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Anger Management Techniques: Why They Fail
Lostie
Veteran
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/200910/anger-management-techniques-why-they-fail
Anger Management Techniques: Why They Fail
Anger management techniques aren't as common sense as they seem.
Published on October 12, 2009
At least a couple of times a year, I get asked by members of the press why anger management techniques don't work. (Actually, they can work on a temporary basis, if you remember to do them when you're angry. I'll get to why you're not likely to remember them in a bit.) The more important point is that anger does not need to be managed; rather, the sense of vulnerability that causes must be reduced.
Anger occurs in humans and animals when they perceive vulnerability and threat.The more vulnerable you feel, the more threat you will perceive. The 19th Century superstition about anger was that it somehow accumulates, "festers" like an infection, and turns into demons that make you do terrible things. What actually happens is that anger is self-reinforcing; the more anger you experience, the more vulnerable you feel without it, until, pretty soon you have a low-grade anger, usually in the form of resentment, virtually all the time. Any anger you experience on top of that high baseline level will escalate faster and rise higher than if you were starting at baseline. Anger management techniques can help with the escalation, if you remember to do them, but are of little help with chronic resentment.
In day-to-day living, most people experience resentment and anger as a result of ego threat - you feel a certain loss of self-value, because the world isn't responding to you the way you want. Naturally, the greater the sense of entitlement, i.e., the more you think you should get your way, the more resentment you will experience. Most anger problems - where anger makes you act against your best interests or keeps you from acting in your best interests - are really problems of entitlement and ego, which increase the sense of vulnerability when the world does not respond favorably to your entitlement wishes.
Blame vs. Motivation
Anger carries an attribution of blame. In fact, a useful formula for most anger is:
Vulnerability (shame, anxiety, disappointment, sorrow) + Blame = Anger
Take away blame and you just have the vulnerable emotion; add blame and you get anger. Blame often distorts reality, which accounts for the paranoid features of problem anger. More importantly, it hijacks the motivational system by making vulnerable emotions seem like unfair punishments inflicted by other people. Vulnerable emotions are not punishments; they are motivations to heal, improve, or be true to your deepest values. The next time you are angry or resentful, forget about blame and justifying the feeling and focus instead on healing, improving, or being true to your deepest values. You will notice that the resentment and anger immediately dissipate.
Of course, it's nearly as hard to do that when you're angry as it is to remember anger management techniques. The culprit is one of the most powerful of neurological principles: habituation.
Forget Techniques, Think Reconditioning
The habituated perception of ego vulnerability and the subsequent anger response occur roughly 5,000 times faster than you can say, "I'm angry." By the time you know that you're angry, you're already motivated to devalue someone, at least in your head. In aroused emotional states you are not likely to recall what you learned in calm, learning states, which is why Mr. Hyde won't remember what Dr. Jekyll learned in anger management class or psychotherapy.
The best way to overcome the emotional states dilemma is to condition cues from one state with cues from the other, so that the occurrence of state-A (anger) activates state-B (value creation, through interest, appreciation, or compassion).
Our method of emotional reconditioning, called HEALS, focuses on the physiological signs of arousal - tension around the eyes, jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, and chest.There are two reasons for this. First, physical changes occur much more rapidly than conscious awareness of anger, making it possible for the associated response to occur automatically, without conscious effort. Second, by not focusing on content - what specifically makes you angry - you will generalize the conditioned response to include a wide range of triggers and avoid the trap of desensitizing just a few.
Each practice session of HEALS is about two minutes in length. It begins by recalling a past incident that provoked anger or resentment, with focus on the physical sensations. Next, identify the deeper vulnerability - feeling devalued (or, if it's someone you love, inadequate, or unlovable).Then abruptly conjure images that make you feel more valuable, such as rescuing a child from danger, symbols of love and spirituality, appreciation of nature and creative works, a sense of community, and small compassionate acts. The value images facilitate a behavioral shift from devaluing the object of your anger to a deeper, more humane understanding of the person who stimulated your anger.
After about six weeks of twelve repetitions per day, the association of anger arousal with value creation is habituated. The baseline resentment level is lowered. Because you feel less vulnerable, the frequency and intensity of anger are diminished.
Of course, HEALS is not the only way to recondition the anger response and make it less necessary in your daily life. But it includes the necessary elements of emotional reconditioning, most of which are conspicuously absent in anger management techniques.
CompassionPower
Anger Management Techniques: Why They Fail
Anger management techniques aren't as common sense as they seem.
Published on October 12, 2009
At least a couple of times a year, I get asked by members of the press why anger management techniques don't work. (Actually, they can work on a temporary basis, if you remember to do them when you're angry. I'll get to why you're not likely to remember them in a bit.) The more important point is that anger does not need to be managed; rather, the sense of vulnerability that causes must be reduced.
Anger occurs in humans and animals when they perceive vulnerability and threat.The more vulnerable you feel, the more threat you will perceive. The 19th Century superstition about anger was that it somehow accumulates, "festers" like an infection, and turns into demons that make you do terrible things. What actually happens is that anger is self-reinforcing; the more anger you experience, the more vulnerable you feel without it, until, pretty soon you have a low-grade anger, usually in the form of resentment, virtually all the time. Any anger you experience on top of that high baseline level will escalate faster and rise higher than if you were starting at baseline. Anger management techniques can help with the escalation, if you remember to do them, but are of little help with chronic resentment.
In day-to-day living, most people experience resentment and anger as a result of ego threat - you feel a certain loss of self-value, because the world isn't responding to you the way you want. Naturally, the greater the sense of entitlement, i.e., the more you think you should get your way, the more resentment you will experience. Most anger problems - where anger makes you act against your best interests or keeps you from acting in your best interests - are really problems of entitlement and ego, which increase the sense of vulnerability when the world does not respond favorably to your entitlement wishes.
Blame vs. Motivation
Anger carries an attribution of blame. In fact, a useful formula for most anger is:
Vulnerability (shame, anxiety, disappointment, sorrow) + Blame = Anger
Take away blame and you just have the vulnerable emotion; add blame and you get anger. Blame often distorts reality, which accounts for the paranoid features of problem anger. More importantly, it hijacks the motivational system by making vulnerable emotions seem like unfair punishments inflicted by other people. Vulnerable emotions are not punishments; they are motivations to heal, improve, or be true to your deepest values. The next time you are angry or resentful, forget about blame and justifying the feeling and focus instead on healing, improving, or being true to your deepest values. You will notice that the resentment and anger immediately dissipate.
Of course, it's nearly as hard to do that when you're angry as it is to remember anger management techniques. The culprit is one of the most powerful of neurological principles: habituation.
Forget Techniques, Think Reconditioning
The habituated perception of ego vulnerability and the subsequent anger response occur roughly 5,000 times faster than you can say, "I'm angry." By the time you know that you're angry, you're already motivated to devalue someone, at least in your head. In aroused emotional states you are not likely to recall what you learned in calm, learning states, which is why Mr. Hyde won't remember what Dr. Jekyll learned in anger management class or psychotherapy.
The best way to overcome the emotional states dilemma is to condition cues from one state with cues from the other, so that the occurrence of state-A (anger) activates state-B (value creation, through interest, appreciation, or compassion).
Our method of emotional reconditioning, called HEALS, focuses on the physiological signs of arousal - tension around the eyes, jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, and chest.There are two reasons for this. First, physical changes occur much more rapidly than conscious awareness of anger, making it possible for the associated response to occur automatically, without conscious effort. Second, by not focusing on content - what specifically makes you angry - you will generalize the conditioned response to include a wide range of triggers and avoid the trap of desensitizing just a few.
Each practice session of HEALS is about two minutes in length. It begins by recalling a past incident that provoked anger or resentment, with focus on the physical sensations. Next, identify the deeper vulnerability - feeling devalued (or, if it's someone you love, inadequate, or unlovable).Then abruptly conjure images that make you feel more valuable, such as rescuing a child from danger, symbols of love and spirituality, appreciation of nature and creative works, a sense of community, and small compassionate acts. The value images facilitate a behavioral shift from devaluing the object of your anger to a deeper, more humane understanding of the person who stimulated your anger.
After about six weeks of twelve repetitions per day, the association of anger arousal with value creation is habituated. The baseline resentment level is lowered. Because you feel less vulnerable, the frequency and intensity of anger are diminished.
Of course, HEALS is not the only way to recondition the anger response and make it less necessary in your daily life. But it includes the necessary elements of emotional reconditioning, most of which are conspicuously absent in anger management techniques.
CompassionPower
0
Comments
One question, though:
If people harbor non-acute levels of anger (e.g., resentment) most of the time, do they have severely impaired ethical judgment? I mean, when people have acute anger, they just don't care about doing the right thing.
To what extent is some ethical failure endemic in victims of such emotional illness?
Manage Your Anger Through Action and Awareness
Anger is a powerful emotion. It can dominate your focus, leaving you unable to think rationally, find empathy for those you care about, or see beyond your own perspective. If anger becomes enough of an emotional habit, it can even feel like you are helpless against it. Thankfully, this is not the case. By taking action to stop the escalation of anger when it arises and increasing awareness around the cause and nature of the anger, you can learn to master this forceful emotion.
Taking action, addressing the external:
- The moment you notice you are feeling angry, take three deep breaths (at least six counts on the inhalation and six counts on the exhalation, preferably with your eyes closed). This is about turning your focus inward. Anger is a very outwardly focused emotion. We are generally angry at someone or something which keeps our attention outside. Slowing down the breath will help center you and bring your attention back to your internal experience.
- If your anger is arising during a disagreement with someone, once both of you have made your points or expressed your feelings sufficiently for both positions to be understood, end the conversation.
- Let the other person know that you have heard what they are saying by paraphrasing their points back to them and asking if you have understood them correctly.
- Explain that you need time to consider what you have discussed and agree on a time to revisit the conversation (preferably within the following hours or days, depending on the gravity of the issue).
- Resist the urge to rehash things right then and there. When we are angry we generally feel justified in our anger because we believe that we are "right" and the other person is "wrong". Anger creates a type of tunnel vision which only allows us to see that which reinforces our perspective. It is important not to continue beating a dead horse, as the expression goes. Make your points, set a time to talk further, and walk away.
- If the other person is resistant to ending the conversation, explain to them that you need time and want to continue the conversation when you have both had a chance to consider each other's arguments. Then physically remove yourself from the situation to the best of your ability. Go for a walk, a drive, to a coffee shop, to another room. The important thing is to get some space so that you can take care of yourself and your anger before things escalate further.
- Find a place you can be alone with your thoughts, without distraction. Now you are ready to examine your anger. Onto the awareness portion!
Increasing awareness, addressing the internal:Anger is a masking emotion. When you are angry you most likely feel powerful, self-righteous, justified in your rage. Adrenaline is pumping through you and the desire to be right, to win, is almost intoxicating. This formidable experience hides the more vulnerable emotions you may be feeling. Your first step is to find out what your anger is masking.
Ask yourself:
- What is underneath my anger? What am I angry about feeling? Any number of answers may surface...sadness, fear, feeling worthless, unimportant, unrecognized, disregarded, lonely, jealous, helpless...let whatever is true for you arise.
- Am I judging what I am feeling? Notice whether you are judging any of the emotions which you have just uncovered. Many people associate vulnerability with weakness. This can make feeling the more vulnerable emotions which underlie anger an uncomfortable experience. We might feel exposed and at risk, but consider this, emotion is just sensation running through your body. No emotion can injure your physical body and no emotion is permanent. The judgment we place on our emotions is what makes feeling scary. If you judge yourself to be weak and un-lovable because you feel helpless, you are probably going to avoid acknowledging that feeling at all costs. But if you have no judgment on feeling helpless, you can simply notice your feeling and move on. What would it feel like to let your judgment go?
- How can I take better care of myself here? Anger often results from a feeling that our boundaries are not being respected. Examine whether this is the case for you. If so, how can you make your boundary clear? Stating what you are willing to do and what you are not willing to do is a huge part of self-care. Get clear about what you are willing to give and what you are not in the situation at hand.
- If I were in the other person's position, how would I be feeling? Putting yourself in the other person's shoes is a very powerful exercise. Sincerely attempting to see thing from the other person's perspective will go a long way in creating empathy and neutralizing your anger. We tend to take things very personally when we are angry. This exercise will help to get you outside that anger tunnel vision and to appreciate the other person's experience.
Begin your follow-up conversation with what you have learned. Keep your comments to your own experience using "I" statements. Let them know what was beneath your anger. Share what you discovered when putting yourself in their position. Your openness is an invitation for the other person to be open as well. When you speak from empathy, it automatically diffuses anger and makes more honest, caring conversation possible.Mastering your anger is a discipline. It requires dedication, perseverance and a sense of humor. Be gentle with yourself. Be patient. And when you just can't seem to get yourself out of that tantrum, look for the humor in the situation. It is almost impossible to be angry while laughing!
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0 sizset="79" sizcache="2"><TBODY sizset="79" sizcache="2"><TR sizset="79" sizcache="2"><TD vAlign=top sizset="79" sizcache="2">ALEXIS WALTERS is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Los Gatos, CA. She has over a decade of experience working with adults and adolescents, covering a broad range of psychotherapeutic issues.
Embrace change. Find empowerment. Call to schedule a session today.
*Phone sessions available**
For more information, visit her website at http://alexiswalters.com/
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