The Emotion of Anger

Anger is one of the most common emotions we face and it is also the most misunderstood emotion. You see, feeling anger is okay. There are good reasons to feel angry, injustice, a setback, a tragedy. The problem most of the time is our response to anger. When you react to more and more situations with anger, it becomes a habit. Anger is like a wounded animal, it attacks anything that moves, however, the attacks do nothing to ease the pain.

Anger depersonalizes individual and events into a faceless, nameless, "them." People who are chronically angry see a personal attack in every disagreement. The person feels threatened when there is no threat and it causes the person to counter attack even a minor threat.

Angry people feel like they are always under attack and that everyone is out to get them and nobody understands them. Anger is energy. It can be used constructively or destructively. The Civil Rights Movement and Apartheid are examples of the use of anger constructively. Destructive uses of anger include things like destroying property, harming other people, setting up circumstances where others respond by feeling bad and wrong.

If you were to look up anger in the dictionary you would find these words, wrath, to distress, vex, hurt, enrage, to irritate or inflame, hostile feelings because of opposition and frustration. For rage we would find, violent anger, fury, extreme violence, intensity.

It is important for us to get a handle on our anger. We need to be in control of anger, not the reverse. If you want to learn more about your anger, consider signing up for an anger management program. To find out about the topics we cover in our program, click on http://caroladeel.com/rant.html.

Blessings,
Carol

2006 Copyright by Carol A. Deel, MS, LCPC, LCMFT, All Rights Reserved. No part of this may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.