Skip to content

Understanding, Confronting and Resolving Anger: A Series 3. Anger in Perspective

I don’t think that anger is always a bad thing. It can be used in unhealthy ways or in healthy ways. Leon Seltzer suggests that two unhealthy ways of handling anger are “avoiding anger and conflict at all costs,” and “escalating into endless cycles of fighting, complaining and blaming.” Neither approach is constructive. In the first, you deny your own anger and let it build up inside as you fail to acknowledge it. In the second, you let your anger fly out of control to the point where few people will be able to tolerate your company for very long.

Seltzer suggests several steps toward handling more appropriately:

  • Speak up when an issue is important. It doesn’t help to hide your feelings when an issue is important to you. This does not mean that you should explode at others. It does mean that it is appropriate to state your position calmly. Before you do, make sure you understand the other person’s position the best you can.
  • Strike when the iron is cold. If you are too fired up, you might not react rationally and instead just blurt out your feelings. If you do, you can expect the other person to get angry too. Then where are you? It might be better to simmer down, think about why you were upset and discuss the issue with each other at a later time.
  • Ask yourself the hard questions. These are the questions which explain your anger based on your beliefs, your goals, what will allow your thoughts to be heard and how you can proceed calmly. Obviously, you can’t answer any of these questions in the heat of anger. You need to step back and consider your inner workings. This process is sometimes referred to as mindfulness, which we will discuss down the road.
  • Broaden your focus. What other issues are weighing on you at the moment? If you are about to explode in anger, it’s a safe bet that there might be more on your mind than the immediate situation. What else might be troubling you right now in addition to the main problem?
  • Identify and change your part in the dance. If you are engaged in a conflict or about to enter into one, what the other person plans to do is outside your control. But you can control your part in any conflict, including withdrawing from it when it serves no purpose other than both of you venting your spleen.
  • Move slowly and start small. Ease your way into a conversation which promises to become heated. Starting a conversation with an attack will not win you any points.

Seltzer recommends Harriet Lerner’s book, The Dance of Anger for further exploration of the issues related to conflict in relationships. He sums up her suggestions in one statement, “It all starts with the realization that beneath your vulnerability-protecting anger (as well as your partner’s) are such emotions as fear, sadness, helplessness and humiliation.”

He points out that although this is a good beginning, understanding what’s behind your anger is just a start. What you do about these findings, how you handle your feelings, and how you act are more important in the long run. This is not an easy process and will take quite a bit of patience with yourself as well as with whom you are in conflict. You can start by taking responsibility for any of your behavior which might have upset the other person. Here is a little story which shows what I mean.

A Story              

The day after the 2016 presidential election, I ventured out the door after a period of being stunned. I ran into a man I knew on a limited basis. As usual, he asked how I was doing that day. I told him I was not doing very well. His very upbeat demeanor suggested that we had voted for different candidates.

We tried having a conversation about politics and in particular the election, both voicing our reasons for voting the way we did. I don’t think the conversation resolved anything or led either of us to alter his views. I left his company resolving to be cordial in the future but avoiding political conversation, which only served to upset both of us.

This approach worked for several weeks. One morning when we met, he surprised me by apologizing for being overly strong in his statements in our last conversation. I tried to recall whether I had said anything which might have offended him and apologized just in case. He assured me that I had not said anything to offend him and again apologized for his tone in our last conversation.

We were able to agree that the campaign and election were upsetting for many people including both of us. We also agreed on being upset and worried about the great divide between the two halves of our fellow countrymen as a result of the election. We shared our fears about what this conflict would mean for the future of our country.

As I left our conversation, I felt the best I had since the election. Neither of us changed our minds and did not try to change each other’s. We were able to share our mutual fears and hopes for the future. I realized that I did not need to see an enemy in everyone with whom I disagree.

Most of us want the best for our country and for each other. We just have different ideas about how to get there. At one time our leaders with different positions were able to sit down to find compromises with which we could all live. This does not seem to be the case right now however.

Yet, if we who elected these leaders talk with each other in terms of our mutual interests, we might be able to set a good example for them. None of us can singlehandedly change the tensions, disagreements and hostilities evident among our country’s citizens or elected representatives. Yet we can begin by building bridges between ourselves and those with whom we come into contact on a daily basis. That is at least a start.

Anger and Aggression

We have been looking at where anger might lead us. As we just saw, anger is only a feeling and by itself causes no one any serious problems unless you let it fester without finding any good way to deal with it.

The psychologist Howard Kassinove shares a definition of anger which is a little different from the one we considered earlier when we were considering anger as just a feeling. “Anger is a negative feeling state that is typically associated with hostile thoughts, physiological arousal and maladaptive behaviors.” Here anger is still acknowledged as a feeling, but one which often evolves beyond feelings to negative thoughts and problematic behavior.

As we saw, anger is not good or bad in itself but a feeling that, in some situations, can be useful in protecting ourselves. Alerting yourself is also useful in the face of real danger, preparing you for “fight or flight.” When you become preoccupied with feelings of anger and the changes in your body and mind linger beyond a useful time limit, anger can become destructive.

Your heart rate and blood pressure can rise and become problematic if anger becomes a chronic feeling. In addition, your immune system is compromised, your digestion is affected, your nervous system becomes fatigued, your body heals more slowly and you are at higher risk of ulcers, heart difficulty and possibly increased risk of developing cancer.

We talked about ways to avoid going overboard in your reaction. If you don’t have the skills to deal with your anger constructively, you might be tend to become stuck with thoughts of attacking the person who provoked or possibly plan revenge. We looked at the possibility of interpreting others actions as demeaning, disrespecting or attacking your sense of yourself.  Continuing to dwell on such thoughts can easily lead you to lashing out in response to the person you feel attacked you.

You might react by screaming at the other person, demeaning him or her in an attempt to defend yourself. You might also feel provoked to physical aggression in an effort to protect yourself and your reputation. However, these responses are not likely to result in others learning to respect you. At the extreme, you may well find yourself facing criminal charges depending on the level of your angry response to what you see as an attack.

Kassinove refers to research suggesting that most aggressive incidents are preceded by angry feelings. Yet relatively few incidents end up with physically aggressive behavior. Most people learn ways to stop short of becoming physically aggressive when experience anger.

Kassinove agrees with Seltzer that anger is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it is an “appropriate response to injustice” and plays an important role in social justice movements designed to defend groups such as the disabled, as well as those suffering from racial, gender and other forms of discrimination.

He holds that anger can play a part in letting others know we have an important issue on the table. Yet in my experience, people are more likely to step back or confront you rather than listen to what you have to say especially if your anger turns quickly to hostility. Anger can contribute to your statements but needs to be couched in terms which are acceptable to others if you want to be taken seriously and expect to resolve anything.

He cites the positive feelings which accompany being able to express your feelings. True progress toward a mutually satisfying agreement occurs when both sides are able to move past the expression of anger. Then they can seek to understand the other person’s feelings of being hurt or belittled, which we discussed earlier.

One question which lingers is why some people are more prone to become angry and express themselves in aggressive ways. Some people seem more sensitive to annoyance and react sooner and more sharply than others. Some people learn aggressive ways of reacting to anger as children by watching how parents, older siblings and other relatives react to their anger. It is possible that others might be born that way.

Children see aggressive responses to anger by other children in school, in their neighborhood or in adults with whom they interact. There are also some indications that violent video games, movies and music might contribute to aggressive responses to anger although there are no definitive studies of this issue, at least not yet.

Controlling Aggression

As we have seen, anger is a normal emotion and can be helpful in some situations, such as those related to survival and self-protection. We have also seen that resorting to aggression is often a strong temptation when you feel angry. Aggression might be appropriate to ensure your safety but in most situations is not necessary and just inflames the situation.

Steven Laurent presents a series of tips on reducing anger and therefore limiting the possibility of reacting to anger with unneeded aggression. I will list a few of his suggestions and my comments about them:

  • Understand that anger is a problem. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that anger is sometimes a problem. We have seen that anger is a normal human emotion. As long as it is limited to a brief emotional response, does not take over your life and does not remain for a long time, it is nothing to worry about. If your anger quickly escalates into rage, it may well be a problem for you. If you continue to brood about what angers you, it can affect your body as we have seen and also create lack of emotional balance in your life.
  • Monitor your anger. It is useful to be mindful of many things in your life including your emotions. The more aware you are, the better chance you have of changing patterns which make life more difficult for you and for those around you. You might have a feeling that your anger is a problem, or you might hear this from others who are affected by your anger. Laurent suggests keeping a log of upsetting events, the anger they cause and how you react. It sounds a bit tedious but might be a good way to track how well you manage your anger if you think it might be a problem. It is easier to see patterns when you write them down in an anger journal. Writing also gives you a chance to think about what you are doing rather than reacting automatically.
  • Feel the anger and don’t do it anyway. Laurent suggests here that you be aware of your anger but don’t rush into a response. He prefers that you think about how you feel and why that feeling arose. Waiting to react until after you have had a chance to consider the situation also helps you see what alternatives you have available. Writing down what you think in your anger journal would also help keep you stay aware of the process of your thinking.
  • Look after yourself. Several things can make it more difficult for you to manage your anger constructively. One is your health. When you feel run down physically, you will have less ability to think clearly about how to react. The same is true if you are in a bad emotional state or under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.
  • Understand the ultimate source of your anger: “shoulding.” Here you tell yourself how things should be, especially other people and how they interact with you. Most people have fairly clear expectations of how they would like others to treat them, which is fine. When you set yourself up as the judge of how people should react, you are more prone to react with anger and see it as your job to correct or even punish them. Along with that goes the suggestion to be less judgmental of others. We will see more about “shoulding” in a latersection.
  • You most likely have a good idea of how you would like to react in any given situation, at least one you have faced before. Yet surprises wait along the way to throw you off balance. If someone asked you why you reacted a certain way, you could probably tell them why. Instead of judging people who act in a different way from you, consider that they might view things differently from you. You would find it easier to be less judgmental if you took the time to understand why others feel and act the way they do.
  • Get your facts straight. One of the main contributors to anger at others is faulty assumptions you make about them. You might assume that others have hostile intentions toward you, are aware of what your needs and desires are, or know what is likely to arouse your anger. In reality, none of these assumptions may be true.

The better you are able to use suggestions such as these, the less likely you are to let your anger get the best of you. In addition, your chances of moving toward aggressive behavior are also lessened.

Anger and culture

Most of the studies done on anger, including Art Markham’s, have focused on Americans and Europeans. Markham observes that people who most often express their anger with little restraint also show a high degree of stress. A study in 2015 determined that the Japanese show a relationship between stress and degree of expressed anger despite the many differences between cultures. One Japanese pattern is the cultural expectation that people of lower status will not openly express their anger in the presence of higher status individuals. One finding of his study was that higher status Japanese people who expressed their anger had fewer indications of poor health. In that sense, it appears healthier to express anger rather than hold it in.

The rationality of anger

Gary Warmerdam agrees that anger and fear are natural reactions to believing you are in the presence of physical or emotional threat to you. He sees fear as more closely related to the flight response and anger related to emotional energy designed to fight against a threat.

He also reminds us that threats can be real or imagined. There might be a real danger facing you, or you might just think there is. Real threats usually arise and subside quickly. Imagined threats are created by ruminating on the possibility of harm, sometimes long after a real threat is gone. Yet the sense of fear and anger can be the same whether you are responding to a real or imagined threat.

The degree of fear and anger that results from either type of threat is tied to the activity of your imagination and the beliefs which you hold about being harmed. Anger is a natural response to threat in the animal world as well as in the human one. In this sense, anger is a rational response to threat. Yet anger often arises before you have a chance to do any thinking about the situation you face.

Once you have a chance to process what is happening, you can use your thought processes to decide whether there is a need to respond with fear and anger. Still the beliefs, assumptions and interpretations of events you have learned from past experience have a considerable effect on how you react to a perceived threat, whether real or imagined.

Emotional pain can arise whether or not there is any real physical threat facing you. This pain arises through your imagination, and you can find yourself consumed with anger even when everything around you is calm. You can even become angry about emotional pain you fear will take place in the future.

Warmerdam also points out that you can misinterpret events and arrive at feelings of hurt and anger as a result. This most often happens when you see a person act in a certain way and assume that his or her motive is to harm you in some way. Don Miguel Ruiz, in his book, The Four Agreements, warns us of the dangers of making assumptions that lead to troubling emotions we could otherwise avoid.

So far we have had a chance to examine some definitions of anger, what it consists of and where it might take us. Next, let’s take a closer look at where anger comes from.