Sunday, October 7, 2012

You Cannot Control Anger, You Must Remove The Cause

Anger is not one of the positive emotions; in fact it can be one of the most destructive for both the sufferer and people nearby. Though anger affects both men and women, it tends to be more of a problem with men.

Chronic anger is anger that has been within the person for a long time. It may have started when the person was a child and still be there sixty years later. It is not the reactive anger to an event; it is the deep seething feeling that is rarely far from the surface.

As an example (which is purely hypothetical), a young girl has an older sister that somehow seems to get better treatment by her parents. This unfair treatment goes on uncorrected for many years. This leads to the younger sister feeling a sense of injustice, unfairness and yet guilt for feeling that way. She has conflicting emotions of anger and guilt. When the unequal treatment extends into adolescence and adulthood, the conscious mind accepts the unfair treatment but the unconscious mind does not. The result is chronic anger which is continually being reinforced every time she and her sister are with their parents.

There are usually strong signals when someone feels chronic anger. The symptoms may include; aggression, a "short fuse", low tolerance, poor inter-personal skills and a risk of verbal abuse leading to physical violence. Though not everyone who has injustice in their lives will suffer with chronic anger, almost everyone who has such anger will have something in their lives which was the cause.

Chronic anger not only affects the person, it affects everyone around them. Friends, if there are any, and family members learn to tread carefully when the person is around. They learn quickly that any small event can trigger a bout of anger when things can be thrown, harsh words spoken and people may be assaulted.

The cause of chronic anger is usually an unresolved issue from the past. It may have arisen many years ago, and even decades before would not be uncommon. The cause is usually hidden within the unconscious mind so the sufferer rarely has any idea what caused the anger. The anger may have gone on so long that the person believes it is their normal behaviour.

The most frequent causes of chronic anger include frustration, an impotence to put the offending matter right. It may involve something that conflicts with their basic sense of justice and fair play. It may arise from a feeling of lack of control in their lives.

In summary, chronic anger arises from an injustice which is unresolved.

The usual methods of dealing with someone who is angry, such as shouting back, have no effect and may make matters worse. Avoiding the person is easier but leaves the sufferer feeing isolated. Asking the person to "get control" of themselves will simply increase the sense of injustice and make the person more angry. None of these techniques will resolve the issue.

Talking to the person in a calm and quiet voice will often settle them down but will do nothing to resolve the issue. Talking to the person calmly will appeal to their conscious mind but will not reach the unconscious issue that is the ultimate cause.

The only person who can resolve the issue is the person who suffers the anger. Only that person can undertake the internal searching for the cause of the problem. In short, the person must take responsibility for their anger, stop blaming everyone else for their problems and decide to sort out their issues.

This will not be easy because a feeling of anger may be so familiar that the person cannot remember any other way to behave. Feeling angry may be their way of life. The aim must be to give them, and everyone who is near them, peace of mind.

The only way to resolve the anger is to find the cause and resolve it. The person must be empowered so that their sense of injustice is satisfied. It may not be possible to achieve complete satisfaction, but acceptance of the unjust situation may be enough to allow the anger to abate. Often, the anger is intense because the injustice took place when the person was very young, and at such a young age, they had no life skills or experiences to put the injustice into perspective.

Once the cause of the anger is resolved, the person often has to retrain themselves to react to situations in a calmer manner. They must relearn that any minor mishaps in life are not a reinforcement of life's unfair treatment. They must relinquish their feelings of paranoia.

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