Anger is a natural emotion, but handled badly, it can lead to stress, ill health, and strained interpersonal relationships. It’s imperative to learn how to manage your anger and channel it into a positive outcomes, and counselors are here to give you the help you need if you’re showing signs that you need anger management therapy.
Learning How To Express Anger
Frustration is, unfortunately, not going away. In life, there will be many things that cause you anger, and it’s not always a situation that you’ll have complete control over. However, you do have control over your actions when you’re faced with frustrating circumstances. This is the key goal of anger management therapy: finding a healthy way to express your anger without hurting yourself or others.
In the case of anger management, you shouldn’t keep all your anger in and you shouldn’t let it all out. Both of these are at the extreme ends of one line, and the ideal sits somewhere in the middle. Anger must be checked and managed, and to do this it must be expressed in a healthy way. Letting your anger out can worsen a situation, making it hard for the parties involved to come to a peaceable solution.
Therapy Options For Anger Management
Depending on the level of assistance you need in managing your anger, there are many options open to you when considering therapy for anger management. Any treatment course will have the same key goal in mind, that is to make sure you can use your anger effectively without harming yourself, others, or adding stress to a situation.
The best therapy will be the one that suits your needs. Visiting a counselor and starting the discussion about anger management will set you on the right track, and your counselor can help make sure you’re in the right place for therapy. Be wary of any therapy that asks you to completely suppress your anger, as bottling your emotions is an extremely unhealthy coping mechanism.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy asks a very important question: where is the anger coming from? Usually, the things that might set off your feelings of anger aren’t actually the cause of anger. With CBT, a counselor works with you to try and discover why you’re really feeling angry, and how to recognize when a situation may bring about negative emotions.
A key principle of cognitive behavioral therapy is changing the way you react to certain situations. Say, for example, that someone cuts you off in traffic. Instead of reacting with immediate anger and possibly causing a dangerous situation, CBT aims to make you aware of the negative feelings coming to a point and teaches you techniques to make sure that your anger doesn’t get out of hand. The anger doesn’t just dissipate, you’ll have to manage it in some way. Through working with a counselor, you can learn better and more effective outlets for your energy.
Intensive Group Therapy
Group counseling, whether taken by itself or in tandem with private counseling, offers a sense of community to those going through therapy. You can learn from others in the same situation and increase the sense of accountability you have during recovery. If your anger issues are strongly impacting your life and relationships with others, intensive counseling will likely be necessary to make sure that you’re on track to keeping both yourself and others safe.
Anger Management With Fifth Street Counseling Center
Mental health professionals can help you identify the causes and triggers for your anger and can work with you to establish lasting anger management techniques. Contact us today and let us work with you to improve the way you handle anger
