Anger Solutions: Myth Busters

Do you ever wonder what anger really is and how one can resolve it? Are you tired of hearing the term "anger management" applied to EVERYTHING:

"She has anger management issues"
"He needs anger management"
"Hockey coach shows his lack of anger management"?

Wouldn't you appreciate tools that can actually help you EXPRESS your anger and RESOLVE it rather than just trying to CONTROL anger all the time?

Over the years, we have polled close to 1000 audience members and trainees to find out what they believe to be true about anger, and this short video shares the most common answers, as well as debunks these very widely accepted myths. You will notice that each myth builds on the first one, leading to a very complex set of faulty beliefs that negatively impact the way we perceive and choose to resolve anger. Understanding what anger IS, and the importance of expressing rather than managing it is the first step to getting a handle on your angry feelings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7v8zN6m-7w&feature=share&list=UUmzTzcaQ1dJNMStQjc4-qEg&index=1

To learn more, you can order your E-Boook version of Anger Solutions: Proven Strategies for Effectively Resolving Anger and Taking Control of Your Emotions for only $5.99 at www.smashwords.com OR you can purchase a hard copy of the book for $24.99 at www.store.angersolution.com.

Anger Solutions now available in EBOOK format

Happy New Year!

I am very excited to announce that my most popular book, Anger Solutions: Proven Strategies for Effectively Resolving Anger and Taking Control of Your Emotions, is now available in EBook format. Thanks to the amazing folks at Smashwords Publishing (www.smashwords.com), you can now purchase and download the e-version of this book for your Kindle, Kobo, PDF reader, or other e-book reader format that you desire. 

The E-version of the book is much more affordable than the print version for a couple of reasons (only $5.99 USD)- first, it is an e-version and much less costly to produce -  no printing, shipping, or packaging costs are required on my end, and I can pass that savings on to you! Second, some of the content that was contained in the appendix of the print version is now out of date, or no longer needed in a digital version. Contact information for crisis lines across Canada, along with information about eating disorder clinics, grief counseling, partner assault response programs, etc., are readily available via the Internet. Readers are still encouraged to avail themselves of these resources; however, the listings from the print version were deleted for the e-version. Lastly, we have updated the bibliography and included complete references for the sources that informed the book. In all, the page count has been reduced to about 90 pages; however, the full content from all the chapters is there for your reading enjoyment.

Please tell your friends, and visit www.smashwords.com today to get your copy of Anger Solutions for your favourite e-reader.

If you still prefer PRINT, have no fear! You can still order a print version of Anger Solutions from our online store: http://store.angersolution.com.

Anger Solutions: Pain vs. Pleasure

People are always asking, "What makes Anger Solutions so much more effective than traditional anger management?" This is no simple question - as there are many facets of Anger Solutions that come together to make it an exceptional program. Today I want to share with you one of our great leveraging tools that help to contribute to our continued success. You heard about this a little from a previous posting in which I shared the story of Trey, and how I used pain as leverage to move him towards where he wanted to be.

This leveraging tool first conceptualized by Sigmund Freud is called, "The Pain/Pleasure Principle". It simply states that: Human beings will do more to avoid pain than they will to obtain pleasure.

Think about that for a minute: Human beings will do more to avoid pain than they will to obtain pleasure.

Ain't that the truth! Women will endure a great deal of abuse before they opt to leave a relationship. Employees will often put up with harrassment, put-downs, poor leadership, and all sorts of workplace challenges before they decide to leave a job. People will put up with all sorts of misbehaviour from loud, rowdy neighbours before they decide to call the police, start community action, or move to a quieter street. We have known this for years... that we must be highly frustrated or dissatisfied with a situation before we will attempt to make a change.

Why is this? Perhaps because there is safety in what we know. You've heard that old statement: "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't..." There is also a certain fear that is associated with changing - perhaps we will make the mistake of going from the frying pan into the fire.

This is also true when it comes to making behavioural change. It is so easy to do what we've always done - especially when there is some benefit in our current choice of action. Even if your present anger style is causing you pain, if you get the least amount of payoff from it, you will likely continue to use your old style because it is less painful than the perceived pain of trying to create change. We do this all the time - choose what we perceive to be the "lesser pain" rather than opting for what will bring us the "greater pleasure" in the long run.

Here's an example: Jon Smith is angry at his wife. He doesn't know how to talk to her without hurting her feelings, so he hides his anger by going out to the bars after work. This is causing him pain as well - because he is in effect alienating his wife and creating more distance between them. However, the perceived pain of confrontation is too much for him to handle so he avoids it by choosing the "lesser pain" of retreating to the bars. Jon's problem is that he has not considered the "greater pleasure" of what might happen if he sits down with his wife and has that difficult conversation. He is too afraid of the immediate discomfort and cannot see past that to how his relationship with his wife might be better if they just talk it out.

Anger Solutions challenges this way of thinking and encourages people to address the pain/pleasure principle on a conscious level. This proves to be an incredible leveraging tool - try it for yourself!

How would you apply the principle of pleasure and pain to the following situations?

1. Quitting smoking

2. Foolish binge spending

3. Losing you temper at work

Here's a Hint:

List the perceived benefits of each behaviour (or the "lesser pain") and remember what William Glasser says: "People do what makes sense to them..." If there is even a little benefit in the behaviour although it is painful, people will continue to do it.List the downside - what is truly painful about this behaviour (the "greater pain")?

Identify why it doesn't make sense. The key here is to emphasize the painful aspects or consequences of the behaviour...

Ask yourself: If by changing my behaviour, I could achieve the same or better feeling of pleasure without experiencing so much pain, would I change?

Another case of anger management gone wrong

So here's a story of a young man who was taking anger management classes for a domestic incident with his sister, and while learning how to manage his anger, punches his four-month pregnant girlfriend in the mouth, then kicks her in the stomach because she wouldn't watch tv or use her phone. Here's the link: http://www.fox41.com/story/14333312/man-charged-with-fetal-homicide-after-fatal-kick So I read this, and I'm thinking... Seriously? He tried to kill her baby because she wouldn't watch tv? That does not sound like an "anger management" problem - this person sounds like someone with severe frustration intolerance, poor impulse control, and a need to control others in his environment (likely because he cannot control himself). Again, I plead with judges and district attorneys all over North America - please, please stop sending control junkies like this man to "anger management" thinking that it will make a difference! Their problem is not anger - it is their desire to control the people around them through the use of intimidation and violence. So please, do all of us who work in the area of anger a favour. Stop acting like anger management can "fix" people who don't even know they are broken. We don't fix people. We don't cure people. Anger, by the way, is not a disease and doesn't need curing. We can only teach people how to make better decisions when they are feeling angry. When people like Ruben Anthony beat on their so-called loved ones, it's not anger. It's abuse. Send them to programs that specifically address spousal or partner assault. How many more times does this have to happen before you get it? Stop giving out band aids for gunshot wounds. Stop it. Now.

Comments on Anger Management and Emotional Abuse

Here are some interesting comments from Dr. Steven Stosny about why traditional anger management programs don't work for perpetrators of emotional abuse. I have highlighted and bolded the comments that I think are spot on as it relates to Anger Solutions philosophy.

Steven Stosny, Ph.D., is the founder of CompassionPower in suburban Washington, DC. Dr. Steven Stosny's most recent books are, How to Improve your Marriage without Talking about It: Finding Love Beyond Words , and Love Without Hurt: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One .You can check out his blog: Anger in the Age of Entitlement.

Emotional Abuse: Why Anger Management Didn't Work

By Steven Stosny on May 12, 2009 - 8:03pm in Anger in the Age of Entitlement

Anger management programs for emotional or verbal abusers sometimes produce short-term gains that disappear when follow-up is done a year or so later. That was probably your experience if your partner took an anger management class. If you're lucky, you may have seen a lower tone to the chronic blame - anger management classes sometimes turn a yeller into a stonewaller.

The worst kind of anger management class teaches men to "get in touch with their anger" and to "express it" or "get it out." The assumption is that emotions are like 19th century steam engines that need to "let off steam" on a regular basis. These kinds of classes include things like punching bags and using foam baseball bats to club imaginary adversaries. (Guess who would be the imaginary victim of your partner's foam-softened clubbing?) Studies have shown that this approach actually makes people angrier and more hostile, not to mention more entitled to act out their anger. Participants are training their brains to associate controlled aggression rather than compassion and reconciliation with anger.

Hopefully, your partner did not attend one of these discredited classes on anger expression. But you might not have been so lucky when it came to the second worse form of anger management: "desensitization." In that kind of class your husband would identify your behaviors that "push his buttons," things like you "nagging" him or asking too much of him. The instructor would then work to make those behaviors seem less "provocative" to him. The techniques include things like ignoring it, avoiding it, or pretending it's funny. Didn't you always dream that one day your husband would learn to be less angry by ignoring you and avoiding you or thinking that you're funny when you ask him about something serious?His feelings of inadequacy and sense of entitlement -- not specific behaviors -- trigger his anger. Even if the class succeeds in making him less sensitive to your "nagging," he will nevertheless get irritable when you tell him you love him, as that will stir his guilt and sense of inadequacy.

Desensitizing doesn't work at all on resentment, which is the precursor to most angry and abusive behavior. Resentment is not simply a reflexive response to a specific thing you say or do; it works like a defensive system in itself. That's why you don't resent just one or two or two hundred things. When you're resentful, you are constantly scanning the environment for any possible bad news, lest it sneak up on you.

Anger-management classes try to deal with this constant level of arousal with techniques to manage it, that is, to keep your husband from getting so upset that he feels compelled to act out his anger. "Don't make it worse," is the motto of most anger management classes. If he was aggressive, they taught him to withdraw. If he shut down, they taught him to be more assertive.

What they didn't teach him was how to act according to his deeper values, which would make him stop blaming his vulnerable feelings on you. If attempts to manage anger don't appeal to core values, resentful men begin to feel like they're "swallowing it," or "going along to avoid an argument." This erodes their self-esteem and justifies, in their minds, occasional blow ups: "I am sick and tired of putting up with your crap!" Then they can feel self-righteous: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

In a love relationship, managing anger is not the point. You need to promote compassion, which is the only reliable prevention of resentment, anger, and abuse.

MY COMMENTS: I have to agree with most of this article - although in Anger Solutions we do use techniques identified above like pillow punching, these techniques are not used to replace effective expression of anger, but to help release residual anger after the participants have completed all the other more valuable steps of challenging their beliefs, identifying their emotional state, using the TSA model to express anger, and seeking resolution.

We also make sure that people understand the context in which releasing residual anger is appropriate - where, why, and how we should do it. I agree that without effective controls in place when teaching this component, participants could take it wrong and believe that they can re-direct their feelings of aggression into inanimate objects while holding on to the negative feelings of anger or resentment.

Aside from this singular point of clarification, I think Dr. Stosny is right on - anger management is just a band aid - one that may actually make the wound that it was trying to heal worse.