HOPE

INTRODUCTION:

Anger is an emotion related to one's perception of having been offended or wronged and a tendency to undo that wrongdoing by retaliation. Videbeck describes anger as a normal emotion that involves a strong uncomfortable and emotional response to a perceived provocation. R. Novaco recognized three modalities of anger: cognitive (appraisals), somatic-affective (tension and agitations) and behavioral (withdrawal and antagonism). Anger may have physical correlates such as increased heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Some view anger as part of the fight or flight brain response to the perceived threat of harm. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically when a person makes the conscious choice to take action to immediately stop the threatening behavior of another outside force. The English term originally comes from the term anger of Old Norse language. Anger can have many physical and mental consequences.

The external expression of anger can be found in facial expressions, body language, physiological responses, and at times in public acts of aggression. Humans and animals for example make loud sounds, attempt to look physically larger, bare their teeth, and stare. The behaviors associated with anger are designed to warn aggressors to stop their threatening behavior. Rarely does a physical altercation occur without the prior expression of anger by at least one of the participants. While most of those who experience anger explain its arousal as a result of "what has happened to them," psychologists point out that an angry person can be very well mistaken because anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability.

Modern psychologists view anger as a primary, natural, and mature emotion experienced by virtually all humans at times, and as something that has functional value for survival. Anger can mobilize psychological resources for corrective action. Uncontrolled anger can, however, negatively affect personal or social well-being. While many philosophers and writers have warned against the spontaneous and uncontrolled fits of anger, there has been disagreement over the intrinsic value of anger. Dealing with anger has been addressed in the writings of the earliest philosophers up to modern times. Modern psychologists, in contrast to the earlier writers, have also pointed out the possible harmful effects of suppression of anger. Displays of anger can be used as a manipulation strategy for social influence.

Psychology and sociology

Three types of anger are recognized by psychologists: The first form of anger, named "hasty and sudden anger" by Joseph Butler, an 18th century English bishop, is connected to the impulse for self-preservation. It is shared between humans and non-human animals and occurs when tormented or trapped. The second type of anger is named "settled and deliberate" anger and is a reaction to perceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others. These two forms of anger are episodic. The third type of anger is however dispositional and is related more to character traits than to instincts or cognitions. Irritability, sullenness and churlishness postures are examples of the last form of anger.

Anger can potentially mobilize psychological resources and boost determination toward correction of wrong behaviors, promotion of social justice, communication of negative sentiment and redress of grievances. It can also facilitate patience. On the other hand, anger can be destructive when it does not find its appropriate outlet in expression. Anger, in its strong form, impairs one's ability to process information and to exert cognitive control over their behavior. An angry person may lose his/her objectivity, empathy, prudence or thoughtfulness and may cause harm to others. There is a sharp distinction between anger and aggression (verbal or physical, direct or indirect) even though they mutually influence each other. While anger can activate aggression or increase its probability or intensity, it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for aggression.

In modern society

The words annoyance and rage are often imagined to be at opposite ends of an emotional continuum: mild irritation and annoyance at the low end and fury or murderous rage at the high end. The two are inextricably linked in the English language with one referring to the other in most dictionary definitions. Recently, Sue Parker Hall has challenged this idea; she conceptualizes anger as a positive, pure and constructive emotion, that is always respectful of others; it is only ever used to protect the self on physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual dimensions in relationships.^[14] She argues that anger originates at age 18 months to 3 years to provide the motivation and energy for the individuation developmental stage whereby a child begins to separate from their carers and assert their differences. Anger emerges at the same time as thinking is developing therefore it is always possible to access cognitive abilities and feel anger at the same time.

Parker Hall proposes that it is not anger that is problematic but rage, a different phenomenon entirely; rage is conceptualized as a pre-verbal, pre-cognition, psychological defense mechanism which originates in earliest infancy as a response to the trauma experienced when the infant's environment fails to meet their needs. Rage is construed as an attempt to summon help by an infant who experiences terror and whose very survival feels under threat. The infant cannot manage the overwhelming emotions that are activated and need a caring other to attune to them, to accurately assess what their needs are, to comfort and soothe them. If they receive sufficient support in this way, infants eventually learn to process their own emotions.

Rage problems are conceptualized as "the inability to process emotions or life's experiences" either because the capacity to regulate emotion (Schore, 1994) has never been sufficiently developed (most common) or because it has been temporarily lost due to more recent trauma. Rage is understood as "a whole load of different feelings trying to get out at once" (Harvey, 2004) or as raw, undifferentiated emotions, that spill out when one more life event that cannot be processed, no matter how trivial, puts more stress on the organism than they can bear.

Framing rage in this way has implications for working therapeutically with individuals with such difficulties. If rage is accepted as a pre-verbal, pre-cognitive phenomenon (and sufferers describe it colloquially as "losing the plot") then it follows that cognitive strategies, eliciting commitments to behave differently or educational programs (the most common forms of interventions in the UK presently) are contra-indicated. Parker Hall proposes an empathic therapeutic relationship to support clients to develop or recover their organismic capacity (Rogers, 1951) to process their often multitude of traumas (unprocessed life events). This approach is a critique of the dominant anger and rage interventions in the UK including probation, prison and psychology models, which she argues does not address rage at a deep enough level.

Symptoms

One simple dichotomy of anger expression is Passive anger versus Aggressive anger. These two types of anger have some characteristic symptoms:

Passive anger

Passive anger can be expressed in the following ways:

• Dispassion, such as giving the cold shoulder or phony smiles, looking unconcerned, sitting on the fence while others sort things out, dampening feelings with substance abuse, overeating, oversleeping, not responding to another's anger, frigidity, indulging in sexual practices that depress spontaneity and make objects of participants, giving inordinate amounts of time to machines, objects or intellectual pursuits, talking of frustrations but showing no feeling.
• Evasiveness, such as turning your back in a crisis, avoiding conflict, not arguing back, becoming phobic.
• Ineffectualness, such as setting yourself and others up for failure, choosing unreliable people to depend on, being accident prone, underachieving, sexual impotence, expressing frustration at insignificant things but ignoring serious ones.
• Obsessive behavior, such as needing to be inordinately clean and tidy, making a habit of constantly checking things, over-dieting or overeating, demanding that all jobs be done perfectly.
• Psychological manipulation, such as provoking people to aggression and then patronizing them, provoking aggression but staying on the sidelines, emotional blackmail, false tearfulness, feigning illness, sabotaging relationships, using sexual provocation, using a third party to convey negative feelings, withholding money or resources.
• Secretive behavior, such as stockpiling resentments that are expressed behind people's backs, giving the silent treatment or under the breath mutterings, avoiding eye contact, putting people down, gossiping, anonymous complaints, poison pen letters, stealing, and conning.
• Self-blame, such as apologizing too often, being overly critical, inviting criticism.
• Self-sacrifice, such as being overly helpful, making do with second best, quietly making long-suffering signs but refusing help, or lapping up gratefulness.

Aggressive anger

The symptoms of aggressive anger are:

• Bullying, such as threatening people directly, persecuting, pushing or shoving, using power to oppress, shouting, using a car to force someone off the road, playing on people's weaknesses.

• Destructiveness, such as destroying objects, harming animals, destroying a relationship between two people, reckless driving, substance abuse.

• Grandiosity, such as showing off, expressing mistrust, not delegating, being a sore loser, wanting center stage all the time, not listening, talking over people's heads, expecting kiss and make-up sessions to solve problems.

• Hangger, expressing physiological responses common to those in which an undernourished, or hungry, individual displays symptoms of irrational and illogical behavior due to his or her desire for food. This reaction may occur due to low levels of serotonin production from inadequate nourishment, which can lead to aggressive behavior.

• Hurtfulness, such as physical violence, verbal abuse, biased or vulgar jokes, breaking a confidence, using foul language, ignoring people's feelings, willfully discriminating, blaming, punishing people for unwarranted deeds, labeling others.

• Manic behavior, such as speaking too fast, walking too fast, working too much and expecting others to fit in, driving too fast, reckless spending.

• Selfishness, such as ignoring other's needs, not responding to requests for help, queue jumping.

• Threats, such as frightening people by saying how you could harm them, their property or their prospects, finger pointing, fist shaking, wearing clothes or symbols associated with violent behaviour, tailgating, excessively blowing a car horn, slamming doors.

• Unjust blaming, such as accusing other people for your own mistakes, blaming people for your own feelings, making general accusations.

• Unpredictability, such as explosive rages over minor frustrations, attacking indiscriminately, dispensing unjust punishment, inflicting harm on others for the sake of it, using alcohol and drugs, illogical arguments.

• Vengeance, such as being over-punitive, refusing to forgive and forget, bringing up hurtful memories from the past.