In this journal, I share with you a snippet of my work with Burt regarding an emotion that we, at times struggle to deal with. That is, anger. The vignette below was taken from our first psychotherapy session. I previously met him for the initial assessment where he expressed his goals. As you will notice, we delve quickly into one of his main concerns, anger management.
Burt: I just like to frame the goals again and it’s kind of like threefold. So, the first real goal I think with you, is to work on strategies to lengthen my fuse, and my overall agency. When I’m having arguments with my wife. Yes, like so normally my temperament is like, I want to be like this very Zen, hands behind my back, just caring, thoughtful, quiet person: that’s like my ideal identity. And so, I really try to do that in my life and I think that I’m able to do that but I may be bottling up things that I don’t deal with them in the right way. Then, you know, when I’m fighting with Susie, my wife, I’ll just all of a sudden like, explode and you know, nothing like, like bad physically…
Dr. Ferrer: You mean, aggressively.
Burt: Yeah. And I hate that, and I wish there was a way for you in that moment to say, stop. This is not how you want to handle this. You want to be gracious and do the hardest thing, which is like be kind to the person you’re angry with.
Dr. Ferrer: I hear from you the desire to be in a Zen state, but I didn’t hear an acknowledgement about the fact that emotions are emotions, pleasant or unpleasant. If you are, therefore, focused on only achieving a constant experience of calmness; then, it appears that you are denying the validity of anger. Anger is an emotion that’s part of our human experience. Earlier, I use the word aggressively because anger and aggression are not necessarily the same. One can be angry and use that anger to go out and protest for a cause towards social justice. Then, another can be angry and loot and break windows. Those are two different things. But just same, the underlying experience is anger. I also hear that you tend to suppress your anger because you judge it as if it’s wrong. And so therefore, you haven’t been able to find ways to process the emotion well, let alone express it in a more effective way. Instead, you said that you just bottle it up because you think it is wrong to express it until such point when it has already built up.
Burt: Yeah, no, that’s great. I, I don’t think I necessarily deny it. But you know, that could be true that my whole life, I sort of view it as some sort of weakness instead of like a healthy expression. And I guess, you know, the looting thing is a great metaphor for me when I lash out when I don’t want to. And so, um, I guess yeah, I mean, that makes sense. It would be better for me to embrace my feelings, but then find the response that I’m going to feel proud of or just feel better about.
The importance of this vignette is to demonstrate that one of the keys to behavioral change is achieving an increase in self-awareness. Burt is aware of his explosive tendencies, but he only saw it as a weakness and dismissed the reality that anger is a vital part of human experiences. By accepting this normal emotion, he understood that he can then learn ways to express it more effectively.
Throughout the succeeding therapy sessions, Burt shared other situations where he finds difficulty in identifying, processing and managing his anger emotion. However, he also had begun applying the strategies we built during our meetings. In general, this strategy included the following elements. However, this is only an example pertaining to his interaction with his wife towards the goal of reducing angry outbursts.
1. Increased awareness of various feelings throughout the day, but with particular emphasis on recognizing anger. Anger may stem from repeated frustrations. I posit that frustration is a reaction when we don’t get our needs met. In the case of Burt’s argument with his wife, the need is to be heard and/or validated. When he thought that his wife was unable to display empathy and understanding, then he got frustrated. But, he suppressed this feeling for as long as he can’t anymore. Ultimately, he exploded through mean words and a harsh tone of voice towards his wife. One specific strategy he agreed to practice was to pause periodically, throughout the day. For example, every hour, he paused to identify the feelings and/or emotions during the past hour he experienced. If this included frustration or even anger, he then examined the need he had that was not met.
2. Worked on expressing his need. Rather than keeping his negative thoughts to himself, Burt started acknowledging when his point-of-views are dismissed in marital discussions. He learned to communicate to his wife by asking for an agreed time to express his thoughts. For example, “Honey, when’s the best time to talk to you about something that is on my mind?”
3. Be prepared for the conversation. Burt kept mental bullet-points, so his agenda was in order when he had the conversation with his wife. He expressed what he hoped an effective communication to be like and he learned to ask for his general needs in their relationship. In turn, he also asked what his wife needed from him.
The shift to an improved interaction between Burt and his wife was not overnight. Still, he reported that their fights decreased eventually. More importantly, he recognized that having marital arguments with consequent anger at times is just part of the process of getting through communication.
Anger is not bad! It is valid. It is when one expresses anger destructively does it become unfavorable and consequential behavior. However, there are numerous ways to process anger, just like what is presented above. It is important to break down each experience of anger and identify more effective strategies to manage it.
If you are experiencing difficulties with anger management, don’t hesitate to consult with a mental health professional and discover how you can also take better control of your emotions.
Read more from Rizaldy R. Ferrer, Ph.D.
