When a person has freedom to express emotions like happiness, sad, fright, etc. it is not logically fair to ask him/her not to express anger alone.  However, anger is counted as a negative emotion which prompts us to request the person to calm down, control himself/herself, or to ‘behave’.  When a person fails to ‘behave’, the next popular term echoed is ‘anger management!’

Anger - An Emotion to be Expressed or to be Treated?

You can express anger to show how you feel, how you are disappointed, what is the level of your frustration, and so on.  In this way, anger becomes yet another tool of communication.  However, it becomes a problem when it turns to be an attack in the forms of blame, cursing, swearing, and physical assault. 

It becomes a different problem when the expression of anger is thwarted.

“When I get into a temper don’t try and shut me up or send me up to my room.  Just let me have my say, get it off my chest, and then its done with.  Its when you won’t let me get it out, that’s when it really bugs me and I feel I’ve got to get back at you.”

Anger and Yong Persons

Cognitive theory explains that every feeling is associated with a piece of thinking.  Our behaviour is the empirical manifestation of our belief system and the way we think.  ‘I feel angry because I think ……………’ might give an explanation of what my belief or what piece of thinking causes anger at this point of time.  Cognitive theory of anger consists of a constellation of core beliefs, automatic interpretations, and feelings that comprise the manifestation of anger experiences.

An adolescent might believe that his/her parents are old-fashioned, out of touch, and unwilling to move with the times.  Such young person would refuse to listen to parental advice or directions which might lead to heated arguments and pay off.  Here, the core belief and the way he/she thinks prompts the person to mentally shut down or to refuse to follow directions, or to act in a non-obedient or oppositional manner.  While attempting cognitive restructuring on issues of these kinds, mental health professionals might use reflective statements like: ‘this is the way you think; it doesn’t mean that it is true’.

Challenging behaviour or ‘anger disorders’ could emanate from psychological, physiological, hereditary and social reasons.  Among the psycho-social reasons, history of abuse, trauma, domestic violence, etc. are predominant.  Victims of trauma would develop negative psychological scripts (thoughts) within their mind that prompt them to look at the external world from a totally negative dimension, which might lead to negative or antisocial behaviour.  Such Maladaptive behaviour could be identified on the basis of frequency, intensity, duration, mode of expression, effect on performance, and effect on interpersonal relationships.  Needless to say that such behaviour should be identified and appropriate early intervention be extended.

Guilt – the associated feeling

Very often anger is followed by another negative feeling of guilt, especially when the person believes that anger is a totally unacceptable behaviour.  Feeling of guilt would put the person down, causing withdrawal, and losing self-confidence. 

Unexpressed anger is unhelpful in two ways:

1. It will not communicate your real feeling to another person.  By hiding your frustration/dissatisfaction, you are blocking the real message to others which will lead to further confusion or frustration.
2. By hiding your anger you are creating or piling up repressed feelings which might warrant counselling/therapy sessions.

In order to avoid such guilt feeling it is important to believe that anger is yet another emotion which meant to be expressed for some good objectives like, avoiding a threat.  Since it is found that expression of anger escalates the problem rather than solving the issue, it becomes imperative to look at different options of expressing the message through less damaging, if not positive, emotions.

Anger Management

Mental health professionals recommend different short-term methods to deal with anger like:

• Counting
• Breathing and Relaxing
• Physical exercise
• Switching attention
• Going out for shopping or meeting with friends
• Cognitive restructuring
• Pressing the 'Pause' button to avoid conflicts
• Guided imagery methods
  

Such methods are useful to a great extend, though many cases do need personalised therapy sessions in order to find what causes anger and how to deal with it.