Counselling for Anger Management

Why do we get Angry?

Anger is in our suite of emotions for a good reason, it can help us to form a reaction to protect ourselves when we’ve been invalidated, attacked, deceived or unfairly treated. In appropriate situations, anger can be really useful to help us defend ourselves, identify people or situations that are making us unhappy and motivate us to make a change in our lives.

The feeling of anger causes our bodies to prepare to defend ourselves; raising our heartbeat and temperature by releasing high levels of adrenaline. If this reaction is occurring too often or for a prolonged period of time it can lead to anxiety, high blood pressure, depression and a lower functioning immune system.

Feeling angry on a daily basis is not only difficult for our loved ones and the people around us, but it can be tiring and confusing for us too. Living in a state of constant defensiveness and high adrenaline is exhausting but it doesn’t have to be like that. If you can relate to any of the behaviours or feelings below, it’s time to get help:

Behaviours

• Constantly swearing, shouting, slamming doors, hitting or throwing things, being verbally abusive or physically violent towards others

• Turning our anger inwards on ourselves by self-harming, denying ourselves basic needs and shutting out our friends and family

• Displaying passive aggression by ignoring people or not talking to them, being sarcastic and sulky, refusing to do tasks and deliberately doing things poorly
  
  

Feelings

• Our mental and physical health is being negatively impacted by our anger

• Anger is our go-to emotion in any situation

• We don’t know of any healthy ways to express our anger

ANGER MANAGEMENT AND COUNSELLING

Misplaced anger is often a secondary emotion that protects us from the more vulnerable emotion behind it. For example, if we’re angry that our partner was late coming home and didn’t let us know, we’re likely really feeling scared that something bad has happened to them. Anger has more strength than fear, so it enables us to hold the power and cover-up our vulnerability. There is no way of controlling the triggers of our anger, as we will continue to experience these in everyday life, but we need to unlearn any unhelpful reactions and replace them with healthy ones in order to manage our anger effectively. 

Counselling can be really helpful for people with anger management problems. Your counsellor will support you in assessing and changing your reactions and also help you identify where they stemmed from to gain a clearer understanding of your anger. Your counsellor will also work with you to assess some of the other emotions entangled with your anger such as fear, shame and embarrassment and work through the reasons behind these to get to the core of the problem. The end goal of your counselling sessions will be to enable you to communicate your feelings and express yourself effectively so you don’t have to resort to anger to be heard. You'll be free from the misery of daily anger and you and your loved ones will live a calmer and happier life.