http://www.psychologicalselfhelp.org/Chapter7/ This is a link to Dr Clay's book...Chapter 7 on anger and aggression. I thought a thread on this topic, covering his book, could help members here deal with the subject matter. I think it is pretty much a "self-help" topic, indeed! Most of us have trouble reasoning with anyone else who is angry, and we all probably understand how little we hear of others speaking to us when we are angry.
Let's begin!
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Introduction—An Overview of Anger How we deal with stress, disappointments, and frustration determines the essence of our personality. In this chapter we consider frustration and aggression. Anger may do more harm than any other emotion. First of all it is very common and, secondly, it upsets at least two people--the aggressor and the aggressed against.
There are two problems: how to prevent or control your own anger and how to handle someone aggressing against you. This chapter attends more to self-control.
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Anger can be the result of hurt pride, of unreasonable expectations, or of repeated hostile fantasies. Besides getting our way, we may unconsciously use anger to blame others for our own shortcomings, to justify oppressing others, to boost our own sagging egos, to conceal other feelings, and to handle other emotions (as when we become aggressive when we are afraid). Any situation that frustrates us, especially when we think someone else is to blame for our loss, is a potential trigger for anger and aggression.
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Anger is feeling mad in response to frustration or injury. You don't like what has happened and usually you'd like to get revenge. Anger is an emotional-physiological-cognitive internal state; it is separate from the behavior it might prompt. In some instances, angry emotions are beneficial; if we are being taken advantage of, anger motivates us to take action (not necessarily aggressive) to correct the situation.
Aggression is action, i.e. attacking someone or a group. It is intended to harm someone. It can be a verbal attack--insults, threats, sarcasm, or attributing nasty motives to them--or a physical punishment or restriction
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and...
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An important new term has come into use:
Indirect Aggression (Heim, Murphy, & Golant, 2003). This is where gossip or rumors are spread about someone or where a person is left out, shunned, or snubbed. This behavior has been shown to be more common among girls because girls, in general, are more eager than boys to be accepted into their social group and to have close personal relationships. Having bad things said about you or being neglected or avoided is very hurtful to a teenage girl. Sometimes it is called
Relational Aggression because it is designed to hurt certain relationships in the group and build other contacts. It is a way to manipulate relationships and create excitement. Viewing indirect aggression on TV increases this kind of action by the viewer.
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and finally for this post:
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To clarify
aggression, some writers have classified it according to its purpose: instrumental aggression (to get some reward, not to get revenge), hostile aggression (to hurt someone or get revenge), and annoyance aggression (to stop an irritant). When our aggression becomes so extreme that we lose self-control, it is said that we are in a rage. Aggression must be distinguished from
assertiveness which is tactfully and rationally standing up for one’s own rights; indeed, assertiveness is designed not to hurt others (see chapter 8). Anger can also be distinguished from hostility which is a chronic state of anger. Anger is a temporary response, which we all have, to a particular frustrating situation;
hostility is a permanent personality characteristic which certain people have.
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