Anger Management Counselling
What is Anger?
Anger is a self empowering and protective emotion. It helps in protecting and claiming what is ours; our rights, our space, our body, our emotions, our identity, our goals. People who suppress their anger have difficulty taking up space, holding boundaries and protecting themselves from abuse or exploitation.
Getting in touch with healthy anger requires for us to focus on our self, validate and honor our emotions and never betray ourselves for others.
What are the benefits of Anger Management Therapy?
- Help you to identify triggers of your anger and can help you avoid them or manage your reaction to them.
- Change your unhealthy thinking patterns.
- Regulate your emotions, control your actions, and develop skills to help you cope with situations that trigger your anger.
- Practicing relaxation and mindfulness techniques.
- Encourages you to look for solutions or alternatives.
- Helps you express your feelings in a healthy, respectful, or assertive manner, without being aggressive.
Is anger a bad and negative emotion?
No emotion is a bad emotion and there is nothing like positive or negative emotions. All emotions play a unique role in shaping us and our life. The emotion of anger isn’t unhealthy or dysfunctional but our reaction to this emotion can be.
How Do You Distinguish Between Healthy and Unhealthy Anger?
We are all born with the predisposition to experience anger. Furthermore, anger is often a constructive and valuable emotion. It is often a signal that something meaningful is upsetting us. Anger mobilizes our attention and prepares our body to take action that often is adaptive. However, anger can become too intense and therefore problematic.
When is anger a problem?
- When it happens too often
- When it lasts too long
- When it negatively impacts others
- When the expression of it is inappropriate
- When it compromises efficiency and performance
- When it compromises health or quality of life
What is Anger Management?
Anger management is about being able to recognize the signs of anger, and learning the management of anger in a responsible and constructive way. It is a process that helps you identify the triggers that aggravate you, and resolve them with assertiveness and control.
How do I know if I need anger management or not?
If you have two or more of the following signs, it could mean that you need help controlling your anger:
- Threatening violence against people or their property when angry
- Engaging in physical violence or verbal abuse towards others
- Displaying unsafe and irresponsible behavior, such as reckless driving
- Avoiding situations due to anxiety about how you might react
- Constantly getting into arguments with people that escalate into violence
- Dwelling on negative experiences, or persistent pessimistic thoughts
- Constantly feeling hostile or irritable
- Regularly feeling the need to hold in your temper
What are some anger management techniques you will learn in therapy?
- Recognizing your triggers
- Learning more about why these things trigger you, and how you can see them more clearly in the future.
- Managing the physical symptoms (fast breathing, rapid heart rate, etc.) that can lead to an escalation in situation.
- Observing the situation for how it really is through reframing techniques.
- Determining what is an appropriate response to triggers.
- How to de-escalate situations.
- How to live a balanced, less stressful life.
Is it just anger or could it be something else?
This is something which every individual unpacks during the anger management session. Our anger is usually tempered with our true feelings such as shame, guilt, embarrassment, insecurity, hurt, vulnerability, anxiety, childhood trauma, stress, grief, fear, depression, etc. With the mounting pressures of daily life, we all need easy and safe ways to effectively discharge feelings of anger.