by guest blogger Judith Siegel Ph.D., LCSW, author of Stop Overreacting

Too often, people believe that the best way to manage anger is to suppress it. I have worked with so many clients whose problems are directly linked to their need to distance from their ‘bad’ feelings. But is anger always bad? Research based on neuro-imaging suggests that anger is an emotional response that generates from the amygdala. Like other hard-wired emotions, anger is a response to stimuli that sets off a reaction in our minds and bodies. The most important question is not how to suppress it, but to understand how we process it. Working with beliefs about anger is helpful, but is only part of the solution. If childhood experiences with adult anger have programmed us to shut down, then it is almost impossible to access thoughts and beliefs in the presence of the emotional intensity and anxiety that anger produces.

A new approach to anger management is to focus on helping connect the dots. One line of dots runs from the left to the right hemisphere of the brain, creating a neural pathway between thoughts and feelings. Without that path, the triggers that have generated anger can not be comprehended, and the result is senseless rage or shutdown. Another set of dots that need to be connected runs between awareness of our physical selves and awareness of feelings. I have worked with so many people who, even in the middle of an explosive outburst, have no awareness that they are angry. Learning to measure the degree of anger that you feel at any given moment in time is a helpful exercise, for it is important to comprehend and accept that there is a full range of emotional experience that involve both mind and body.

excerpt from When Anger Hurts

1. First, and most importantly, STOP.

2. Watch what you say to yourself.

3. Act the opposite.

excerpt from Letting Go of Anger

“When I’m really mad at others, I sometimes take it out on myself.” “I get just as mad at myself as I do at other people.” “I just hate my guts.” Anger turned inward means taking the feeling of anger, and behaving in a way that turns that anger on ourselves. The results are that we hurt ourselves, sometimes knowingly but often without thinking much about it. Although anger is a feeling, it can lead us to angry behaviors such as blaming, ignoring, shaming, criticizing, attacking, condemning, abandoning, and physically harming its target. What happens when we target ourselves for these kinds of punishments? We often hear people say they are frustrated, angry, even furious with themselves. Some people get as angry with themselves as they do with others in their lives. But many say they are angry only with themselves. There are also those who refuse to admit any anger whatever, but treat themselves like yesterday’s trash. They are angry and disgusted that they are here in this world, feeling inadequate and paralyzed, they try to justify the fact that they exist, and often feel like failures.

It is when we turn our anger inward often, with too much energy, calling ourselves names and feeling angry with ourselves for whatever we do, that our anger becomes a problem—for us and usually for those who love us, as well.

Excerpt from Going Home without Going Crazy: How to Get Along with Your Parents and Family (Even When They Push Your Buttons)

Flooding occurs when an adrenaline over load over whelms parts of the brain. Have you ever been so upset you can’t think, can’t speak, can barely cope? That’s flooding. You may already know some thing about flooding from the fight-or-flight syndrome, where the more primitive parts of the brain over ride the more advanced parts. The result is knee-jerk fear or aggression and a distinct lack of level headed reason.

You can expect flooding to affect you both physically and mentally. Physical symptoms act like an early warning system.

Your ultimate goal is to control flooding rather than allow it to control you.