Anger: Worst Enemy or Best Friend?

I recently met with a lovely middle-aged man who I will call David. His calm demeanor and mellow style made him quite likable and easy to get along with. I was surprised when he described a childhood with a chronic history of aggressive outbursts. He disclosed, somewhat shamefully, an incident where he had lashed out at a classmate out of rage and frustration when he was being teased, and ended up physically hitting and punching the child. Even now, many years later, he felt shame and remorse over this incident, as if he has been working his whole life to undo that “out-of-control angry monster inside me.”

What had brought him to therapy now was a complete lack of ambition and success in his life. Despite being an articulate and eloquent man, he was having a hard time seeking success as a freelance writer. He described struggling in working with others and being able to express himself and assert himself. As a father, he struggled with disciplining and setting limits with his two children who did not appear to respect him. His wife "wore the pants" in the household and began to resent having to always "be the bad guy," particularly in the fact that David had no interest (and was not very good at) setting limits with his children.

Over the course of the meeting it struck me how remarkable the transformation was for David from childhood to adulthood. I couldn't believe that this man could have once been capable of these quite aggressive acts that he described. He actually seemed so unaggressive, to the point that he was more afraid of his five-year-old son than his son was afraid of him. I finally commented to him that it was almost like he was working extra hard to demonstrate to himself and the world that he was nothing like that small aggressive boy. He was so afraid of becoming like that aggressive boy he was as a child that he went to the opposite extreme closing off any sense of assertiveness or limit-setting. In an effort to avoid being angry, he became weak and powerless.

Anger gets a bad rap. It is true anger can be destructive. It can hurt people. When we become angry we feel "out of control." We may say or do things that we later regret and feel guilty and remorseful when we recover from the experience. But I think for the most part anger is misunderstood. Because we do not understand it, and it scares us, we are quick to get rid of it, perhaps a little too quick to be rid of it, when it can provide us with some valuable information.

Anger is a feeling that tells us we are not happy. Something is bothering us, and it is our job to figure out what that is. Ignoring the feeling typically makes it worse; it builds up and gets stronger, until it gets to the point of shutting us down or causing an explosion. But at its most basic level, it is an indicator that something is not right. There is some sort of perceived (or real) threat from the outside world. We have the choice to listen to that feeling and try and understand what is not quite right and what we can do to feel better, or we can pretend it does not exist. The problem is that the second option typically does not work. Our sense of self wants to be heard and understood, and when that self is ignored, it does not just go away quietly.

I see anger as existing on a continuum. At its basic level, anger is a desire to assert oneself, to have one’s self expressed. This feeling relates to getting one’s needs met, asking for help, being assertive, ambitious, and independent. It is essentially our way of being taken care of, or rather, taking care of ourselves. It is that feeling that allows us to be successful in life. Part of why David struggled to attain success was that he completely shut out his sense of self. He was completely out of touch with any feelings of assertiveness and/or ambition. As a result, his life lacked meaning and excitement for him. His therapy was about allowing himself to get in touch with his feelings of ambition, as well as anger, and to learn to decipher what his feelings were telling him, and to realize if he could do that, he would no longer react as he did as a small child. By teaching him that there is a difference between his feelings and actions it gave David a sense of power. If he clarified with words how he was feeling, he was less likely to act out, by yelling, screaming, or as a child, punching or hitting. When people deny the existence of anger, it often builds momentum and overtakes the person when he or she least expects it. If someone can learn to notice how he or she feels at the outset (before it takes over), the emotion can be discharged.

An example I often use in treatment is a boiling pot of water. When the pot is covered, the pot is an enclosed space with nowhere for the steam to go. The heat in the pot causes the cover to blow off. If you have ever tried to boil water with the cover on, you know there is something very simple to discharge some of the heat and decrease the intensity of the boil and that is simply to remove the cover of the pot. Anger has a similar analogy. By allowing ourselves to accept our feelings and acknowledge we are upset about something it takes the top off our anger and allows the intensity to discharge from it. By keeping the anger bottled up inside it has nowhere to go but to explode. Giving ourselves permission to differentiate between our feelings and our actions, and recognizing we can feel angry, but not necessarily act on it, will allow us to see anger as something we are in control of, as opposed to something that is in control of us. For example, if someone feels like he is being taken advantage of, he can choose to ignore his feelings, which may lead to him yelling at his wife or children later in the day, or he can recognize his anger is legitimate and use the experience to understand what bothered him about the interaction so he can be more assertive in having his needs met in the future.

Anger can truly be a powerful force that when properly understood can grant us valuable information that will increase insight, awareness, self-reflection, self-advocacy, and ultimately, self-fulfillment.