Understanding Anger Management

Anger management includes many different methods of controlling and managing anger to avoid rash or even dangerous behavior.
For example, a judge might require a multiple offender who "road rages" to attend anger management classes. Or, a doctor might suggest a patient with high blood pressure do the same.
Anger management techniques don't squash anger but give people tools to identify their triggers, warning signs and ways to effectively diffuse their anger, before their fuse is lit.

Identification

• Anger management is applied behavior modification that can be used in many different settings, whether in a clinical therapeutic setting with a therapist or in a more general class designed to help people deal with many different scenarios.
  Anger management can include a self-inventory, which allows each person to clearly identify what triggers his or her anger.
  Next, he or she learns to identify physical cues and ways to manage or control anger before it gets out of control.

Uses and Approaches

• A mainstay of cognitive therapy, anger management is often used to reduce stress, anxiety and antisocial behaviors. In a therapy setting, a therapist might role-play different scenarios with a client to teach him or her how to manage anger.
  Anger management therapy can also be applied to reduce stress for hypertensive patients. For example, they will learn to recognize their physical cues, such as feeling warm or talking more slowly as their anger rises. They may be taught breathing techniques to help them manage their anger and to prevent their anger from causing their blood pressure to rise.

Features

• An example of anger management theory involves having a client write down the scenarios that make her lose her temper: Does standing in line too long anger her? Stalling in traffic or rushing to work? Points can be assigned to identify the high-anger scenarios.
  Next, the client identifies how she can tell she is getting angry: Does she feel her face getting flushed and warm? Is she starting to raise her voice?
  Last, the client is taught simple actions to diffuse the anger immediately. For example, if she is getting hot, she might use breathing techniques and re-frame questions into "I" statements. For example, she might learn to say, "I don't understand why this is taking so long. Could you explain why?" rather than, "You appear to be taking a long time to fix that."

Significance

• By identifying the scenarios that may trigger your temper and knowing how you physically respond to anger, you can stop a tantrum before it is set in motion.
  Learning to identify your specific high-stress buttons before they are pushed and learning specific strategies to manager your anger puts you in control of your emotions.

Misconceptions

• It is a misconception that anger management means not expressing anger or pretending to never being angry. That would just suppress the anger, only to find that it explodes at a less opportune time later.
  Instead, anger management acknowledges anger as one of a range of emotions that can be managed and expressed without creating conflict or damage in professional or personal relationships.