[jmartin21]

I've always had trouble with one raw emotion, linked to my constant irritation, aggravation, exasperation, and lack of patience, and that would be anger. I sometimes have trouble controlling my anger, and I would like to ask if anyone has any tips that I could use to control my anger while I'm in public. Bottling it up and letting it loose somehow at home isn't working as well as it used to, so I need a way to let it loose without exploding at someone or getting into a fight/argument.

[FooZe]

Hi jmartin21, welcome to PC!

This, posted by another member a couple of years ago, has always rung true for me. How well (or not) does it seem to fit your experience?

Originally Posted by Elysium

One thing that we learn in DBT is that anger is considered a secondary emotion. It acts as a coping skill almost for other emotions such as fear, disgust, sorrow, to block a person from feeling these emotions.

So my anger I had towards it really wasn't anger at all, I learned. It was fear!! Fear of failure, fear of something new, and even the fear of getting better, because if I got better, then I wouldn't know who I was anymore. Who would I be without all these issues? It's a scary question for anybody.

[RunningEagleRuns]

Originally Posted by Fool Zero

Hi jmartin21, welcome to PC!

This, posted by another member a couple of years ago, has always rung true for me. How well (or not) does it seem to fit your experience?

Thanks for the qoute

The Primacy of Anger Problems

Since fellow PT blogger Dr. Steven Stosny and I both share similar concerns with the increasing problem of pathological anger or rage in our culture, I want to comment on a recent posting of his, in which Dr. Stosny broadly depicts anger problems as "a smokescreen for fear-shame phobia."

The problem of anger and rage is of vital importance not only in our daily emotional life, but in the genesis of most mental disorders, violence, spiritual development, and creativity. Anger is inaccurately considered by some psychotherapists to be a secondary rather than primary emotion. Of course, there is some truth to this: Anger, like anxiety, is a reaction to something threatening to the physical and/or psychological, spiritual or existential integrity of the individual. But anger is not a passive helplessness or hopelessness in the face of such a threat. It is not flight, but fight. It is an assertion of the individual's most basic right to being an individual. As in other species, without this capacity for anger or even rage, we would be unable to defend ourselves or those we love when needed. To fight for freedom and what we truly believe in and value. We would be unable to face down evil, leaving us even more vulnerable to it. So, in this sense, while anger--like any other emotion such as sadness, grief, fear, joy, disgust, anxiety or shame--is almost always secondary to some internal or external stimulus.

***

In my view, it is a grave error to dismiss anger or rage as secondary and therefore less significant emotions than fear, shame, anxiety or love in the psychotherapy process. Anger is a primary emotion that tends to be repressed in most patients. Indeed, it is an emotion, like the experience of anxiety, about which we often feel shame, due to our negative views of anger. Paradoxically, chronic repression of anger creates resentment, bitterness, hostility, hatred and, in some, an overpowering, irresistable rage. For many, to feel angry is to feel out of control, irrational, unenlightened, uncivilized, and this frequently leads to fear, shame and anxiety. And more repression. So which came first in this vicious cycle, the chicken or the egg?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...anger-problems