The Counselor's Study

From time to time someone will ask me why I do anger management therapy. The question is asked with a hint of a notion that I must be a little strange because I am working with angry people. I love the question because it gives me the chance to talk about my work and my passion for it.

I discovered that angry people make excellent clients. They, perhaps more than any of the other types of people, who I see, are highly motivated and engage very well in the counseling process. I have been working with anger clients for nineteen years. I began my career as a counselor in public school as both a mental health counselor and drug and alcohol counselor. That provided me with a steady stream of misbehaving, and also angry students. Some of these were extremely angry and behavior disordered pre-teens and adolescents. But the one thing they all seem to have in common was an appreciation for a non-judgmental and caring listener. They really liked counseling a lot. And I enjoyed their interest and motivation to be in counseling. They made great clients.

You may have noticed that I refer to the people I help as clients and not patients. That is because I am a licensed professional counselor (LPC), which is one of about five different types of mental health professionals. Each of these professionals was trained under a different philosophy. Professional counselors do not subscribe to a medical model; we don't see people as sick, but rather as experiencing life situational stressors. Therefore we view people as capable of making self-enhancing changes through the process of counseling. 

In my work as a private counselor I specialize in anger management. Anger is a misunderstood emotion. Most therapists have little understanding about the nature of anger. Anger is the energy emotion. It is the emotional drive needed to defeat anything a person perceives as a threat. Anger is all about protection. It is the protection emotion. Very often people with anger control problems behave with exaggerated anger due to their perception that someone has insulted or disrespected them. In these cases they are protecting themselves from feeling devalued.

Anger is a secondary emotion, meaning that some other emotion always precedes it. It is preceded by primary emotions such as loneliness, sadness, feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, and shame. Anger is both an anxiety disorder and a thinking disorder. People with anger control problems have developed a thinking style that controls their anger. They have insistent and demanding thinking patterns. For example: "People must absolutely never disagree with me." Such thinking sets the individual up for anger whenever someone is disagreeable.

There is no diagnostic catergatory for anger or a lack of anger control. This is probably a main reason why anger problems are neglected by mental health professionals. But I have discovered in my clinical experience that a lot of people have problems with anger and irritable mood. A lack of anger control is a cause of hurt and broken relationships. The problem needs to be identified for  what it is: hyper-reactive anger. Hyper meaning "too much." People with hyper-reactive anger over react, if fact the adrenaline that is released into the blood system can be self-medicating and numbs out the painful primary emotions. The adrenaline rush is often an addictive behavior that contributes to the individual's deliberate over stimulation of an anger response.

Individuals with hyper-reactive anger habits can learn to control their anger. Anger is a normal emotion, but hyper anger is not. By learning how to develop new thinking habits (cognitive behavior therapy) a motivated client can develop permanent anger control.


Characteristics of Individuals with Hyper-reactive Anger:

Feel like a victim, but look like a bully or an abuser

Feel isolated—no one wants to understand me

Grew up in a family with someone else who yelled or had anger problems

Tend to be perfectionists and have rigid expectations

Have an exaggerated fear of failure

Are insecure about being wanted and accepted by others

Are competent—have good ability to learn and make achievements

Are verbally abusive towards others

Believe getting angry is justified

Believe other people are the reason for getting angry

Have unmet emotional needs leftover from childhood

Unable to unconditionally like herself/himself

 Learn more at http://www.jdmcounselor.com/