Anger Management

Managing Anger and Strong Feelings

As far as Impact Factory is concerned, anger is a pretty good emotion to have and it tends to get a bad press, as though it's not all right to get angry.

There are plenty of things to be angry about in this world and angry people have achieved tremendous things just through the drive to express that anger brings with it.

Anger Turns to Rage

What isn't all right is when anger turns to rage and people splodge their rage all over others.

In 2005 Founding Director Jo Ellen Grzyb was featured on BBC1's series The Human Mind with Professor Robert Winston, dealing with one person's irrational anger and helping him learn to manage it.

A few months later she appeared on a Sky1 programme working with the same anger management issue.

Anger Management

In both anger management case studies, the rage in question was really a cover-up for other unexpressed emotions, which was why it became explosive and quite frightening to the people around them.

And that really is our take on rage.

It is anger that has been denied release, bottled up until it can no longer be contained.

Acceptable Emotions

It usually sits at the far end of the spectrum of acceptable emotions and most people who 'flip' to that end of the spectrum haven't dealt with a whole lot of other issues along the way.

Those other issues begin to pile up and accumulate, till one day the dam bursts, the volcano erupts, the storm rages and whammo!

Out it all comes.

Anger Management and Assertiveness

Believe it or not, most people who have explosive episodes tend to be unassertive people, who aren't very good at actually expressing genuine anger.

They tend to be the sort of people who let hurts and insults and problems stack up because they don't have the skills to manage their anger on a day-to-day basis when problems arise.

Then one little thing can tip them over the edge and someone gets it in the neck.

Innocent Bystander

Typically, it is often not even the right person, just some innocent bystander who happens to be close by.

Sometimes it may be the right person, but totally disproportionately, about some small thing that certainly doesn't warrant that amount of rage.

Beyond Assertiveness

So here's what we say about anger management if you need to address anger issues, try our beyond assertiveness work and really get to the heart of the problem.

Learn to use your angry feelings as a force for growth rather than push them down until they spoil your life and the lives of those you hold dear.

And remember: anger's good, rage is anger gone bad.