Anger Control Guidelines

1. Especially in families, it’s good to work it out ahead of time that when either person feels pretty angry, it’s OK to postpone the conversation until people can be cooler and calmer. Walking “away from the situation” can be the kindest and wisest thing to do.

2. Anger is touched off by situations that we call provocations. Getting insulted, having someone not come through with a promise, being told to do something we don’t want to do, having gadgets not work right, having people be purposely mean to us, and many other situations are provocations. Even remembering something or just getting a certain feeling inside can be a provocation even when nothing on the outside has changed. The goal of anger control is to make and carry out good decisions about what to do in provocation situations.

3. Contrary to a very widespread belief, it is not necessary to get angry feelings “out” or to “vent” them, and this isn’t a very helpful strategy for anger control. When someone is doing something harmful to you, it is often a very good idea to talk with that person or with someone else about what’s going on and try to solve the problem and end the harmful behavior. But the purpose of this is to improve what’s going on rather than to “release” your anger. In a provocation, if you act cool and make a good choice of what to do without expressing great anger, you deserve to feel proud of yourself, not worried that the pent up feelings will do harm.

4. Just as basketball players, guitarists, gymnasts, dancers, chess players, people learning to drive, surgeons, and many others get better at their skills by doing a lot of practice, people can get better at anger control by practicing dealing with provocations well. Anger control is a skill that gets better with practice.

5. Practicing skills in your imagination, or using “fantasy rehearsal,” helps you to do better at them in real life. Each time you imagine a provocation and imagine yourself making and carrying out a wise choice, you are practicing the skill of anger control.

6. The key to anger control is doing fantasy rehearsals at a time when you are not angry. Just as a performer rehearses a lot before going on stage, the learner of anger control must usually rehearse a lot, before being well-prepared for real-life provocations.

7. Practicing relaxation skills (described in another handout) is very useful for anger control, because you want to get your level of excitement and arousal into the “not too high” region.

8. What you say to yourself about a situation greatly influences how you feel about that situation. If someone provokes you and your self-talk is to curse at that person and call them a bunch of obscene names, you’re much more likely to feel rage than if you are thinking about what to do that will work out best.

9. Here are four types of thoughts that are very useful in provocations: 1. Not awfulizing. Example: “OK, I don’t like that I have to get off the screen now, but I can handle it. People have handled worse things than this in the history of the world!” 2. Goal-setting: My goal is to be reasonable and pick something to do that will make me and the other person happy in the long run. 3: Listing options and choosing. Example: “I could just go ahead and do what I’m asked, without saying anything. I could do it after saying ‘OK!’ in a cheerful voice. I could keep on for half a minute to make sure I don’t lose anything. I could bargain. I can relax my muscles to help me be calm. I think I’ll relax my muscles, say ‘OK,’ and go ahead and get off the screen.” Celebrating your own choice: “Hooray, I did a good example of anger control! I feel good about what I did!” Practicing doing this – the “four thought exercise” with a long list of provocations is a great way to practice anger control.

10. Listing options and choosing is a very important activity in provocations. When you’ve thought of options, you can improve your choice by thinking about the pros (advantages) and cons (disadvantages) of the options that seem best. If you are cool, calm, and collected, and trying hard to think of good options, you will probably do much better than if you’re super excited and feeling in a big rush. The rest of this handout has to do with some type of options to consider.

11. When you are listing options for provocations, here are some nonviolent ones you can consider: 1. Ignoring – just letting the situation go by. 2. Differential reinforcement: ignoring the unpleasant behavior and trying reward the other person when the behavior is better. 3. Assertion: telling what you want without being hostile. 4. Using good conflict-resolution or criticism responses (see later in this handout.) 5. Rule of law – turning it over to authority. 6. Relaxation – relaxing your muscles to lower your arousal. 7. Away from the situation: putting some distance between you and the other person till both have cooled off. 8. Apologizing if you have done something harmful. 9. Friendliness. 10. Force of a nonviolent nature – for example holding someone so they can’t hit. 11. Tones of voice – using calm and quiet and slow speech to calm down the situation. Mnemonic for these: Ida Craft.

12. Conflict-resolution: Another way to practice anger control is to role-play conversations in which two people solve a conflict or make a “joint decision” together. Think about Dr. L.W. Aap, a mnemonic for: 1. Defining the choice point, without blaming or bossing the other person 2. Reflecting, or saying back what you understand of the other person’s point of view, to make sure you understand it right. 3. Listing options. 4. Waiting until you’re finished listing before criticizing any of the options. 4. Advantages and disadvantages: Talking about the pros and cons of the options (rather than how bad the other person is!) 5. Agreeing on something, even if only to think a while and come back to the problem later 6. Politeness throughout the whole conversation. In the ideal case, both people do all of these. Practicing these “rational” conversations helps you approach conflicts with an eye toward thinking about a workable solution rather than having a “dominance contest” to see which of two people can beat the other.

13. Criticism responses: One of the most common provocations occurs when someone criticizes you. Here are some options to consider: 1. Thank you (for constructive criticism 2. Planning to ponder or problem-solve (“I’ll think that over.”) 3. Agreeing with part of criticism (“It’s true that I’m not perfect in that way.”) 4. Asking for more specific criticism (“Tell me more please about what you’d like me to do.”) 5. Reflection (“So if I understand you right, you think that I ….”) 6. I want or I feel statement (“Even though I may have the fault you mentioned, I still want this to happen….) 7. Silent eye contact 8. Explaining the reason (“Here’s why I did that:….”) 9. Criticizing the critic (“I think that you are misguided in this way, for the following reason….”) Mnemonic for these is T Paarisec. Practicing each of these with a bunch of sample criticisms, and figuring out which one you think would work best, is another good way to practice anger control.

14. Anger and aggression are ways that people seek to get power to get what they want. One way to list options and choose is to think about the nonviolent ways of getting power, so that you don’t need to use anger and aggression. Getting competent in valued skills, making money, making friends and getting allies, getting good at verbal persuasion, knowing what you’re trying to achieve, having ethics on your side, knowing how to organize groups, and so forth are ways that people get power without having to be violent. Some of these take a long time to develop, but they are worth working on for years.