Anger as a Cry for Help

To many people anger is a destructive emotion. When in the grips of this powerful emotion people expressing anger say and do things that under normal circumstances they would never dream of. Relationships are damaged and feelings can be irreparably hurt. This is particularly so when the anger of one person is met with anger in return, in such circumstances an all out war is often declared and both parties lose. 

Anger by lazlohollfeld

The consequence of this is that people who rarely let anger take them in its grip are admired and celebrated as the epitome of self control. This can lead many people to believe we must deny this powerful emotion and squash it down, never to see the light of day. The result is that anger becomes an almost social taboo, whereby the expression of anger is seen as wrong and the people that do release their anger are seen to be inferior and even childlike because they have lost control. 

There is a fundamental problem with this perception of anger and this is because we are loosing sight of the role of anger in a social setting. Anger is universal human emotion that serves a purpose, if it didn't evolution would not have allowed it to persist, people who expressed anger would have been quickly eliminated from the gene pool. Yet anger persists in every human so it must serve some kind of purpose according to evolutionary theory. To find that purpose you need to look at what it does to people. In the grip of anger we find that it raises heart and breathing rates, the face flushes, our voices rise in volume, our faces tighten, brows furrow, lips purse, fist clench and our movements become jerky with large movements lack control. As such it is very easy for other people to see when someone is angry. In other words anger is a very very public emotion, it is not hidden or private.

So what does making an emotion like anger public serve in a human community? It says very clearly to all around them that the person experiencing the anger has lost the ability to cope, that they do not have the strategies or power to achieve what they want in more effective and socially acceptable ways. The most obvious example of someone in the grips of anger is a two year old throwing a temper tantrum. As anyone would know who has anything to do with raising a two year old they are very very public about their anger. Usually in a shopping mall when you have told them they cannot have that toy that the store, oh so conveniently placed at the eye level of children. In these circumstances a carer rolls their eyes, before very patiently stating they have enough toys and let's go and feed the ducks in the park, even as they wait patiently for the child to calm down. We do this because we know that getting angry at the child for throwing a tantrum will serve no purpose (even though it may very well push us to the limit of 'I don't need this right now, I have to much too do'). This is because we understand that a two year old cannot understand the nuance of household finances, is frustrated that they do not have the capability to express just how much having that toy would mean to them and really wants to know just how firm that 'No' actually is. Thus when all their attempts to understand and use their words fail them a two year old loses it in a classic temper tantrum because all their very limited socially acceptable strategies have been exhausted. They have no other way to express just how frustrating it is. In these circumstances it becomes the role of the carer to teach the child both limits and more effective ways of expressing themselves in the future. 

Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash

Fast forward to working with teens and adults who are expressing anger and it seems that society generally forgets the lessons that our two year olds have taught us about what anger means. Instead we run under the assumption that adults and teens in the grip of anger choose not to exercise self-control and behave irrationally as a deliberate tactic to get what they want from you. Yet we need to remember that our experiences are not other peoples experiences. We need to recognise that not everyone will have effectively learned the strategies needed to communicate and work through their frustrations and that the expression of anger may be the result of a very limited repertoire of strategies for dealing with frustration and may even have become a habitual way of getting what they want from others. 

Consequently anger needs to be recognised for what it is, a cry for help. As someone very publicly announcing they have a limited capacity to work through their frustrations because they either don't have the strategies or power to help themselves. Thus the most appropriate response to seeing someone in the grip of anger is extending understanding and assistance, to teach rather than rail back at them.

For this reason we need to look closer at anger. Recognise anger for what it is and see that those that have effective 'control' over their anger do so because they have learned a vast repertoire of strategies to effectively deal with their frustrations (something that comes with time and experience). While also seeing that building social conventions that frown on people expressing anger is doing more harm than good as it denies people the opportunity to learn effective means of dealing with their frustrations and will eventually lead to explosive, manipulative or maladaptive expression. 

Let me know what you think, and tell me what strategies you use to help manage your frustration before they reach the anger stage.