Anger Management
Anger is an emotion that is experienced in differing degrees by everyone. It can range from mild annoyance and frustration to intense rage and explosive outbursts. Anger can often mask other hidden feelings such as hurt, anxiety, and sadness. Anger often leads to a range of overt behaviours such as yelling, criticising, throwing objects, or hitting something. However, anger can also be accompanied by less overt behaviours such as ignoring someone or becoming withdrawn. Furthermore, at the extreme level anger can lead to acts of violence and abuse such as pushing, grabbing, or hitting someone.
There are a number of factors that contribute to our levels of anger and how we express this emotion. These factors typically include genetic components and what we learned about showing and expressing anger while growing up. Furthermore, life stressors can increase our likelihood of becoming angry while drugs can reduce our ability to control our aggression. Anger may seem more frequent in men, as it is often perceived as a more masculine and socially acceptable emotion for men to express.
When is anger a problem?
Anger can become a problem when it affects relationships with other people such as family, friends or colleagues. Anger can also impact your health by increasing your heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of stress hormones in your body. Anger can also cause legal trouble, particularly when physical violence and abuse are involved.
Some signs that anger may be a problem include:
- Your anger is accompanied by verbal, emotional, physical or psychological abuse
- You feel angry a lot of the time
- Your anger is affecting relationships
- You frequently get angry over minor or trivial things
- Anger lasts for a long time after the event that triggered it
- You are becoming anxious or depressed about your anger
- You tend to blame other people or circumstances for your anger
- Others around you are concerned about your anger
How counselling can help
If anger issues are not managed, your anger can begin causing problems for you and others around you. It is important to manage anger before it leads to other serious problems such as health issues or psychological conditions such as anxiety or depression.
Anger management counselling focuses on where anger comes from, allowing you to understand the causes of your anger, and therefore how to manage it. Counselling sessions are not aimed at suppressing or bottling up your anger; rather teaching you methods to express feelings of anger in a controlled way. Anger management also focuses on learning the triggers and early warning signs of anger, and effective techniques to calm down and manage a potential problematic situation before it gets out of control.
How Life Resolutions can help
Life Resolutions has a network of qualified psychologists, some who specialise in anger management. We offer individual sessions, as well as group workshops. Visit the Anger Management Course page for more information about group workshops.
Visit the Contact Us page to make an appointment.