Down with Anger Management!

It all started with a tollbooth. I was driving to work in Dekalb, Illinois, where I worked as a faculty member in the Counseling program. I-88 is a toll highway, and I often stopped at the tollbooth to pay cash. I wasn’t watching paying much attention, and gave the woman in the booth an extra 25 cents. She took the change I gave her, then slammed the extra quarter back into my hand with so much force that it made a dent.  The whole rest of my drive, I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman and the quarter-sized dent in my hand. Had I made her angry by giving her too much change? Was I the hundredth person she encountered today who couldn’t count? Was she angry about something else and taking it out on me? Was she even aware of what she’d done?  Thus started my interest in the true nature of anger.

Historically, anger has been considered one of the triad of negative emotions. Along with depression and anxiety, it is often regarded only as problematic, causing us to communicate in ways we regret later, like crying, screaming or snapping at others, or leading to direct or indirect violent behaviors. Many view anger as one of the more ‘difficult’ aspects of the self, our own and others.  As a result, we have anger “management” treatment, which teaches us to regulate (or just suppress) our angry feelings, communicate in a way that doesn’t alienate or provoke others, and control our violent behaviors.

The traditional view doesn’t link anger to change. Instead, the emphasis is on the problematic aspects of anger, and its behavioral (and sometimes literal) partner in crime, aggression. This anger management model presents anger as the emotional precursor to negative communication processes and aggressive acts, and it is widely accepted. You have very likely been taught to focus on these negative aspects of your own anger; to focus on how your angry feelings change how you feel about yourself; on seeing yourself as difficult, demanding or out-of-control; or on how your angry feelings lead to conflict, negative acting-out behaviors, and aggression.

Obviously, the negative expression of anger and aggressive behaviors are problematic – but not everything about anger is a problem, or even negative.  I know many people whose anger makes them powerful. They make powerful changes for themselves, for others and the world around them, and their anger somehow seems to fuel that ability.  It occurred to me that the woman in the toll booth might have been trying to express something … possibly something about her powerlessness, and her need for change ...

Thanks to authors like Harriet Lerner and others, we have recently begun to understand anger in a more detailed and complete way. This has opened up new possibilities for using anger as a positive emotion leading to relational connection and productive change.

             The first step is to understand what it means to ‘be angry.’  How do we know when we are angry? How do we know how angry we are?  Anger, as with all emotions, has distinct physiological components, lots of them. We feel hot, cry, our stomachs get upset, our muscles tense. The intensity of these reactions varies from person to person, and situation to situation; they also more often than not interfere with our ability to think clearly about what is happening inside us. In contrast, the external facial expression of anger seems to be almost universal. People are able to recognize another person’s ‘angry face’ across many different cultures. What does this suggest? That our own anger may be more obvious to others than to ourselves. We can misinterpret our own reactions, telling ourselves that our anger is some other feeling, such as sadness or fear, but the people around us will pretty much always read it as anger.  

This is further complicated by our upbringing. Intentionally or not, parents often teach their children that some emotions are more acceptable to feel that others - but we all have the full set of emotions inside us. As a result, many people settle on what I think of as a ‘pet emotion.’ This is a single, familiar way of feeling that matches what they were taught was ‘acceptable’ as children. They settle on one such ‘acceptable’ feeling, and then try to force themselves to feel and express any strong or negative emotion as if it was that one. For many women, their pet emotion is sadness. When we feel guilty, we make ourselves feel sad instead; when we are embarrassed or angry, we feel sad instead. For many men, their pet emotion is anger. When they feel guilty, embarrassed, or sad, all these emotions register as anger. The first step in understanding anger is to recognize anger when we are feeling it.

            As we’ve seen, that isn’t as simple as it may sound. I personally have had mixed success with this step. I definitely feel my anger; in fact, it might even be my pet emotion. Many who know me might tell you, “Beware of Fran when she has her storm-cloud face!” But I have struggled to make the link between my own internal reactions and my external expressions of anger. Like many people, I often look angry when I am actually experiencing some other, quite different emotion. This is the point where relational problems often happen, because others are reacting to our actual behaviors, and not to what we think those behaviors are. The lesson here is that it is important - and well worth your time - to learn how to recognize your own anger.

            One thing it seems we all get angry about is entitlement – as in “I am entitled to that parking space, I am entitled to your undivided attention, I am entitled to a little peace and quiet!” and on and on. When we think we deserve something and don’t get it, we feel angry.  So anger is delivering you a message, that something needs to be changed. There is a wonderful old saying about this: “If you keep doing what you always do, you’ll keep getting what you always get.”

One big problem with entitlement is that sometimes we’re wrong. We can pretty easily come to believe we deserve something when we don’t actually deserve it at all. This is called ‘destructive entitlement.’ The worst forms manifest as a belief that “others should always do what I want them to,” followed by extreme anger when those others don’t comply. And there is no doubt that anger based on destructive entitlement leads to a downward spiral of angry feelings and angry expression, toxic conflicts and aggression. In cases like this, there is no doubt that traditional treatments based on effective communication and anger management are an appropriate intervention. But here’s where anger management gets it wrong: These treatment strategies can reduce the frequency and severity of conflicts; however, they usually do not change the cyclic pattern of angry feelings and anger expression. This is why couples, even ones in active therapy, are often stuck in negative angry cycles; each is waiting for the other to “get the message” and change for the better. That generally doesn’t happen, of course, and when it doesn’t the downward spiral continues.

As a therapist, I have met people who have been through situations that made them angry in the extreme. I’ve experienced some of those myself, and you probably have too. In fact, the literature is pretty clear that we pretty much all get angry about the same things: unmet needs, injustice or relational injury. It is interesting that these sorts of experiences, especially those that sustain our anger over time, seem to cut directly to our core. What makes these experiences so powerful, so able to generate feelings of anger in us?  

Anger is deeply involved in the exercise of power. Power is the ability to get what you want, and anger can be a means to exercise power, especially when faced with loss of or the threat of loss. People feel anger when they believe they have experienced a violation of their rights, which is another form of loss. An important part of this belief is the conviction that one is entitled to a particular state of affairs.  Anger (and its emotional relatives like resentment or jealousy) can be sparked by ‘violated entitlement’ evoked any time one believes that something has or may be been taken away from them.  It is important to remember that entitlement is a two-way street; believing we’re entitled to something doesn’t necessarily mean other people agree, or will provide it. 

The more meaningful we find the thing we fear being taken away, the stronger the anger will be when it is threatened. People become angry when they perceive that their rights or boundaries have been violated, feel their needs and desires have not be met, or feel they have experienced an injustice. That anger can be directly linked to relational injury, betrayal, and violations of trust in relationships. It seems we all get angry at basically the same things.

            It follows, then, that negative aspects of anger are linked to destructive entitlement. This is when one person believes they deserve something, and uses their anger to manipulate or intimidate others to get it. However deserved or undeserved, over time many people respond to their anger with self-destruction, bitterness, or violence.

Now we get to why anger is my favorite emotion! The positive aspects of anger are linked to recognizing that being in touch with angry feelings creates the motivation and energy to create change. And so, there are people who respond to the same experiences with positive life changes, because they do something different with their anger. They respond with adaptive behaviors and continued personal growth. By doing that, they have transformed their own lives, and sometimes the lives of others around them. The secret to the positive, transformational aspect of anger is learning to listen to the message in our anger, understanding that message, and using it to drive us away from powerlessness and into positive change.

Written by Dr. Francesca Giordano Ph.D., LCPC