Anger Counselling

Anger is an intense emotion that most of us feel from time to time. Suppressing anger is not the answer nor is the full expression of it because both extremes can lead to very undesirable outcomes. With Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy you can learn to be to deal with your anger in a constructive manner without suppressing or venting it.

What causes anger?

If you want a short answer, it is you, nothing or nobody else but you. How is this possible?

OK, let’s imagine a situation. The situation will be that someone calls you “selfish”. If you think of a few people, I am sure that you will say that not everyone of them, would be angry if they were called “selfish”, some would feel angry, others hurt, others ashamed, others guilty and some others, even depressed.

Therefore, if you agree that people react differently in a specific situation, then you are saying that not everyone perceives that situation in the same way. That difference in our perception depends on our beliefs, inferences and interpretations we have learnt from past experiences. Events do not CAUSE our anger feelings but our particular way to perceive those events.

Let me give you an example of what people may think to make them feel the above-mentioned range of emotions when they are called selfish. You will see than depending on what we belief about the activating event, we feel either guilty/ depressed or angry.

Activating event Beliefs Consequences

Someone calls me selfish

I shouldn’t be this selfish. I always let people down. I always do the wrong thing, what a horrible person I am.

Guilt and depression

Angry

Me selfish? I am not selfish and you shouldn't think like that. I don't deserve to be called selfish because it's not true, I cannot bear anyone thinking that of me and you are worse than me, anyway.

With this example, you will see that the person feeling guilty and depressed is talking to herself in a very different way to the person feeling angry. That is because we perceive the situation according to our beliefs. Those beliefs are mainly the CAUSE of our anger and not the activating event itself.

If the activating event were what makes you angry, then your only choice you would have, would be to change the situation/other person in order to stop your anger feelings. However, you still have the choice to change your anger, say into annoyance, if you are able to assume the responsibility that you are the owner of your feelings. If you believe then, that is you making yourself angry, then you can actually do something with those feelings instead of depending on changing the situation to feel OK. In therapy, you will learn that you have a CHOICE to feel differently (remember our feelings are largely caused by the way we perceive the event) by changing those dysfunctional beliefs CAUSING your anger.

Ideally, in a situation like that, feeling disappointed and annoyed would be much healthier than feeling angry, hurt, guilty or depressed.

A person can change the way he thinks and hence, the way he feels by changing his irrational beliefs about the situation that triggers his anger.

You can imagine the emotional impact the same situation would have for a person in the same situation as before but if his beliefs were as follows:

Activating event Beliefs Consequences

Someone calls me selfish

It would have been preferable if he hadn’t told me that, but there is no reason why he shouldn’t express his opinion. At the end of the day, I don’t have to agree with it. Also I don’t understand what he means by being selfish. I will ask him if he can give me examples and see if we can put things right.

That he tells me that I am selfish is not pleasant and by no means, it’s the end of the world, I can cope with people disapproving of me and I’ll survive.

Annoyed and disappointed

In REBT, anger management will focus on identifying and modifying those irrational beliefs CAUSING your anger and also develop some strategies to be able to communicate your anger in an appropriate and respectful way, learn to become more assertive and control your anxiety if that is one of the factors contributing to you feeling more angry at times.

Anger management is very effective (once you recognise that you make yourself angry and you are willing to change some of your beliefs and behaviours). 6 to 12 sessions may be enough to transform your unhealthy anger into healthier annoyance and disappointment. You are expected to do some homework outside the sessions to practice what you have learned.

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