Help for Anger problems using appropriate therapy at 1066 Therapy
covering East Sussex, Battle, Hastings, Bexhill, Rye, Heathfield, Hailsham, Eastbourne, Brighton, Crowborough, Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Ashford and Kent.
Many people consult me wanting help for anger problems at my practice just outside of Battle, East Sussex. I am mostly asked for help from people who have a ‘short fuse’, whose angry outbursts are causing issues in their relationships, at work, or both. However, there are other types of problems relating to unhealthy expressions, or non-expressions, of anger as described below. The right therapy approach for the individual, e.g. Lifespan Integration Therapy can help many anger problems.
Healthy anger
Let’s look at healthy anger first. Anger is an appropriate response when someone has crossed our boundaries, even when we’re not exactly sure what the boundary is. It is our internal ‘signpost’ that we need to do something about the person/situation. Healthy anger is also called ‘assertiveness’. It has several key points. We need to express it at the right person, about the right thing, in the right proportion, at the right time, and without hurting anyone. This is healthy, appropriate and feels such even when we reflect back on it. However, this is difficult to do if the (real) cause of our anger issues is unprocessed emotional ‘baggage’ from our life experiences. This is by far the most common cause of unhealthy expressions (or non-expressions) of anger.
Unhealthy anger
Many people have problems with unhealthy anger. This is different in many ways to the healthy version. It tends to originate from ‘suppressed’ anger, connected to negative past events. The emotions have not been properly processed. They are ‘stuck’ in our system and lead to out-of-proportion / inappropriate reactions. Â
Suppressed anger usually leads to one of two ways of behaving:
Acting it out ~
This is when we tend to ‘lose it’, even when the situation is only mildly stressful. It is inappropriate and uncontained anger (i.e. aggression / rage). As opposed to the healthy variety, this can lose jobs and ruin relationships. It can also on occasion be violent and destructive. This is not very helpful. We may also sometimes slam doors or throw things as a reaction to a stressful situation. This can be a safe(r) way of acting it out than taking it out on another being. But it’s still not healthy and can be unsettling / triggering for anyone witnessing these behaviours. Unfortunately, many people with this problem can see themselves as being assertive. But aggression is not being assertive. It is rare that another person will complain / have issues with us when we are being properly assertive. They may not always like us being assertive, depending on the person and the situation. That is different to them feeling threatened by aggression, though. People with this behaviour usually grew up with one or both parents having their own anger issues.
Acting it in ~
Alternatively, there are many people who stay quiet when the situation actually requires healthy anger. Doing this is also an inappropriate response. However, they don’t usually ask for help with this as the only person it is harming is themselves (see below)! Here, we do not, as a rule, express anger (of any type). We might say things like ‘I don’t get angry’ or ‘I don’t do anger’ or ‘I don’t like confrontation’. This doesn’t mean we never experience anger though -> we do. What we really mean is that we don’t express appropriate, healthy anger to other people. Â
Most often, we hold it all in, suppress it and turn it against ourselves with a seemingly endless stream of personal criticism / attack. And then I hear in therapy: ‘the only person I get angry with is myself’. The trouble is that when we suppress emotions in this way, we can develop other problems. Perhaps we will hold tension in the body. Or we may develop other problems such as depression, self-hate, self-loathing, feelings of powerlessness, and so on. Experts such as Dr Gabor Mate have found that unprocessed anger held in the system is a leading cause of auto-immune issues, especially in women. This is because, culturally speaking, we are taught that ‘nice little girls don’t get angry’ so they are more likely to hold it all in.Â
Sometimes people swing between acting out and acting in anger. On occasion, anger is somebody’s default emotion, no matter what is happening. It is important to remember that, whenever we act out anger at a disproportionate level to the situation, it means we feel triggered somehow. Similarly, if we ‘clam up’ when we ought to be standing up for ourselves, somebody/thing has triggered us. Unfortunately though, whether we ‘act out’ or ‘act in’, we will feel absolutely justified in doing what we are doing at the time.
Is it a Primary, or Secondary / Default emotion?
Anger is normal, natural part of our survival response – the ‘fight’ part of fight/flight/freeze. Thus, we can protect ourselves or our loved ones if we are in real danger, or in pain. Or if we sense a threat to our well-being (e.g. being bullied) or our boundaries are crossed. Technically though, our survival response is activated by fear. This makes anger secondary to the primary emotion of fear. It can also be a secondary / default emotion ‘masking’ other, usually more uncomfortable, feelings such as hurt, shame, insecurity, vulnerability etc. When it is a ‘default’ emotion, we will tend to get angry when we are feeling any uncomfortable emotion – we simply default to anger.
Most people are not regularly experiencing actual danger to their life and limb, or anything causing physical pain, or bullying. Any of these would explain the levels of their unhealthy anger very well. In contrast, when people ask me for help it’s often because they are ‘acting out’ suppressed anger, and their anger is usually out of proportion to the situation. Their anger is often inappropriate and unhealthy. Or it is a default emotion for them, covering up more uncomfortable emotions. Let’s not forget those who stay quiet when the situation requires that they be assertive – this is a problem with anger of a different kind.
Therapy help
Anger management and CBT have become popular in recent years to help people cope with these problems. These approaches can help people to manage their ‘short fuse’ and loss of temper to varying degrees. However these approaches usually don’t help to resolve the underlying problems. In fact, I remember hearing in a seminar that someone who had been to something like ten anger management courses was asked if they had helped and he replied “yeah, I feel great…as long as nobody pisses me off”! The root causes of these problems often stem from negative past experiences, usually from childhood. We need to work through the causes to enable a proper resolution to anger issues. The causes are usually long-forgotten by the time someone develops problems.
From experience, I tend to use Lifespan Integration to help people with this problem. It tends to be more effective than other models, assuming we have done enough work.
Please browse my site for information on the various therapies / approaches that I practise.
Call or text me now on 07722783490 to book your free 30 minute initial consultation.
