Anger Management Institute Blog

Answer:
Dear Friend, you have been experiencing a clinical depression which was exacerbated by hormonal changes after the birth of your baby.

Get Help: I encourage you to get a complete physical examination to rule out any underlying physiological disorders which may be causing the depression such as hypothyroidism and hormonal problems. Then, I recommend that they see a psychiatrist, to get an evaluation to determine the need for medication since a psychiatrist specializes in diagnosing and treating mental health disorder, while a physician only sometimes treats mental health problems.
An anti-depressant can help boost your catecholamines and serotonin quickly and thus, help you feel more focused, hopeful, less irritable and angry.

Whether you take medication or not – you should see a professional counselor to help you explore the real issues which are causing the depression. You need to learn better coping skills for the situations or relationship issues and stressors you are facing. You need to strategize how to deal with disciplining your children without losing control.
Order some Anger management resources which will teach you new coping skills to express your anger in healthy ways. Taking a time-out when you feel anger rising is always a wise intervention.

What about natural ways to increase neurochemicals? You can learn to increase your neurochemicals through natural ways such as exercise and taking time to grow spiritually. The medication will boost your neurochemicals, ie., serotonin, catecholamines… but, it doesn’t change the fact that you might have to work through the loss of a loved one or deal with past abuse, low self-esteem, etc. Those crises and losses need to be dealt with, processed and grieved.

Anger is a secondary emotion. Underneath you are dealing with fears, hurt, disappointments, thoughts which are causing the anger. When you learn to identify the underlying issues, learn new communication skills and ways to manage the frustration and anger – you won’t fly off the handle so easily.
Consider growing in your faith. You need supernatural power to manage anger and experience peace in your life.

© copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations

Answer:
Dear Friend,
Thanks for your question. Anger management classes will be very helpful for your husband if he agrees to attend and apply the skills which are taught.
He may be dealing with a mental health disorder too since many people become addicted to drugs and alcohol for relief from depression and anxiety, etc. I suggest he get a counseling evaluation or talk with his family doctor about depression he may be experiencing.
Anger is a symptom of depression and other underlying issues. If the depression is clinical and physiologically based then, an anti-depressant can increase any neuro-chemicals which are off-balance. Cognitive-behavioral counseling will help challenge and change any thinking and behavior which are causing his depression.

Order some Anger management resources which will teach him new coping skills to express his anger in healthy ways.

What about you? The most important aspect of his problem is your response. Are you going to let him verbally abuse you and possibly threaten you? You need to put your foot down and tell him that you will no longer allow this behavior. You can plan to call a time-out when his temper escalates. If he won’t respect this then, you can leave the house for a certain time period. You need to pretect yourself and your children. Give him another chance by asking him to get help. But, don’t put yourself at risk of harm.

© copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations

Your spouse comes home from golfing or playing tennis. You think: now, we can finally spend some time together. But, your spouse is tired and wants to take a nap.
What’s the expectation? When my spouse takes time out to have some fun – he/she should care enough about me to be together. Thus, spouses have a responsibility to spend equal or more time with their mates than, with others. Can you identify with either of these situations?

What happens when your expectations are disappointed? You will begin to feel angry, frustrated and resentful towards your friend or mate.

How can you work through these frustrations? Check out whether it’s valid to hold the expectations you have, first of all. Then, ask yourself: “what’s a reasonable request I can make to alleviate my anger?”
How can I lower my expectations? Is it realistic to hold the expectations I have? If so, how can my friend/spouse and I work it out?
Use the ASERT approach to communicate your needs.
Ask yourself: How can I demonstrate unconditional love in these situations vs. dwelling on my needs and expectations? Do I have a right to expect this from my partner/friend?

© copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations

Sources of Anger: Maybe it’s cumulative stress. Or maybe it has to do with putting up with rude people throughout the day and feeling disrespected over and over again. Each of us has a limit as to the amount of stress we can take. Each of us has a limit on the amount of disrespect or abuse thrown our way.

Our perspective and thinking really does cause the anger though. People have said to me: “I don’t choose to be angry. Anger just happens to me.” I disagree. Look back at situations when you got angry. Maybe you were angry at your spouse for disagreeing with you about how to discipline the children. What was underneath the anger? Was his/her disagreement with you really that bad? Or was it that you felt ‘disregarded’ or that your opinion didn’t matter and thus, he/she didn’t really care about you? This is mind-reading and personalization- cognitive distortions which cause angry reactions. Doesn’t your spouse have a right to disagree with you?
You have disagreed with your spouse in the past over issues and plans. Did that mean that you were disregarding his/her opinion and didn’t care about him/her? No. Spouses have the right to disagree. Spouses should not act like ‘clones’. It’s healthy to disagree. It’s not healthy to mind-read.

Maybe your spouse came home late one night because of a flat tire on the highway. You because angry because he/she did not call you. Did the thought cross your mind that he/she was having dinner with another woman/man? Isn’t this ‘catastrophic thinking’?

Do we really get angry over nothing? No. Usually, there is something causing the anger – our thoughts, stress, expectations, beliefs, cognitive distortions and yes, someone does something which is disrespectful or disappoints us.

The Bible says in Phil 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” NIV

What is the principle here? If your mind tends to judge others quickly, thinking the worst about someone’s actions or words – you will be easily angered. On the other hand, if you train your mind to think the best about someone and give them the “benefit of the doubt” about situations – you will find yourself less frustrated and angry. This kind of reaction or response only comes when you allow Christ to be in control of your whole life, heart and mind.

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations

Answer:
Dear Friend; It seems to me that anger results from a combination of sources: low self-worth, recurring patterns, disappointments, revenge, spiritual warfare, depression, fears, sin and/or selfishness, inability to communicate assertively, too much stress and other emotional or relationship problems.

What Happens? Anger immediately rears it’s ugly head within 1-3 seconds of a provoking incident. You need to learn how to prevent such an overpowering emotional response & how to respond in healthy ways to the triggering events. Some people hold their anger inside and then, blow-up later on at a small trigger.

Take the following steps: Write out and log recent times of anger. Explore what happened, what the issue was, how you felt and what resulted. Then think of some times in the past when you were able to control your anger… probably at work… how did you control it? What did you do or say? What did you tell yourself to calm down? Most people tend to be able to control their anger at times. thus proving that they can have control over it. Order the book What’s Good About Anger? and take the Anger Survey in the first chapter.

Learn to take time-outs immediately. You can walk away from situations/people who trigger your anger. Give yourself time to cool off: 10-20 min. Take a run, pray and think about what it is that you are really upset about.

Explore: What is the real issue and what are the feelings underlying your anger? What do you want to request from the person? How can you negotiate or compromise some conflict you are having?

Avoid lots of caffeine. Completely avoid alcohol and drugs, unless you are taking a prescription. Caffeine increases the metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure, and causes mood irritability. Alcohol and drugs may give a person a “high” or mellow feeling at first and will seem to relieve stress but the effects are temporary and soon after you will actually feel more irritable, and depressed and angry feelings will not only return but usually escalate.

What else is going on? You may be dealing with a lot of stress or loss. This needs to be explored and worked through possibly with the help of a counselor. Explore how you can decrease stress in your life.

Begin an exercise program so that you can work off some of the stress in your life physically. Learning to communicate assertively is one of the most important tools for expressing your anger in a healthy way.
Share more openly & lovingly your needs, requests and opinions with others. Start setting boundaries so that you are not taking on other people’s responsibilities. Read about Assertiveness. Depression can play a part in anger or vice versa. I would encourage you to go to counseling and see a psychiatrist for a diagnosis and the appropriate medication. You can contact http://www.aacc.net/ for a referral to a counselor and psychiatrist in your area. Read the article on Coping with the Blues. Exercise is also an important way to decrease depression.

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations

Answer:
You need to have a plan to prevent your anger from escalating. Once anger is triggered – your flght/flight response is triggered and this happens within 1-3 seconds. Thus, you don’t have much of a chance to stop a harmful reaction and with your background – you may lash out and hurt the one you love.

Take a Time-Out: A time-out will help you cool down and think through the situation and challenge any cognitive distortions you may be dealing with. I recommend that you take a time-out when you and your fiancee begin to have a disagreement. It sounds like neither of you has skills to talk through conflict in a healthy way. When either of you notices tension or conflict in the relationship – hurt or misunderstanding …call a time-out for at least 30 minutes.

Ask: what am I angry or frustrated about? What is the issue? What do I need or want to happen? How can I communicate my need with compassion? How does my request benefit the relationship and meet my fiancee’s needs? Then, come back ready to listen as well as communicate your needs respectfully.

Anger Management training/counseling: You need to work on managing your anger. In the book: What’s Good About Anger? we discuss how to turn anger into faith, assertiveness, problem-solving and forgiveness. We recommend logging anger and identifying triggers (stress, physiological, emotional, cognitive) so you can prevent anger escalation early-on.
If you do counsel with a professional – ask if they specialize and have been trained in anger management. Many counselors are not trained in helping people learn to defuse anger. See www.aacc.net for a directory of counselors. We have found many people are helped by our distance-learning Anger Management Courses.
Hope this helps you! God bless!

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations

Answer: Dear Friend, I suggest you get anger management coaching and resources. See: http://www.whatsgoodaboutanger.com/ for resources and articles which will help you deal with the anger.
Most likely, you have issues beneath the surface which need to be explored but, you also need to become aware of triggers and stressors precipitating your anger, new coping skills to manage anger, and what thinking patterns may be contributing to your anger.

Log some of the situations which recently caused you to feel angry and fly off the handle. What were the triggers? What happened and what were you thinking? Did you catastrophize the situation? Did you jump to false conclusions or personalize the situation? Were you stressed out by something else?
Distorted thinking and false beliefs such as: “I deserve to be treated…” or “I am entitled to…” contribute to anger escalation. If you can begin to control the hot self-talk and challenge your thinking with reality and truth – your angry emotions will defuse.

Taking a Time-out is one of the best ways to control your anger. Our resources teach various coping skills for managing anger. Order the What’s Good About Anger? book, DVD, workbooks and courses.

Since your psychiatrist thinks you have bipolar disorder – I suggest you follow his recommendations for counseling and medication. Bipolar disorder does have a chemical/physiological basis and needs to be treated as such. Also, counseling can help give you perspective on your life, help you express your feelings and teach to healthy ways to cope with anger.

Since you have abusive tendencies – I suggest you read and order some of the resources found at: Safe Relationships. God bless!

�L copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection , National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations