A Guide to Healthy Anger Expression

How do you express your anger? Do you blow up? Quietly seethe? Or do you try to pretend that you’re really not angry at all and just hope the feelings will go away? Most of us express anger in more than one way, but we also tend to be creatures of habit, falling back on a few predictable styles when we feel angry. Unfortunately, while some styles are appropriate in some situations, others are not—and consistently using an inappropriate style is a sure way to find yourself saddled with a huge anger problem.

This book examines the eleven most common styles of anger expression and helps you learn how to communicate your anger in healthy ways. Learn which anger styles work for different situations—and which ones lead to certain disaster. Find out how to become more flexible and creative at expressing your anger. Once you understand the whole range of anger styles, you’ll be able to better manage angry feelings and use your anger as a positive force for building a better life.

"The Potter-Efrons continue to capture the essence of anger through their anger styles. By understanding the eleven anger styles and how they relate to each of us in a personal way, we gain insight that can unlock our own chains of anger. The Potter-Efrons have generously provided the tools to help break away from the most hardened of anger styles. Their guidance and experience will give each of us the opportunity to begin our journey on a path towards emotional freedom." —V. William Blount, MS, author of Healthy Anger

"This book offers detailed, yet accessible, descriptions of anger styles, followed by easy-to-understand alternatives to healthier expressions. Anyone who wants to examine their anger will be able to find themselves in this book." —Susan C. Turell, Ph.D., counseling psychologist working with survivors of sexual and physical violence...

Friendships with members of the opposite sex are healthy and normal, but how do you know when your partner has crossed the fine line separating platonic intimacy and emotional infidelity? Emotional affairs do not necessarily include sex or physical intimacy of any kind, and can even occur over the Internet between two people who have never met face to face, but the effects can be just as devastating to relationships as sexual affairs--sometimes even more so.

The Emotional Affair helps you evaluate your relationship to determine whether or not your partner is having an emotional affair, explains possible roots of the problem, offers suggestions for discussing the issue with your partner and repairing the relationship, and provides tools for recovering from the breach of trust and intimacy caused by the affair....

Powerful Tools for Overcoming Extreme Anger

Do you or someone you care about experience episodes of extreme and unpredictable anger? Intense rages that threaten relationships, jobs, property--or worse? The first thing you need to know is that you are not alone. Researchers estimate that some 7 percent of Americans may at some time experience a condition called intermittent explosive disorder (IED), which is characterized by reoccuring periods of extraordinary anger, and millions more have less frequent yet equally damaging experiences with rage. The second thing you need to know is that there is help.

Rage can be calmed and controlled with good advice and a practical, effective plan for change. From renowned anger expert Ronald Potter-Efron, this book breaks down rage into four types: In survival rage, anger is triggered by a sense of danger or threat; feelings of helplessness can trigger impotence rage; the third type, abandonment rage, is triggered by a fear of losing a cherished relationship; and shame rage occurs when someone feels very disrespected. Rage briefly discusses how the brain functions during extreme emotion, and then it turns to the task of helping you stop episodes of rage--right now! In classic Potter-Efron style, the book places the responsibility for control squarely on the shoulders of the angry individual. There is no room in this dangerous situation for "whys" and "becauses." Instead, Rage offers no-nonsense, step-by-step anger management tools that really work....

Get the most from your ability to work with clients suffering the effects of chronic anger

The Handbook of Anger Management provides therapists and counselors with a comprehensive review of anger and aggression management techniques, presenting specific guidelines to a number of immediately useful methods. Clinical psychotherapist Ronald T. Potter-Efron, Director of the Anger Management Center At First Things First, LTD, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, offers straightforward solutions to the complicated problem of anger, detailing core treatment options and intervention methods that meet the needs of individual clients, couples, families, and groups. This practical guidebook examines rage, aggression, hostility, resentment, hatred, anger avoidance, and chronic anger and includes fact-based case studies that illustrate effective theory and practice.

The Handbook of Anger Management guides therapists through the process of assessing anger in their clients, determining the reasons for—and the consequences of—anger and aggression. The book examines individual and group modalities, using behavioral, cognitive, affective, and existential/spiritual treatment approaches to define anger and anger problems and how they relate to social learning, to examine the relationship between anger and aggression and between anger and domestic violence, and to address the concept of “healthy anger.”

The Handbook of Anger Management examines:

• four major intervention areas that can help lessen anger
  
• the pros and cons of group versus individual counseling
  
• treating angry children, adolescents, and families
  
• how patterns of resentment and hatred are developed
  
• self-forgiveness
  
• five damaging aspects of anger turned inward
  
• the neurological aspects of anger
  
• and much more!

The Handbook of Anger Management is an essential guidebook for psychologists, social workers, anger management therapists, and domestic abuse counselors, and for academics working in mental health fields....

Renowned anger expert Ron Potter-Efron makes anger control a manageable skill that anybody can learn. Through an engaging combination of incisive questions, realistic scenarios, and interactive strategies, his workbook helps people gain an awareness of angry thoughts, feelings, and actions. Thirty-six exercises help readers learn what triggers anger, how to recognize and avoid danger situations, how to diffuse anger when it flares up, and how to turn rage into energy for finding solutions. The book also offers relaxation techniques and suggestions for resolving underlying frustrations that keep anger at the boiling point....