most anger can be traced to some sort of fear.

  If you want to be free of anger and fear, then you have to be willing to look at yourself in an honest way. Only then can you see success.

  But many people just don’t know where to start.

  Do you really want to live in the dark about how to live a fulfilling life ? How many opportunities have you missed out on because you didn’t know to manage your anger ? This can help you come out of the dark and break free today !

  If You are one of them and Want To Overcome Anger, Then You may Want To Read THIS …