Anger can be destructive to self if left unacknowledged.  And it can be destructive to self, others and relationships if expressed with abandon.

So how can we find moderation, the sweet spot between gentle expression and easy containment?

A child who has largely had his or her emotional needs met will gradually learn to modulate their emotions. A child whose emotional needs are unmet is likely to be an angry person, whether the anger is externalised, internalised, or both.

In my experience of working with many diverse clients over the past 25 years, angry people are usually the product of families who express anger readily, even with violence!   They need therapeutic support to learn to modulate their emotions.

So, what is anger? Is it the emotional expression of being ‘wronged’, treated unfairly?  Or simply that something or someone has been taken from us?

The something could be our pride, our self-esteem. Many of us feel our opinion is right and someone having a different opinion can often give rise to anger. Why do we react to this emotion with the desire to shout, hurt or even kill? Why do we bare our teeth and clench our fists in a kind of primitive defensive stance, even when we have no intention of punching or biting? How much of anger is about feeling threatened and primitive defence?

Sometimes we experience anger when we’re stressed, for example when we’re distracted in our pursuit of a goal.

We all experience the full range of emotions including anger.   Think of a baby in the first months and years of life. When they don’t get what they want immediately - milk, comfort, safety, they scream with rage. Over the years the baby learns that the desired thing is coming and they can wait.  We all experience anger, but what is important is how we manage and modulate it.

Some of us hold schema level (unconscious) beliefs about the wrongness of anger, maybe we were criticised as a child for expressing anger. To keep the parent happy, we learned to convert anger and rage to perhaps sadness or anxiety, because to feel and express anger might mean we are a bad person who will be punished.

Schema Therapy identifies three “modes” from which anger emerges and includes:
Fight - ‘Bully/Attack’ (ward off a potential attack)
Flight - Angry Protector (anger used as a defence to avoid pain),
Freeze - Angry Child (stuck for now in the Vulnerable Child or toddler state, complying with immediate emotions).

In Schema Therapy we learn to acknowledge and make sense of our anger, as well as all the other emotions, to alter our perspective, and choose appropriate behaviour. Moreover, we learn to recognise the triggers for our different angers, and to figure out how best to calm down, and to see the bigger picture, finally to soothe the Angry Child, just as a parent soothes their angry or raging child.

During the course of therapy, you and your therapist will discover that your anxious and/or depressed feelings may be hiding anger and you will learn to work on understanding, acknowledging, accepting and letting go.

To learn more about Schema Therapy and to book a free exploratory session, please see my Schema Therapy page at www.broadviewtalktherapy.com/schema-therapy/