Anger Management

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With stress being at an all time high and all the expectations of living in western society, it's no wonder one of the largest inquiries I receive is anger management programs. There are many ways to view anger. Anger can be a manifestation of something else going on such as depression, anxiety, or even trauma. Anger can also be an attempt to control someone else or a deep self-hatred that is not even known to the person experiencing it. The emotion of anger is generally a good thing. It is a call to action or draws our attention to being wronged. There are typically three levels of violence. These include agitation, aggression, and violence. There are also many additional factors that affect anger. Blood sugar levels, caffeine, chronic pain, alcohol, and various other drugs can exacerbate our level of anger or distress tolerance.  However, despite the emotion of anger not being a bad thing, behaviors associated with anger can sometimes cause a great deal of problems. These can included the following:

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• High Blood Pressure

• Problems Sleeping

• Trouble Eating

• Teeth Problems

• Criminal Activity

• Spousal Abuse

• Substance Misuse

• Domestic Violence

• Aggression Towards Others

• Self-Harm

• Divorce

• ...and so on

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Fortunately, there are a lot of treatment options for anger. The first thing to realize is that the hormones associated with anger will generally last around 20 minutes AFTER the trigger has been removed. The word "AFTER" is really important here because most people think that they can rationalize with a person that is in emotional crisis. WRONG. Some client's see therapists because they identify that something needs to change about their anger issues, others show up to treatment because their significant others threaten to leave, and lastly those that remain come due to be referred by the court or another program such as Accelerated Rehabilitation (AR). Keep in mind that in the State of Connecticut, a domestic violence situation is the only situation in which a police officer generally has no discretion and MUST make an arrest. This law comes from one of many court cases where local police departments used to marginalize re-occurring domestic violence incidents and the victim eventually received a fatal injury (Tracy Thurman vs. State of CT, 1984). Don't let your anger get to this point. You have a lot of options in being proactive about dealing with your or someone else's anger. Some things that Change Talk LLC offers includes individual therapy and psychoeducation surrounding anger management and we are currently developing plans for a future anger management group. We provide drug screening, assessments, and/or court reports as mandated by your program or request.  Give us a call or shoot us an email for more information.