Managing Anger: Simple Steps to Dealing with Frustration and Threat. Gael Lindenfield
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4: Preventative strategies can help you plan ways in which you can alter your general patterns of behaviour and lifestyle, so that you can prevent a build up of unnecessary tension and frustration.
Part 5: Further reading gives a list of other books which may be of interest and help.
Who Can Be Helped by This Book?
I think this book will be of particular help and interest to people who:
– have already completed some personal development work which has given them an awareness of the difficulties they have with anger
– have persistent relationship difficulties and find it hard to resolve conflicts without hurting themselves or others
– are suffering from health problems or addictions which they have been told, or suspect themselves, may be being caused, or made worse by, their mismanagement of frustration and anger
– are living or working under high levels of pressure and need to take particular care with the management of their emotions
– are bereaved and finding themselves ‘stuck’ in their grief
– are struggling with mental health problems such as depression, phobias, obsessions and eating disorders
– are trying to help others manage their stress and anger more constructively, e.g. managers, training officers, teachers, community workers, counsellors, nurses and doctors – not to mention millions of concerned and harassed parents!
As I indicated earlier, the ideas in this book have arisen in the main from my own personal experience and my work with people on ‘everyday’ problems at home and at work. I am very aware that a minority of people’s problems are so severe that their needs cannot be completely met within the scope of a self-help book such as this. For example, I would urge anyone who is prone to serious outbursts of violence, or suspects that they could be, to seek additional help from a professional therapist or doctor.
Similarly I would suggest that anyone who is living or working with someone with such difficulties, or anyone who has suffered serious abuse in the past, should not hesitate to request further professional guidance. A list of helping agencies can usually be found in any good library, social services or health department, or through the many confidential phonelines that now exist to help people living or working under such stress and threat.
How to Use This Book
Ideally this book should be read slowly, over a period of a few weeks, so that its contents can be thought about in the context of the practical experience of living with the issues and problems which it addresses. Alternatively, you could give it a quick read through first and then re-read at a slower pace later, concentrating on the particular sections which are of interest to you.
With regard to the practical work, I feel that this should be undertaken step-by-step, in the order which I have suggested. I have found that good foundation work in any personal development programme makes the learning of new skills so much faster and more secure.
The exercises have been designed for individuals to do in the course of reading this book, but they could easily be adapted for use in a self-help group or training programme.
Finally, feel free to alter and experiment creatively with any of my ideas and exercises. Never forget that this book is intended to be a self-help resource and not a Bible!
Introduction to the 2000 Edition
It’s hard to believe that it was only 10 years ago that I was advised (quite rightly!) that there was no mass market interest in the subject of anger. However, nowadays stories centring around the latest kind of ‘rage’ phenomena are part of the staple diet of many newspapers and TV programmes. In addition we are constantly being confronted by the rising temperature of feeling among so many groups of ‘ordinary’ people. Just think how freely the words anger or fury are seen in the headlines of features about traditionally ‘passive’ groups such as nurses, people with disabilities, and pensioners.
But I don’t believe that it is just concern and fear about these issues that is driving the growing demand for more enlightenment on managing anger. What is on the minds of most people I meet has much more to do with everyday concerns. Chiefly, they want to know how to control their own increasing inclination or tendency to be a slave to their own temper! They no longer want their anger to put pressure on their hearts, hurt their kids, ruin their relationships or threaten their careers.
This is great news for me. (And not just because it proves that there is, after all, a market for this book!) I believe that this open acknowledgement of people’s personal struggle with anger could be the first step towards two potential revolutions. First, it could radically improve the way we relate to each other – at home, at work and in the wider world. And secondly, it could revolutionize the way we manage our increasingly pressurized lifestyles.
Ten years ago, those people who are now openly asking for help might have felt hopelessly imprisoned and terrorized by their frustration and anger. They would probably have sunk into a state of chronic apathy and depression – and, in so doing, rendered themselves powerless.
One of the central messages of this book is that when anger is well managed it can do just the opposite: It can be an empowering and positive force. Under our control we can use it to energize ourselves into taking the kind of courageous and constructive action we should take if we want to have happier lives, more successful societies and a planet which will survive many more centuries.
But equally, as we are now witnessing, if we continue to lift the lid on our emotions before we have the tools and techniques to express anger safely, we risk unleashing the potentially deadly force of uncontrolled rage.
So, although I am pleased to see that in the last 10 years anger management has emerged from the shadows and is now seen as a credible way of helping ‘people with emotional problems’, it is still rarely discussed in schools, the workplace or at home. It is one of my dreams to see this happen. The alternative is to continue to leave people to learn the ‘hard way’. This hit-and-miss route is the one my own learning took. So I know first-hand what a trail of unnecessary hurt and devastated dreams it can leave in its wake. I do hope that you will find this new, revised self-help programme a much easier way to get to grips with the fire and passion inside you!
CHAPTER 1 Anger’s Journey from Stimulus to Response
My understanding of anger is that it is a natural emotional response which has evolved to help us cope with:
– threat
– hurt
– violation
– frustration
Unless we are very extraordinary human beings, or we live extraordinarily sheltered lives, all of us will experience this feeling in some degree or other at very regular intervals throughout our lives. After all, from the moment we first travel down that frustratingly narrow birth canal to the days when old age robs us of dependable health and strength, the very act of living persistently presents us with potential triggers of our anger response.
The symptoms of anger are not just to be found in our emotions, but also in our bodies, minds and behaviour. The exact nature of each individual’s response to the hurts and frustrations of their lives at any given time will depend on very many factors.
The Stimuli
Let’s begin by looking at the stage when the