By Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D., Anger Topic Expert Contributor

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I do what you want, but you never let me do what I want!
Duncan had his heart set on the new BMW sports car, but Estelle wondered whether it was the best way of spending money at this point. There were other more important priorities like her business start up, the kids school fees and house repairs to consider.

Duncan blew up. “You never let me have what I want! When you wanted to go to Peru I agreed because I knew what that meant to you. I let you choose the living room furniture even though I hated it. Yet when something is important to me you pour cold water all over it, and make me feel selfish.” Read the rest of this entry

By Anne Ream, ATR-BC, LPC

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Like all emotions, anger comes and goes according to whatever is going on within and around us. When we pay attention to our anger and can use it well, it can be a gift that motivates us to do what we need to do. Anger can create powerful energy. Repressed anger can cause depression. Paying attention to a feeling and learning how to use it, are skills anyone can develop.

Unfortunately, many people are taught during their early childhood not to feel anger. Many adults will shame children out of having angry feelings, which is often due to the adult’s fear that a child’s anger will get out of control. Sometimes it does and that is when adults have the opportunity to help children learn how to use their anger. It is important to have respect for everyone’s angry feelings, including a child’s. If adults can recognize and respect a child’s angry feelings, they can teach the child how to use the energy of their anger to change themselves or part of the problem constructively. Read the rest of this entry

By Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D., Anger Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Do you feel ashamed when you lash out at the people you love the most? Do you wish you could erase it for ever and be free of this beastly emotion? That’s because there is a taboo against feeling and expressing anger, particularly if done in a loud, over the top and explosive way. We don’t like to think of ourselves as uncontrolled and irrational. When our hot buttons get pushed beyond what we can manage we feel scared that we have let ourselves down, that others will think badly of us and that we may never recover our good image.

Do you prefer showing your anger by giving someone the silent treatment? Now think of the time when a friend didn’t return your calls and you felt angry at being ignored. Perhaps you didn’t answer the phone when your friend did eventually call you back. You wanted to get your own back and punish your friend. It is a conscious and pre-meditated act of anger. Somehow this way of releasing anger is more acceptable, but not necessarily better for the relationship. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Summary

Emotional responses to being insulted may vary from person to person, but results are typically negative. In many cases, people may feel inclined to demonstrate aggressiveness when provoked, either through verbal or physical attacks. Curiously, however, a recent study has shown that an action as simple as lying down can significantly reduce the impulse to strike back.

Held at Texas A & M University, the study invited participants to craft a short opinion-based writing piece about a contentious issue. The participants were not initially briefed about any incorporation of anger into the research, but were told that their essay would be read and evaluated by someone in a nearby room. The participants were then presented with a recording of an “evaluator” making derogatory statements about the intelligence of the essay and its writer; participants were either standing or reclining while reviewing the recording. Significantly, those participants who were lying down while absorbing the statements were far less likely to feel aggressive towards the source of the offense, and displayed a lower tendency to desire counter-attack, a reaction clearly indicated by simultaneous brain scanning. Read the rest of this entry

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by David Walton Earle, LPC

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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! Read the rest of this entry

Written by Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

A few months ago Gillian felt lifeless, dead inside and uninterested in anything. Everything was an effort. She just wanted to sleep. She suffered bouts of constipation. She didn’t want to meet anyone, prepare food for herself or take care of her dog. She couldn’t go to work. Her words came out slow and with long pauses in between. The words were flat, without expression – just like she felt. She couldn’t even cry. Nothing touched her and she moved like a robot from her bed to the shower to a chair and back to bed again. She didn’t care about anything or anyone. This was not the Gillian she knew or wanted to be. She had always been driven to work hard, please those around her and then earn her rest. She had been very sociable and knew how to have a good time.

Now Gillian is very angry and tearful. She cries easily when memories of past hurtful relationships invade her as if from nowhere. She complains of being exhausted and resents having to go to work. She is impatient with herself and others when problems don’t get sorted out quickly. Anything in her immediate environment that has a glitch feels like another burden on her shoulders. Nothing feels right and that makes her furious. She has enough of her own stuff to deal with. When the world outside also has ‘problems’ it makes Gillian want to give up bothering to face the day at all… Read the rest of this entry