Vancouver Anger Management Counselling & Anger Control Therapy
Anger is a natural, fundamental human emotion everyone in Vancouver experiences periodically.
In centuries past, anger was nature’s way of empowering us with a means to repel anything we perceived to be a threat.
In Vancouver today, anger is typically triggered by emotional hurt and is usually experienced when we believe ourselves to have been injured, mistreated, opposed in opinion, or when we are faced with barriers keeping us from accomplishing our personal ambitions.
OK, Vancouver... What Is Anger?
Anger can be a normal, healthy reaction to feeling aggravated, censured or endangered. Known as the 'fight or flight' response, anger can range from feeling normal annoyance to full-blown fury, in turn clouding your thinking and judgment, and potentially leading to unreasonable or irrational action.
How people experience anger is quite diverse - how frequently anger arises, how intense it is, and how long it lasts vary considerably from person to person. People also differ in how easily they get angry, as well as how comfortable they are with feeling angry. Some individuals get angry regularly while others seldom do. Some of us are very aware of our anger, while others fail to recognize their own anger when it occurs.
Some Vancouver anger management experts suggest the average adult gets angry approximately once a day and bothered or irritated roughly three times daily. Other anger management experts suggest a more realistic average would be fifteen times a day.
No matter how often anger occurs it’s a common and unavoidable emotion. The problem is not anger itself; the problem is the mismanagement of anger. Mismanaged anger and rage is the major cause of conflict in our personal and professional relationships.
Domestic abuse, road rage, workplace violence, divorce, and addiction are just a few examples of what happens when anger becomes mismanaged.
Cognitive Causes Of Anger
What does cause anger? People with anger management problems often have a simple answer - they believe that other people cause them to get angry. But this raises two questions. How can an external event create an internal reaction? And why is it that one person can be disappointed but calm in the face of a circumstance to which another reacts with rage?
Events and circumstances alone do not cause anger. Anger results from how people view what happens to them. First let us dispose of a common misconception. People do not become angry just because they are frustrated. Frustration is a normal reaction to unwanted events and circumstances, and will result when a person fails to get something they want or ends up with something they don't want.
Extreme anger, on the other hand, is what people experience when they fail to get what they think they need or must have. It is an emotional response to a frustrated demand.
There are four types of thinking, which create dysfunctional anger management:
- Inferential distortions such as mind-reading, fortune-telling, filtering, and emotional reasoning lead people to misinterpret what is happening around and to them. More important, misinterpretations are followed by self-defeating evaluations
- Awfulising and discomfort-intolerance about unwanted events (often called 'cant-stand-it-it-is'). Anger frequently results from anxiety, and violence often represents an attempt to ward off perceived threats
- perceived threats to well-being (discomfort anxiety);
- perceived threats to self-image (ego anxiety).
- Expectations held as demands. Demands typically lead to low-frustration tolerance - a key cause of dysfunctional anger
- moralising about how people 'should' or 'should not' behave;
- believing that the world or one's circumstances 'have' to or 'need' to be a certain way.
- Global rating of other people
- labelling a person as a 'bitch', 'bastard', or some other all-encompassing label makes it easier to be angry with them.
Being aware of these four types of anger-provoking thought is the first step forward in taking back control over your anger!
What Can I Do To Better Control Or Manage My Anger?
Although anger is a normal human emotion, the manner in which you choose to express your anger may not be typical or acceptable to your acquaintances, friends and family. If you suspect you have an anger control issue, or if people you respect may have hinted that you do, contact Vancouver counselor Barbara Mulski for more information.
Help for anger problems is available through Barbara’s Vancouver anger management counselling sessions. Her counseling services are designed to help you learn to control your anger responses in order to improve your relationships and health. Her anger management sessions have helped people gain mastery over their anger. However, much like any therapy or educational program, anger management counseling can only benefit you should you decide to commit to it fully.
Learning how to control your anger will be a constant undertaking. You‘ll need to reorganize your auto-responses towards people and circumstances. You may need to be more accountable to yourself and others around you for your thoughts and actions. The process will require self-discipline, dedication and a proper action plan.
Contact Vancouver anger management counselor Barbara Mulski about how she can help with your anger control and management issues today.
Counseling anger control clients from Burnaby, Coquitlam, New Westminster, Richmond, Surrey and Vancouver!
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