Do you feel intense anger towards many others for seemingly trivial reasons?
Are your anger issues causing you interpersonal, family or work problems?
Do you wish you could just calm down and learn how to control anger?
You are not alone!
Anger issues are an extremely common problem here in NYC!
Thousands of people seek anger management classes and anger management techniques.
The good news is, that anger management therapy with a wise, empathetic therapist can bring about tremendous relief and reduction in angry feelings! It’s more than just learning how to control anger.
How does it work?
First and most important we must find out the cause of your anger issues.
NYC Anger Management Classes usually won’t give you this!
Anger is a natural and healthy part of the immune system. Just like on the micro level, your immune cells attack germs and other things that threaten your body, anger is your immune system on a macro level. It is the very useful emotion that is used to motivate you to defend yourself from aggression or an attack. And not just a physical attack, anger helps you defend yourself from emotional, verbal or financial attacks as well!
Therefore in order to learn how to deal with anger, there are two facts that we must remember:
One, if you have been attacked or harmed by anyone up until now, we know that you must have been angered. If that anger has been properly processed in a healthy and therapeutic way, then it will no longer bother you, but if it was not processed it will still be very much alive inside you. Two, if you are feeling angry, you must have been attacked or harmed sometime in the past up until now! Without attacks or threats, anger simply doesn’t exist! And when there have been attacks or harm, even verbal or emotional, there will always be anger!
Therefore if you were ever harmed or mistreated by anyone and you are not feeling angry, your anger is likely repressed where it can cause all sorts of emotional and physical health problems, and learning how to deal with anger means it must be processed and released in one form of Anger Management Therapy.
But if you are feeling angry or enraged towards people, the critical step you must take in NYC Anger Management Counseling is more than just controlling anger, it’s finding out who has truly harmed or mistreated you!
Most anger management clients are directing their anger towards the wrong people. That is why they don’t experience relief, and that is the secret of how to manage anger that they won’t tell you in Anger Management Classes!
In my experience, most anger management people in NYC are truly angry at important people in their past!
This may include parents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents or others, if they had a hand in raising you. This may come as a surprise to you! “But I love my family members,” you may say, “Maybe they weren’t perfect, but they did a lot for me and I don’t seem to be feeling that angry towards them. It’s my spouse, boss, co-workers, children and all sorts of other people who I feel angry at.” We must understand the incredibly huge responsibility that parents and other family members bear. It is completely their job to provide you with all your needs in your early life, and to treat you with the ultimate in respect and consideration. In addition it is their job to prepare you for a successful and healthy adult life, both emotionally, physically and professionally. Most family members were loving and well-intentioned, but they unfortunately usually make many mistakes in these areas. Their giant responsibility and power to influence your well-being magnifies any errors they may have made until their mistakes can safely be considered harm or mistreatment.
Many, many people have been unfortunately harmed by important people in their past, and as I said, harm or mistreatment always causes anger.
It is not your spouse, boss, children, siblings’ or friends’ responsibility to provide you your needs and give you a happy life. Therefore you will not be angry at them if they fail to do that, and even if those people did hurt you, your anger towards them will automatically be less, because after all it’s not their actual job to provide for you. But it was your family members' job to do only kindness to you and to give you everything. Therefore any mistreatment they may have done to you is especially egregious and will tend to generate much more anger. I’m not saying you shouldn’t attend Anger Management classes, but in order to learn how to control anger, you must get this point!
Please bear in mind that we don’t blame your parents or family members for your anger problems.
They did the best they could considering the circumstances and we don’t fault them for making common mistakes. However we do attribute cause to them. Their mistakes unfortunately did cause you harm and suffering, and that must automatically have caused you anger issues commensurate with the harm done. The fact that they loved you will not take away the anger problems.
But I find it difficult to think of mistakes that my family members made or bad things they may have done to me…
We must remember that a child is completely emotionally and physically dependent on his parents and family, and for his own survival, he must perceive them as all loving and all good. For a child to recognize that they are making mistakes and mistreating him, even verbally, is too terrifying for him to even consider for a second. It would create what’s caused an abandonment annihilation trauma in the child’s mind. Therefore every child automatically tends to idealize his parents and family thinking “They are right, the reason they are mistreating or neglecting me is because I deserved it, I was bad. But they are good. They are taking good care of me!” These thought patterns tend to persist through adulthood, and we tend to overlook our familys’ mistakes and to not complain. But that is the cause of the whole anger problem!
Anger management people are usually harboring great repressed anger at important people in their past, but they are totally unaware of that fact.
Their anger issues are so built up that they come out onto all kinds of innocent others who even if they did harm him, did so only in a relatively minor way and did not merit such intense anger. Even when other people did truly harm him, such as an abusive spouse or boss, it was the mistakes made by his family that set him up to be a victim to that abusive spouse or boss, therefore even then he will be truly angry at those loved ones deep down inside. I know a woman who was married young to an abusive husband. Of course she should have some anger towards him, but it was her parents’ mistake of not helping her choose a kind husband that will be a bigger source of anger! It was their job to raise her in such a way that she had the tools to protect herself and choose a marriage partner wisely. Marrying her off to a beast was a great injustice and neglect on their part, and therefore we know that she must be angry at them even for the abuses of her husband! A person who is taking abuse from his boss or others was usually set up by his family relationships to have unfortunately less than required self-respect, making him a magnet for such abuse, therefore he will only be 25 percent angry at his boss but 75 percent angry at his them! These are the Anger Management Techniques that you must learn!
So why is recognizing you are angry at people in your past so helpful?
Recognizing who you are truly angry at is extremely emotionally healthy for several reasons. Our immune system, of which anger is a critical part, wants to recognize and identify the aggressor, so it can be sure that the self will not experience any further abuse. Knowing who has hurt you in the past is very helpful for your immune system to do its job. But not even knowing who hurt you drives the immune system into a frenzy of seeking potential aggressors at every turn, thus the anger management person’s rage at all sorts of bystanders. Knowing who has truly hurt you will calm your anger issues down significantly in itself. In addition, you can then take steps to ensure that they no longer abuse you, as many family members of adults continue to mistreat them for decades.
Furthermore you can express your anger towards your family in a very wise and respectful way.
If you do so carefully and with therapeutic guidance, and you can get them to admit that they may have made some mistakes with you, and this will go light years in reducing your anger problems! You see, when someone harms you and they will not admit they were wrong, it drives the immune system mad, making the victim very enraged because it thinks, “They won’t even admit they hurt me. If they don’t even consider it to be abuse, then they are likely to repeat it and I am in danger.” Thus you will remain angry. But if you can get those who harmed you, even mistakenly, to admit they were wrong and even apologize, it will be a tremendous relief to your immune system. Your unconscious mind will think, “They recognized their mistake and expressed regret and remorse, they are thus unlikely to repeat the harm,” and then it will relax and your anger issues will subside greatly! This needs to be done under the guidance of a wise anger management therapist.
You need to approach hose important people and tell them you love them very much and want to have a meaningful, mutually satisfying relationship with them,
and there is something they can do which will help you immensely, and will create that great relationship. Most people approached this respectfully will be willing to help. You must then tell them that you recognize that they loved you and did their best for you but they unfortunately made some honest mistakes which affected you, and if they could simply recognize those mistakes it will be incredibly healing for you and will pave the way for a great relationship. Often they will respond positively to this! However it must be done only after you have processed your anger in therapy for a few months and it has calmed down. You must be able to approach them in a calm, respectful manner. I know a man who was verbally abused by his mother and after a good time in therapy he approached her in this way and sincerely told her how much he needed her to recognize her errors. She gratefully did responding, “I’m so sorry I hurt you, I just didn’t know anything about parenting. I hope you get better.”
That simple 5-minute phone conversation together with Anger Management Therapy caused years of anger to melt away!
So before you approach them you need to gain a full conscious awareness of how much you are angry at them, or any others who have harmed you. You must truly and deeply feel your angry feelings, directed only at those who hurt you. You must become aware of the monstrosity of the damage to you those errors have done and the injustice of it and how it has affected you. Then you must mourn and grieve the fact that your family or others harmed you, because harm suffered in childhood is truly the greatest loss a person can suffer, greater than the loss of a loved one, and it must be mourned in order to heal.
However there’s more we can do in Anger Management Counseling in My NYC office besides dealing with your anger issues towards people in your past.
There are many practical interpersonal management skills that you can learn in therapy, to increase your getting along with people and reduce your anger problems. The key to learning how to control anger is to get a warm, empathetic therapist, who has the experience to give you all the interpersonal wisdom you need.
But you still may have concerns about Anger Management Therapy…
Anger Management Counseling in NYC is expensive, and I’m not sure it’s worth the investment…
New research shows that unresolved anger issues generates heart disease, stroke, cancer and a host of other serious physical illnesses, not to mention anxiety, depression and interpersonal conflict. NYC Anger Management Classes may be less expensive, but Anger Management Therapy with a private therapist who prepares a personally tailored plan just for you will have so many benefits for your entire life! Imagine the peace of not walking around enraged at people all the time. In fact, the benefits are so great, that therapy is actually a steal!
My family members will never admit they ever did anything wrong…This is all useless to me…
Even if they are not willing to cooperate, or even if they have passed on, gaining conscious awareness of your anger and who you are truly angry at will bring tremendous relief and reduction in angry feelings! I have seen it help many people. Never give up, there is always something you can do in therapy to learn how to control your anger and improve your emotional health.
I’m afraid if I face who I am really angry at, I will go mad with rage and it will be much worse… I feel I may need to keep it inside…
Dealing with anger disorders is like taking out a splinter. It hurts more to take it out but after it’s out, the relief is immense! It is never a wise option to repress anger! Doing so causes all sorts of illnesses. It takes bravery to face your anger and it is not easy, but the guidance of a kind therapist will make it possible and the joy of getting your anger issue resolved in incredible!
I have been working with anger issues for years. Angry people tend to like me! My incredibly kind attitude and good sense of humor leads them to think, “I am angry at others but not you.”
Never despair of finding relief!
With a little effort and wise guidance, most anger issues can be greatly improved in a few months.
If you are struggling with anger disorders and feel anger management therapy in my NYC office is right for you, you may chat with me in the chat box or give me a call at 646-681-1707 for a complementary 15-minute consultation. I look forward to speaking with you!
For a discussion of how Play Therapy benefits emotional health, click here.
To find out how Play Therapy helps for ADHD, click here.
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