From what I have studied about anger, that's what anger "is"; when we feel threatened/hurt, something is being taken from us, we feel anger. I don't think it's any different from getting angry at the doctors, a loved one, etc. when a loved one dies.

I've read that anger is a "secondary" emotion, comes on the heels of the hurt/threat feeling and I like that idea. I use the feeling of anger to work backwards to find out what hurts, where i feel "helpless" or hurt. My "favorite" is when I catch myself doing a road rage act; yelling at people or not letting them merge or trying to get in front of them, etc. I'm normally a pretty courteous driver (and had my grandmother's word for it if you don't believe :-) so when I get "edgy" on the road I immediately switch to search mode to find out what's "really" wrong.

I quit worrying about if I lashed out, apologize if I'm able (hard to do when you've just cut someone off on the road trying to get to an exit ramp :-) and look inside at what's going on with me elsewhere or, if the person is the "cause" (if they literally said/did something that hurt me) I still figure out what the "base" hurt is. Why does a particular name/set of words make me hurt; not all of them do or not even the same words at different times? If I can help myself with the base hurt then that usually keeps me from lashing in the future; I develop a "plan" and have a better response next time the same/similar situation happens.

I think it's kind of like a recurring dream though; if you don't figure out the "base" and how to deal with it better then it keeps popping up until you do. But there are going to be lots of different situations/anger(s) and I don't want to stop them before I feel them as they're like flags to tell me where I need to look inside myself and what I need to work on.