Is suppressing anger the best way to control it?

Question

Is anger management about suppressing anger?

Answer 1

Hi Maddy, you received a lot of postive responses here! I am please to read so many who understand that supressing anger is not the way to go, and that anger management is not about the suppressing of anger, but finding methods to resolve it in a healthy manner.

We are hearing of so much violence on the news these days, and usually most people who either were close to the individual(s) responsible, or were neighbors and co-workers, who always state, "I never would have suspected he/she was capable of such an act, s/he seemed so nice, so quiet and polite".

These folks had been suppressing anger, did not have any conducive outlets or skills in conflict resolution. The anger usually began years earlier, with a small item. Then, over the years, other items were added to the first, and while each could be very small, or moderate, something many of us would brush off as unimportant, the individual without the ability to let it go, to find an appropriate outlet or any ability in assertiveness, or conflict resolution, they all begin to pile on top of one another until the individual is a quiet, but simmering volcano of rage ready to erupt into outragous violence.

This often begins in childhood. The child is not taught how to manage incidents of insult, or slights, perceived injustices, and other daily irritants. Often, the child is also abused, either physically, emotionally, phychologically, or sexually, or sufferes from neglect or other issues such as drug addicted parents, or overworked parents, or otherwise just parents who fail to meet a childs most basic needs of instuction on how to interact with others and resolve issues.

Such a child will suffer from low self esteem, lack of confidence, and shyness, which as an adult can be mistaken for "quietness". The individual can be very polite, and will often find him/herself in other abusive situations in which they flounder and become trapped.

These individuals have also been ostrosized often, and this continues the low self esteem and confidence. They will also often develop what is referred to as "victimization", where they are consistantly perceiving themselves as victims of society, and often have strong feelings of entitlement, which creates this "victimization" attitude when they are denied what they perceive is a right.

A small example are those who we see everyday sharing the roads with us, those who act as though they "own" the roads, and will behave in totally inconsiderate manners, or worse, with "road rage". Road rage is an easy behavior for these folks to engage in as being behind a wheel on a road, lends to a feeling of annynimity. This feeling of beng "annoynamous" leads to behavior they would never engage in if their identity were known.

We, as a society, can never truely "know" anybody. Not really, not deep down in a persons' psychi, where their most secret thoughts, feelings, and emotions are residing. Even those we are closest to are not transparent. Each person has an extremely hidden part of the soul which nobody, sometimes not even themselves, knows exists.

Sometimes we can have a few 'warning' signs of a troubled soul. It has been shown that a person who abuses animals will abuse his/her closest family members. A good key to follow when beginning to date and get closer to an individual is to watch and see how they treat members of the oppostie sex, especially how they treat, (I will use a female as an example) fathers, brothers, and male cousins. You can then take this one step out and listen to what they say about the opposite sex in general. This will give a strong indication of how that person will treat you. I taught this to my children, starting at very young ages, so they could hopefully avoid such abusive and toxic individuals.

We seldom know what is occurring behind closed doors. Most families keep very private, and what is portrayed to the outside world is often far from what occurres in the privacy of the home. Somebody you deeply respect could be secretly abusing his or her family behind closed doors. We just never really know these things unless people are willing to step up and speak out. However, and very sadly and often tragically, these folks know how to prey upon those with low self esteem and confidence and so have ample avenues to "vent" their anger in innapropriate manners.

Those who are the most dangerous to us as a society are those who are loners, who do not have close relationships to "vent" upon. I will use the young man who just murdered all those people at the Virginia Tech. This young man was a loner, he was troubled, felt entitled and when his expectations were not met, he developed a very healthy dose of the "victim" mentality. He especially was angered over those who had "more" than he. Instead of feeling fortunate to have the opportunity to attend a prestigious higher education facility which would eventually enabled him to aquire these things he felt entitled too, he chose instead to through his life, and thirty two innocent lives away. Was he a monster? No, he was a human being who made a lot of wrong choices in how he percieved himself, society in general, and the world around him. How we react to what we feel are injustices against us is a choice. Nobody "made" him do what he did. He choose to do this. Nobody makes a victim of anybody. Nobody has that power over another.

Sure, we can be harmed by others, and when this occurrs society has labled the individual a "victim". We must have a word to decribe a crime against an individual, a group, or society at large. However, this is only a term, a lable, not a fact. Each individual has the power to take an event and turn in into either a long standing negitive or a long standing postive. A cheated upon spouse chooses to continue in the relationship, and when doing so can either forgive and move forward perhaps into a more postive relationship, if both parties are willing to work on the issues, or can make the cheating spouse suffer for an indefinate period of time, venting anger and rage and feeling justified in doing so. It is a choice, but it is not justified. If a person feels so abused by another, that individual has a responsibility to his/herself to leave the situation and move onto one which is more healthy and positve. This is just another example of how people can attempt to justify behaviors they choose to inflict upon others, and themselves. They simply fail to comprehend that anger and rage hurts the person experiancing it far more than anybody else. Unless however, they decide to do what that young man did.

Suppressing anger and rage is not what anger management is all about. Anger management is about helping individuals who were not adequently taught skills during childhood, and have since developed unhealthy coping mechinisms. Often these coping mechinisms simply do not work for them or anybody around them.

The largest task of anger management, and the most difficult, is to aid an individual in understanding that an attitude is a choice, that most of what fuels anger is self perceived slights, injustices and unfairness. Anger mangement attempts to help individuals understand that life is not fair, that nobody has any entitlement to anything in life except an expectation of self governance over what they allow in their lives and around their families. Many folks with anger problems, those who have outragious outbursts of rage, do so because of feelings of entitlement.

They feel they were mistreated as a child, that they were denied what other children had, that their parents "owed" them much more than they received. One of the most important jobs of parents is teaching children life is not fair. That nobody owes another anything except common courtesy. Even that is not a given, just a societal expectation.

One of the first phrases a child will burst out with is, "That's not fair!". Across all societies, languages, cultures, ecconomical situations is that children are born with a strong attitude that life should be "fair". For me, this demonstrates that life does not begin at conception, that we were spirits before birth into a physical body in a physical world. Children are not born as "clean slates", but are born with personalities, gifts, and abilities which are unique to each. This is the foundation which they begin life here.

How these are developed or stunted is determined by the personality, and by their enviroment. I believe some children are born without empathy, without a conscience. These are the sociopaths and phychopaths of our world. Some can live ordinary lives, conduct themselves in manners which do no great harm other than exhibit great selfishness and self absorption. Others can kill without mercy or inflict other horrific damage.

In speaking of anger mangement, I am basically talking about those who do have consciences, who are capable of empathy. For those without these items are not really able to change and that means they are not able to be aided in attaining more healthy attitudes and behaviors. I have met several people without any ability to empathize or who do not have a conscience. These are very scary individuals, to put it mildly!

Anger management comprises of several critical scopes of instruction and modification. First, individuals must be helped to move away from the entitlement attitude, taught life is not fair, that how they percieve slightls and injustices is a choice, not something out of their control. The second area is just as critical, but truely hinges upon the success of the first. This is teaching healthy anger management skills, in differentiating between between what is out of their control and what is in their control. Teaching the difference between aggression and assertion. To assert oneself in a healthy manner is far different from showing aggression. Those with anger problems fail to differentiat between these two behavior choices. They are the one and the same. Those with severe anger problems are often mistakenly proud of aggression, and fail to understand how proper healthy self assertion would have served them far better.

There was a fellow who worked with my husband who has an anger management problem. He was angered easily, had a low trigger point. Do to this he was very vulnerable. Others at work who enjoy inflicting harm on others recognized him as a prime target. One in particular began to incite his anger. To poke and prod him, until one day he erupted innappropriately at work, and was fired. The employee who incited him is still employed there. While that is indeed not very fair, life is not fair, and the one with the prime responsibility was the man who erupted into verbal violence. It was his responsibility to choose to react one way or another. It was his responsibility to understand how innapropriate it is to scream verbal abuse at another, regardless of how provoked he was. While I feel sad for this man and his family, and anger towards the one who incited him, the bottom line is if he had handled himself more appropriately, he would still be employed there. This is where we get the term, "Aggravated assult". When somebody incited the violence. The person who engages in the violence is the one who broke the law. While what the aggravator did was morally wrong, we do have freedom of speech here, and it is our singular responsibility to control our own actions and reactions. I am sure most who are sanctioned from a felony charge of aggravated assualt, sit in jail feeling very victiimized and do not take self responsibility for the violence. They feel justified, that they were entittled to act as they did in response to how they were treated. This is the attitude which has to be changed in anger management before any skills of healthy self assertion can be taught, before any skill level of finding healthy anger outlets can be instilled.

Anger mangement is not about suppression, but about learning how to cope in a healthy manner to situations and behaviors which affect us.

However, I believe you already are aware of this. ;-) I find many of your questions to be more along the lines of hypothetical, so you can see what others feel about a given situation or issue. As you know, I enjoy your questions emmensly, and would like to come here more often.

I really am pleased, as I stated at the beginning, how all the repondants had such a strong grasp of what anger management is about, and that suppressing anger is not healty, for anybody. lol

It helps me feel, that as a society, we are really moving in the right direction. That people really are developing in a positive direction considering all of the changes which have occurred these past two hundred years. When we think about these changes, it is amazing how well we are coping. We have gone from women being veiwed as children and not very intelligent ones at that, who had no more rights than children and were under the physical domain of first their father, then onto a husband, and if those were not available, some other male family member. Women are also learning how to handle our newfound freedoms, in ever more increasingly adult, mature, fair attitudes and behaviors. Slaverly has been eradicated in this country, Native Americans are slowly rebuilding their heritage and communities, etc.

Anytime change occurrs, we find we go from one extreme to another. Sometime down the road we find our way to a healthy middle ground. It is only natural that many men are having some anger problems. It was only a few generations ago afterall, that men had the right to hit their wives, to totally dominate and control them, and if they failed to do so, were considered a laughing stock, a joke amoung other men, as weak. With the onset of equalization we have great social flux, and we have to learn our new roles, and change our views and expectations. Both sexes have to find where we now fit into society, and it is difficult. Sexism, racial hatred, all of these are in rapid change, and our society will continue to feel these affects for some time to come.

We each have a responsibility to control our own attitudes and behaviors. It is a choice, we are not victims, unless we allow oursleves to be.

Thank you for your question, you have a great day and weekend! Sorry about my spelling, I didn't write this up in Word first this time. ;-)

Answer 2

Anger management is NOT suppressing anger.
Suppressing anger only makes anger bigger. It poisons you. After a while you feel bitter not only for the reason of your anger but for everything that surrounds you. The best we can do is to let some steam off. This is anger management. When you take a deep breath and go away from the root of your anger to think. Rationalize. If you judge that you have the right on your side, go ahead and assert it. Express your true feelings in a way that does not degrade you as human. Be careful not to do or say things that will make you sorry later.
Discuss it with the person who has angered you. Because if you don't, if you suppress it, this thing will grow like avalanche and might cover you as well....

Answer 3

No, suppressing anger is not the best way to control it. Anger management isn't about suppressing anger either.

Go check out the book: How to Really Love Your Teenager by Ross Campbell

There is a chapter in the book about anger. There is also an Anger Ladder.

It's about learning appropriate responses to things that bother you. It's also about emotional maturity so you can state how you are, how you feel, what angers or upsets you without flying into a rage or acting on impulse only.

Answer 4

Suppressing anger is definitely not the best way to control it. It tends to build up inside you. There's only so much a person can take. Sooner or late, you're gonna erupt. That obviously won't be a pleasant sight.

Anger management is the ability to control your emotions. You have to let that anger out some way or another.

Best would be to take up hobbies like kick boxing or basketball. You could even go running... (: Anything to vent out your anger will be fine (: Many of my friends usually go over to the arcade. It's a fine way to relieve stress as well.

Though, if you have serious issues, you should really see a counsellor or psychologist. Talking about it, would be most effective :)

Answer 5

I don't think suppressing it is right. You have to learn to channel it. You pick a good cause to fight for, and when you get angry, you take the energy of that anger and apply it to the cause. (like sign up for Big Brother or Big Sister organization, go play some bball with a less fortunate kid, get your anger out through this kind of activity, it not only makes you feel better, but you've helped someone in a productive way.) This is what I would call anger management.

Suppression is what causes things like the VA Tech situations. It builds and builds, until the release of it is explosive, and damaging.

Answer 6

it's the worst! all anger suppressed will be released at some time, and the more you suppress the worse you out break will be.

Instead suppress ur anger only for the moment, then do something physical you enjoy (running biking sports, etc..) and allow the energy to release itself through the activity.

Also know there is nothing better than having someone you trust to be abale to talk trough your feelings with.

Answer 7

No..suppressing anger can lead to an explosive event. Channeling your anger into an activity is the best way. The more strenuous the better.

Answer 8

No. The more you enclose the boiling pot, the greater the explosion when it finally lets go. You need to see that dealing with life's stresses with anger is not a good approach. Let the anger rise and fall by stepping aside from it when it surfaces. Seek a better way to deal with things with reason and patience and firmness. Anger is an animal emotion. You are better than an animal and have more potential.

Answer 9

Try counting backwards from 10 to 1, in those situations, as it interrupts the process, which is different to suppressing anger (a potentially dangerous thing to do, both for yourself and possibly others). Practise for 15 mins daily, the method at http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/ Tai Chi & yoga suits some. See http://www.coping.org/ & http://www.my-counseling-site.com ,com/anger-counseling.html

Answer 10

No I don't belive it's about suppressing the anger as much as it is. Venting the anger like a tea kettle is a much more approch. you won't blow up and you won't hold it all in either. Just find other ways to take out your frustrations. driving, sex, something.... it works for me and I'm a manic depressive bipolar man. Laterz

Answer 11

No, it's about releasing anger in a controlled manner that you don't hurt yourself or anyone else.

When angry I go hit the punching bag or run as much and as fast as I can.