Table of contents

Topic selection and introduction . What is anger (ABC model).. The psychology of anger How to control the anger.. Techniques to control anger. Appendix A

The topic section and introduction The behavior selected for the project was anger and aggression The idea that anger is dangerous is not without merit. Angry people are capable of great violence. However, while anger can certainly be abused, it is more than a simple destructive force. Anger is also a critically important part of what might be called the self-preservation and self-defense instincts. People who are incapable of getting angry are also incapable of standing up for themselves. It is important then that people learn how to express anger appropriately. People need to learn healthy and socially respectful ways to express angry feelings, and to not to let anger get out of control to the point where it negatively affects relationships, employability and health

Introduction: Anger is a fundamental emotion that everyone experiences from time to time. From a very early age, people learn to express anger by copying the angry behavior they see modeled around them, and by expressing angry behavior and seeing what they can get away with. As our culture has an uneasy relationship with anger expression, many people are brought up to think that it is inappropriate to express anger directly; that it must not be tolerated; that it is always dangerous. Such people learn to distrust anger, to bottle it up and ignore it, to express it only in indirect ways or to use it as a weapon. The idea that anger is dangerous is not without merit. Angry people are capable of great violence. However, while anger can certainly be abused, it is more than a simple destructive force. Anger is also a critically important part of what might be called the self-preservation and self-defense instincts. People who are incapable of getting angry are also incapable of standing up for themselves. It is important then that people learn how to express anger appropriately. People need to learn healthy and socially respectful ways to express angry feelings, and to not to let anger get out of control to the point where it negatively affects relationships, employability and health Anger is a basic human emotion that is experienced by all people. Typically triggered by an emotional hurt, anger is usually experienced as an unpleasant feeling that occurs when we think we have been injured, mistreated, opposed in our long-held views, or when we are faced with obstacles that keep us from attaining personal goals.

The experience of anger varies widely; how often anger occurs, how intensely it is felt, and how long it lasts are different for each person. People also vary in how easily they get angry (their anger threshold), as well as how comfortable they are with feeling angry. Some people are always getting angry while others seldom feel angry. Some people are very aware of their anger, while others fail to recognize anger when it occurs. Some experts suggest that the average adult gets angry about once a day and annoyed or peeved about three times a day. Other anger management experts suggest that getting angry fifteen times a day is more likely a realistic average. Regardless of how often we actually experience anger, it is a common and unavoidable emotion. Anger can be constructive or destructive. When well managed, anger or annoyance has very few detrimental health or interpersonal consequences. At its roots, anger is a signal to you that something in your environment isnt right. It captures your attention and motivates you to take action to correct that wrong thing. How you end up handling the anger signal has very important consequences for your overall health and welfare, however. When you express anger, your actions trigger others to become defensive and angry too. Blood pressures raises and stress hormones flow. Violence can ensue. You may develop a reputation as a dangerous 'loose cannon' whom no one wants to be around. Out of control anger alienates friends, co-workers and family members. It also has a clear relationship with health problems and early mortality. Hostile, aggressive anger not only increases your risk for an early death, but also your risk for social isolation, which itself is a major risk factor for serious illness and death. These are but two of many reasons why learning to properly manage anger is a good idea.

ABC model for anger a- activation The things that triggers anger and aggressive ness are betrayal, lies to me that will result in stress, anger, frustration, sadness, or other unpleasant emotions. b- believes my believes are that all people must fair to me or at least those to whom I trust and believe that they should act like that as I do . c- disputes; disputes occurs when there is an event happen where my believes are disturbed like some tell a lie to me or simply have no regards of my emotions .

Psychology of anger
Anger is a natural and mostly automatic response to pain of one form or another (physical or emotional). Anger can occur when people don't feel well, feel rejected, feel threatened, or experience some loss. The type of pain does not matter; the important thing is that the pain experienced is unpleasant. Because anger never occurs in isolation but rather is necessarily preceded by pain feelings, it is often characterized as a 'secondhand' emotion. Pain alone is not enough to cause anger. Anger occurs when pain is combined with some angertriggering thought. Thoughts that can trigger anger include personal assessments, assumptions, evaluations, or interpretations of situations that makes people think that someone else is attempting (consciously or not) to hurt them. In this sense, anger is a social emotion; You always have a target that your anger is directed against (even if that target is yourself). Feelings of pain, combined with anger-triggering thoughts motivate you to take action, face threats and defend yourself by striking out against the target you think is causing you pain. A Substitute Emotion Anger can also be a substitute emotion. By this we mean that sometimes people make themselves angry so that they don't have to feel pain. People change their feelings of pain into anger because it feels better to be angry than it does to be in pain. This changing of pain into anger may be done consciously or unconsciously. Being angry rather than simply in pain has a number of advantages, primarily among them distraction. People in pain generally think about their pain. However, angry people think about harming those who have caused pain. Part of the transmutation of pain into anger involves an attention shift from self-focus to other-focus. Anger thus temporarily protects people from having to recognize and deal with their painful real feelings; you get to worry about getting back at the people you're angry with instead. Making yourself angry can help you to hide the reality that you find a situation frightening or that you feel vulnerable. In addition to providing a good smoke screen for feelings of vulnerability, becoming angry also creates a feeling of righteousness, power and moral superiority that is not present when someone is merely in pain. When you are angry, you are angry with cause. "The people who have hurt me are wrong they should be punished" is the common refrain. It is very rare that someone will get angry with someone they do not think has harmed them in some significant fashion.

The definition of whether someone's anger is a problem often turns on whether or not other people agree with them that their anger, and the actions they take in the name of their anger, is justified. Angry people most always feel that their anger is justified. However, other people don't always agree. The social judgment of anger creates real consequences for the angry person. An angry person may feel justified in committing an angry, aggressive action, but if a judge or jury of peers do not see it that way, that angry person may still go to jail. If a boss doesn't agree that anger expressed towards a customer is justified, a job may still be lost. If a spouse doesn't agree that anger was justified, a marriage may have problems. Whether justified or unjustified, the seductive feeling of righteousness associated with anger offers a powerful temporary boost to self-esteem. It is more satisfying to feel angry than to acknowledge the painful feelings associated with vulnerability. You can use anger to convert feelings of vulnerability and helplessness into feelings of control and power. Some people develop an unconscious habit of transforming almost all of their vulnerable feelings into anger so they can avoid having to deal with them. The problem becomes that even when anger distracts you from the fact that you feel vulnerable, you still at some level feel vulnerable. Anger cannot make pain disappear it only distracts you from it. Anger generally does not resolve or address the problems that made you feel fearful or vulnerable in the first place, and it can create new problems, including social and health issues

How to control anger

The following discussion describes common anger management techniques. These techniques will not produce results if you use them only casuallyyou must be committed to actually using and practicing these techniques before they can have any chance of positively affecting your life.

1- Controlled Deep Breathing and Muscle Relaxation

Your breathing rate and heart rate both increase when you become emotionally aroused. You can learn to reverse these increases by deliberately slowing your breathing and/or systematically relaxing your tense muscles. Relaxing in this manner will help you to maintain control. You may find yourself breathing quick, shallow breaths when you are upset. Allowing this shallow chest-only breathing to continue will only exacerbate your anger. Instead, take action to redirect your breathing and relax your muscles so that you will calm down. Set aside at least 15 minutes in which to do this exercise. Less time than this will not likely be beneficial! Start your relaxation efforts by taking several slow and deep breaths in a row, each time taking care to exhale for twice as long as you inhale. Count slowly to four as you breathe in, and then breathe out slowly as you count to eight. As you do this, notice where the air in your lungs is going. Open your lungs and breath deeply across the lung's full range. Your breath should enter your belly first, then your chest, and finally your upper chest just below your shoulders. Feel your ribs expand as your lungs expand. Pay attention to how your ribs return to their original location as you exhale completely. Continue this breathing pattern for several minutes, returning immediately to normal breathing if at any time you feel odd or out of breath. Slow, deliberate and controlled deep breathing in this manner will help return your breath to a more normal, relaxed pattern. Because all things in the body are connected to each other, it is very likely that as you control your breath, you will also cause your heart rate to slow down, and some of your muscular tension to abate too. Anger frequently manifests in the form of muscle tension. This tension can collect in your neck and shoulders which may remain tense long after your anger is gone. If your neck is tense, continue with the exercise by slowly and gently (and we mean GENTLY) roll your head toward one shoulder and then towards the other. Coordinate your head role with your breathing. Roll your head gently to one side as you exhale, back to the center as you inhale and to the other side as you exhale again. Carefully repeat this technique several times until you feel the muscles in your neck relax a little.

You can work out some of your shoulder tension by deliberately and carefully shrugging your shoulders and releasing them several times. Shoulder rolls backward and forward can also help. Using these techniques together will help you to relax. As your face, neck, and shoulders become more relaxed, see if you can identify tension in other parts of your body (Your anger diary can help you to identify areas to focus on). If relaxation techniques alone dont work, try the opposite tighten and tense the stressed muscles for a slow count of ten and then release them. Be sure to release your tightened muscles immediately if you feel any pain! Move from one muscle group to the next until you have treated each section of your body to a cycle of tension and release. With a little practice, you can work your way down your entire body in a few minutes. Tensing and then relaxing your muscles can sometimes help you to achieve a better quality relaxation than relaxation alone. In all you should give yourself 20 to 30 minutes to calm down. Keep your breathing very deep and very regular during this time. Tell yourself that you are calming yourself down and soon you will be feeling much calmer. Relaxation techniques such as described just above can help you to relax, and have the positive side effect of helping you to stop focusing on being angry. They also give you time to think about the situation that has upset you; time that will help you generate fresh solutions to the problems you are facing

2-Controlled Thinking(Reality Testing ) People stop thinking clearly when they are angry. Angry people tend to make up their minds about a situation right away, and then spend so much time focusing on how they feel and how the situation affects them that they forget to pay attention to anything else. You have a much better chance of keeping yourself under control if you can manage to keep your attention from turning completely inward towards your hurt and/or angry feelings, and instead keep yourself focused on understand the situation you're faced with. Do what you can to 'squeeze the meaning' out of your angry impulses. Ask yourself what the anger is telling you and what you can learn from it. What about this particular situation is making you angry? How can you improve the situation and improve your anger at the same time? Then, use your relaxation techniques to reduce your arousal. Importantly, do not believe that you must respond to the anger-provoking situation right away. Most situations are flexible enough for you to take some time to gather yourself together, calm yourself down and really think about the situation before you must act. You might even take time to talk a troubling situation over with trusted advisers. The more you can approach a troubling situation in a prepared and relaxed manner, the greater are your chances of getting what you want from that situation. Reality Testing When an accused criminal goes to trial in America, there is an assumption that he or she is innocent until proven guilty. Angry people do not make this assumption, however. Instead, they presume that people they are upset with are simply guilty. Angry people blame others (or themselves) for things that have gone wrong. Underlying this blaming is an attribution that angry people make, which is that the target of their anger has caused things to go wrong. But this is not always the case! Sometimes the target of an angry person's wrath is an innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got blamed for something he or she didn't do. In order to better manage anger, then, it is important for angry people to slow down and not simply act on their aggressive first impulses, and instead do some reality testing so as to know whether their anger is truly justified or not. The first step towards building good reality testing habits is to give up your assumption that your first impression of a situation is always accurate. It is hard to know the objective truth of

situations. Each of us sees only one side (our own) of every interaction. Reality is often more complex than our simple senses are capable of appreciating. By way of illustration, consider that that for thousands of years educated and intelligent people thought that the world was flat. They thought that if you were to sail too far away from land you could fall over the edge of the world and be destroyed. We know better than this today, but not because the appearance of the situation has changed. In fact, the world still looks quite flat if you simply look at it. We only know it is round because we've sailed around it and have returned to our starting place, and because we've been into space and have looked down on it from above. In this case, our simple senses deceive us, and we must rely on fancy techniques to know the truth of the situation.

The first scholars to propose that the earth was round were dismissed as cranks. It was only as evidence began to mount in favor of a spherical earth rather than a flat one (e.g., as explorers circumnavigated the earth in boats) that public opinion shifted to favor the view we hold today. People who thought the world was flat were not stupid - they just didn't have access to the evidence they needed to know the truth. Angry people need to recognize that their first impulses to be angry in a given situation might very well turn out to be as misguided as was our ancestors' belief in a flat earth.
In short, angry people need to stop and gather more complete evidence before passing judgment if they want to better manage their anger. Black and White Thinking It is easier to accept that your first angry impressions might not represent a complete and accurate picture of a troubling situation when you understand the world to be a complex place. Recognizing complexity is difficult for some angry people who are in the habit of seeing the world in either "Black" or "White" terms. Many angry people speak in polarized generalities, insisting that things must "always" be a certain way, or that people should "never" behave in a particular way. They may concentrate on the negative sides of things instead of acknowledging the positive aspects that may also be present. They may rapidly jump to conclusions without bothering to verify whether or not their understanding is correct. These polarized black and white habits of thought need to be broken down so that shades of gray can be recognized before anger management progress will occur in a lasting way.

Talking It Out Helps Once you are open to the possibility that your first impressions might be incorrect or incomplete, there are several ways to test those impressions so as to gain a better, more complete understanding. One of the best ways to reality test is to talk with other people who have witnessed the angering situation or event. What do they think happened? How do they think the problem was caused? If you believe that a particular person has damaged you, for example, and other people strongly tend to see the situation the same way you do, then you are more justified in feeling angry at that person then you would be if other people saw the situation very differently than you. Other people's input can help you to appreciate more of the complexity of the situation than you can know on your own. The Benefit Of The Doubt A quick alternative reality testing method to consulting with others is to use the venerable "Count to 10 before you act" rule, otherwise known as giving the target of your anger the benefit of the doubt. As your angry reaction rises to meet a situation, put the breaks on it for a while. Do what you can to calm yourself. Then look for alternative explanations that might account for the situation you're upset about. Take for example a situation where someone is driving slowly in front of you on the freeway, blocking you from getting where you need to go in an efficient manner. Your first impulse might be to scream at the slow driver for being incompetent. By counting to 10 before you scream, you give yourself time to consider alternative possibilities that might account for the situation. Perhaps the slow driver has faulty breaks or some other mechanical problem with his car and needs to drive slowly so as to maintain control while on his way to the repair shop. Perhaps the slow driver has had several tickets recently and is driving at exactly the speed limit so as to avoid losing his license. If either of these alternative explanations turn out to be true, it would be harder to stay mad at the slow driver, even though it would continue to be frustrating to be stuck behind him.

3-Believable Reasons for Staying Cool

Even if you are justified in feeling angry about a situation, it is not okay to simply attack the target of your anger. There are too many ways that you can and will be punished for inappropriate and unrestrained angry expression. In today's terrorized world, violent outbursts and threats are simply not well tolerated. If you physically attack someone there is a good chance you could be brought up on charges and arrested. If you attack your boss, a co-worker or a customer, there is a good chance you will lose your job. If you attack your child, you may very well find that child removed from your custody. Even if you don't lose custody, you will have at the very least taught your child that it is acceptable to behave violently towards children (which is is not). If you attack friends and family, you seriously reduce the chances that they will want to help you in the future when you might need their support.

It is a good idea for you to develop a list of personal reasons why you want to stay calm and cool in certain situations, and to read over these reasons frequently so that they stay fixed and clear in your mind. The reasons you generate should be informed by the realistic consequences that might befall you should you allow yourself to get out of control. The following example reasons might serve to get you started: I need to stay calm so I will not lose my job. I need to stay calm so my children can learn that it is not good to act

violently. I need to stay cool so I do not end up in the hospital or in jail. I need to stay calm so that my spouse will not divorce me. I need to stay calm so I will not break things or knock holes in the wall, either

of which will take money and time to repair I need to stay calm so I will not alienate a close friend.