Anger Management Counseling: Why You Might Need It and How It Helps

Anger is such a common emotion that you don’t have to go far before you encounter anger in one form or another. People from all walks of life get angry for any number of reasons, whether those reasons are from external or internal events that happen around them.

A person’s anger could stem from perceived failure, or worrying and feeling anxious about personal problems such as rent being due, the prospect of getting laid off at work, or relational conflict and the possibility of getting divorced.

Similarly, anger may be the result of reliving memories of traumatic or enraging events. We can even get angry because of events such as a snowstorm affecting our travel plans. Often, our anger is directed at another person who has done something we perceive as offensive in some way.

Anger is a helpful emotion because it helps alert us that a personal boundary has been violated, or that something we care about isn’t going as planned. Either way, anger lets us know that something is wrong, and it motivates us to move toward remedying the situation.

The problem with anger is that it is such a powerful emotion that it can override reason, and we can say or do regrettable things under the influence of anger. The ability to keep anger under control is an important life skill so that we don’t end up being reckless with our anger.

Do you need anger management counseling?

Depending on your upbringing and the significant formative influences on your life, you may think of anger as something to avoid entirely. You may be on the other extreme where it feels normal to have angry outbursts at your loved ones and total strangers. The truth about anger and the best way to deal with it is somewhere in the middle.

Anger is a normal human emotion that is usually healthy. Like all the various gifts that God has given us, anger can serve a positive function, but often it gets leveraged in unhelpful ways that make it an unhealthy thing. Unhealthy experiences and expressions of anger are so prevalent that the Bible warns us to slow down on getting angry.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. – James 1:19-20, NIV

Our anger is so often off base and antithetical to the things that God wants that the Bible tells us to slow down about going the way of anger. When anger gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to severe problems at work, in your relationships, and the overall quality of your life and the lives of the people around you. This sheer destructive potential is one of the main reasons it’s important to keep anger under control.

Anger is an emotion that varies in intensity, from mild irritation to feelings of intense fury and rage. There are a few ways you can tell if you might need anger management counseling, and some of those signs of anger issues include the following:

• In your anger, you have hurt yourself, or others, or caused damage to property.
• You struggle to express your feelings of anger without causing harm.
• You hold onto your anger for ages, and you struggle to let go.
• You may not express your anger outwardly, but you feel it inside. You may feel it’s wrong to be expressive with your anger, so you find ways to let people know you’re angry, such as harming yourself, giving the silent treatment, sulking, and being snide or snarky.
• You get angry over the smallest provocations.
• More often than not, you feel angry. Your dominant emotion on most days is anger.
• Your loved ones have said or insinuated that you have issues with anger.
• Important relationships have ended because of things you’ve said and done in anger.
• You’ve gotten in trouble with the law on account of things you’ve done because you were feeling angry, or you’re banned from certain establishments because of your angry behavior.

If these describe you, it’s quite likely that you have an anger problem, and anger management counseling is a helpful resource to get your anger under control.

Some Causes of Anger Issues

What are some of the causes of these anger issues? For some people, their anger issues stem from traumatic past experiences, including those they haven’t processed and dealt with. Anger issues may also be the result of having role models or family members that didn’t deal with anger in healthy ways.

These learned responses then become your own, leading to various challenges. Additionally, anger issues may be the result of externalizing underlying conditions such as depression or anxiety.

Anger management counseling is one of the most constructive ways to learn how to deal with anger. Usually, people go for this counseling voluntarily after a particularly egregious incident involving anger, or when they discern that there is a pattern of unresolved and unhealthy anger in their life.

For other people, anger management counseling is mandated because of an infraction of the law. Whatever the case may be, anger management counseling helps one overcome issues with anger.

How Anger Management Counseling Works

If you see a mental health specialist, such as a therapist or psychologist, for help with anger problems, they will work with you to explore various facets of your anger, and these include:

• Examining the triggers and stressors that set you off.
• Examining the thoughts that typically precede your anger and explore whether they’re accurate assessments of reality.
• Exploring how your past experiences of anger were either helpful or harmful.
• Learning to resolve conflicts in a constructive way.
• Rebuilding any relationships damaged on account of your anger.

In your sessions, your counselor may suggest situations where you might get angry, help you understand your reactions in those scenarios, and learn more constructive coping mechanisms. You can’t get rid of, avoid, or change the things or the people that make you angry, but what you can do is learn to control your reactions and learn how to express your anger in constructive ways without causing damage or harm to others.

Anger management will help you become more self-aware, to understand how you react at each stage of arousal toward anger. When you become more aware of how you get angry and can map that out, it will help you control your anger better.

The main aim of anger management is to help a person learn to control their anger and express it in constructive and socially appropriate ways. Anger management counseling can take place in one-on-one or group settings, and it will encourage a person to become better at problem-solving and communication so that they overcome anger without resorting to anti-social behaviors.

Anger management counseling can also impart other techniques for dealing with anger, such as using humor to diffuse tension, and relaxation techniques to stay calm in tense situations.

The majority of research on anger treatment has focused on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and some research has indicated that around 75% of the people who undergo CBT in anger management counseling improve.

In CBT, a person learns to identify unhelpful or negative thought patterns and change inaccurate beliefs, replacing these with healthy patterns. Some other techniques that can bring success include learning impulse control, journaling to manage frustration, and growing self-awareness.

Bringing Anger Under Control with Christian Counseling

Anger makes for a good servant, but it is a poor master. Our anger was never meant to rule over us, and God does not desire our lives to be marked by anger. In one letter in the New Testament, it is written, “Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.” (1 Timothy 2:8, NIV) It’s better by far if our lives are marked by prayer and peace than by anger and disputes.

If your anger has a hold over you, you can begin to regain control over your life by seeking help from a Christian counselor. Using therapeutic techniques such as CBT, your counselor will help you unpack your anger and the potential damage it has caused in your life. They will walk with you as you begin rebuilding your life and regain control over your anger.

You can reach out today and make inquiries about Christian anger management counseling to make anger the constructive emotion it was meant to be.