[WrkNPrgress]

I'm wondering how other people work with Anger in therapy. I have a hard time with it. I don't like to show it in front of people I care about.

Last session we worked on Anger at the Abuser stuff Gestalt style. It's so hard for me to 'get angry' at an empty chair. I understand the exercise intellectually but a big part of the block for me is the fact that this huge warm comforting presence is in the room with me and it's hard to stir up those feelings and be angry while sitting next to her (Therapist). I also have some shame around anger. It feels like losing control. It feels wrong. And to show that in front of someone I care about, who's impression of me is important - that I need validation from — is a scary idea. I keep hearing Bruce Banner's voice in my head, 'you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...'

Meanwhile, my T is trying to show anger for me, speak up for me, which I appreciated but she's so ... um, well, let's just say it's too adorable because she's kinda 'performing' and it just doesn't really help me get angry but it feels supportive.

Nonetheless, I at least spoke and expelled the negative thoughts back at the person who said them to me. I can grasp the expulsion and disowning the shame and all that crappy stuff. Those words are not mine. They do not belong to me. I will not carry them anymore.

I feel like that's progress.

How does your Therapist work with Anger?

[junkDNA]

He used to try to get me to go in the woods with him and beat trees with bamboo. I never did...one time he took me down there and did it himself. I would feel awkward doing that. I still don't have a healthy way to express anger

You sound like me. I was never one to express my anger outwardly despite several therapists who were sure I needed to. I was great about keeping it in, and it was like a pressure cooker with a broken relief valve: I ended up depressed and anxious and suicidal.

I honestly never did blow up outwardly in my anger. My last therapist finally realized it was just not in my character to do so. I am sort of a stoic German and my therapist tapped into other ways to help me get that relief valve working. I think that is how the CBT stuff (other thread) tied into my healing. He helped me take whatever was going on in my present as a starting point for working back into my old thinking and ultimately the events that precipitated that thinking. He discovered that for me, very deliberately looking at specific events and acknowledging how they made me feel initially and perhaps more importantly, what they left me believing about myself, was enough to relieve that pressure and that inner rage. I didn't have to have some outward display of anger; I just needed to recognize and validate that initial hurt and the legacy of mistaken understanding that was fueling all that unexpressed rage.

[WrkNPrgress]

Originally Posted by junkDNA

He used to try to get me to go in the woods with him and beat trees with bamboo. I never did...one time he took me down there and did it himself. I would feel awkward doing that. I still don't have a healthy way to express anger

Now see. I could really get down on this kinda thing but I would feel bad for hurting the tree (lol.)

Originally Posted by lolagrace

You sound like me. I was never one to express my anger outwardly despite several therapists who were sure I needed to. I was great about keeping it in, and it was like a pressure cooker with a broken relief valve: I ended up depressed and anxious and suicidal.

I honestly never did blow up outwardly in my anger. My last therapist finally realized it was just not in my character to do so. I am sort of a stoic German and my therapist tapped into other ways to help me get that relief valve working. I think that is how the CBT stuff (other thread) tied into my healing. He helped me take whatever was going on in my present as a starting point for working back into my old thinking and ultimately the events that precipitated that thinking. He discovered that for me, very deliberately looking at specific events and acknowledging how they made me feel initially and perhaps more importantly, what they left me believing about myself, was enough to relieve that pressure and that inner rage. I didn't have to have some outward display of anger; I just needed to recognize and validate that initial hurt and the legacy of mistaken understanding that was fueling all that unexpressed rage.

My family is very emotionally stoic. We do get angry but it only comes out when the slight is so far wrong that we have to explode at something. The little things, the stuff that builds up - is where I minimize and try to ignore it and this gets me depressed as well.

I'm getting better at recognizing the feeling though and when I need to, I get in my car and drive and then just screeeeammmm... while I'm on the highway. That helps a bit. At least in recognizing the emotion.

What to do about my Ex, though- how to be angry at a person , even when they deserve it - that's hard for me.

[stopdog]

Anger is not one I have any trouble with. I can do anger. I have no idea what the therapist does around it. She basically just sits there like always.

Gosh do I have a story about anger in therapy.

It was easy-ish for me--my therapist withheld everything I needed to provoke my anger. It worked! I got really angry at him and started feeling angry at the world, or so it seemed sometimes...

It really has paid off. My depression started to lift shortly thereafter. I still have issues, but I feel a lot kinder and more content now. Actually, a lot more balanced now. And feeling and voicing the anger somehow permanently changed my cognitive processes, which prior to this, automatically directed anger at myself (eg, feeling sui, feeling 'stabbing' feelings) due to how my caregiver related to me growing up. I had fear of abandonment and rejection and other consequences if I showed anger.

I couldn't do the angry chair thing, not at all. Or punch pillows, etc. I thought the way my therapist did this was very effective, though extremely difficult to deal with feeling like that. It was like it grew to the point of no return--I couldn't control it all the time (although I could control my behaviors to a certain extend), and I ended up letting it leak out outside of therapy too much, and it took me a long time to accept it in my life. Like you, like many, I didn't process anger in a healthy way.

It also made me realize it's one of those things one can actively do to help stamp out depression. But that's hindsight. My temperment as a young child was pretty calm and delicate, and my last therapist said that some people just don't have as much aggression as others, but my current therapist sure knew how to bring it out. If you think about it-everyone has the capacity. An infant crying, for example, ranges from anger to rage. So I think anyone with a capacity to go back to those young feelings can access that anger. It takes making yourself really vulnerable, imo.

If you can do it, I think it's worth it. For me, it wasn't really a choice--he did things in a manner, and for a certain length of time, where it was nearly impossible to not feel angry and express it/externalize it. He pushed me right to the point where I almost quit (for real). Not sure how it works with a therapist who is very giving all the time.

A position of vulnerability must be obtained before going there, I believe. For those who fear anger, I think it only becomes a possibility if you feel safe with your therapist.

I also think balance is the key to many aspects of life. Feeling and expressing some anger from time to time as a way of life will help balance things out.

[lucozader]

I got angry with my therapist during a discussion about my issues with anger... is that ironic?

We were discussing how I seem to only be able to hold my anger in and hurt myself, or explode with rage and hurt someone else... and he drew a line with those behaviours at either end, and suggested I needed to find that place inbetween. OBVIOUSLY I KNOW THAT T, BUT HOW EXACTLY DO I DO IT?!!

[WrkNPrgress]

Originally Posted by Skies

Gosh do I have a story about anger in therapy.

It was easy-ish for me--my therapist withheld everything I needed to provoke my anger. It worked! I got really angry at him and started feeling angry at the world, or so it seemed sometimes...

Great post and I'm so happy you found a content state of mind.

Can you explain what you mean by your T " withheld everything I needed"? Like, what for example? Was this strategy agreed upon and did you know what he was doing and why?

-thanks!

Can you explain what you mean by your T " withheld everything I needed"? Like, what for example? Was this strategy agreed upon and did you know what he was doing and why?

Hi-
Maybe withheld isn't the best word, but I can't think of another one that fits.

Withheld validation, mirroring, empathy, support. It's amazing how much you notice the effect of mostly subtle behaviors when they are absent. I think it recreated my relationship with my mother.

No, it wasn't agreed upon. I didn't realize he was doing it until right at the height of our rupture.

[ruh roh]

I don't have a problem with anger. I have a problem controlling it. So we work on better ways to express it, like wailing away on a punching bag or hitting rocks into the water when at home, or mauling putty during a session, ripping up paper...just anything that's not hers or that causes physical injury to me or damages things I need (like my laptop). She has said it's a ptsd symptom to get angry like that when triggered, so it's not something I need to work up to, but is more something for me to soothe and calm down or recognize the signs and prevent. You sound like you need to work up to it, but maybe some of these same things will work for you.