Can a Relationship Survive Anger?
Contrary to popular opinion (even among professionals), anger isn’t necessarily bad or destructive to a relationship. All couples have conflicts and frustrations. It is not the anger itself that separates successful couples from other couples. Rather, what separates them is how anger is handled and how the partners communicate with each other while angry over the issues…
Accepting Others With Limitations is a Challenge For Some
“I worked hard for my knowledge,” Bob said in a session, but “others want to drain me of my knowledge and skill so they won’t have to do the hard work themselves to learn it.” “Besides, they are so stupid and they are unmotivated to improve themselves.” Bob was very much into self-development and self-improvement and thought…
Do Anger Professionals Get Angry?
This is a common question that my clients either ask me, or want to ask me as they sit either in anger management class or in private consultation. The short answer is that yes, of course, anger management professionals get angry, like everyone else. But, hopefully the anger management professional uses his own teachings to manage his…
Who Attends Our Anger Management Classes?
What is your vision of who comes to anger management classes or takes anger management courses online? People often wrongly envision that our classes are filled with people who physically abuse their spouses, are court ordered, and are generally the type of people you wouldn’t necessarily invite into your home. That got me to thinking…
Is Forgiveness Manly?
The following article is reprinted with permission from The Art of Manliness. Of course, forgiveness is tool #7 in our toolkit of anger management tools in both our local classes and in our online programs. Click here to watch our video of forgiveness as well as our other anger management videos, then read the following article which deals with…
Single Because of Anger?
We often get calls from single people who request help with anger management because they have just lost another relationship due both to their anger AND the inability of their boyfriend or girlfriend to deal with their criticisms, angry outbursts, or sarcastic ways of communicating. Fact is, if you are used to communicating in an…
How To Tank Your Relationship- Lesson 2
In our last blog, we taught you Lesson 1 of how to tank your relationship: React to bad behavior by your partner in way that indicates that you think they are 100% wrong and you are 100% right. Then assume that there is only one way (your way) to view or look at the situation,…
Anger Control Starts at Home
A recent incident that I observed brought home to me one reason why it is so difficult for the world to achieve peace. Almost everybody says they want peace, but yet become combative when they begin to see themselves as a “victim” rather than an aggressor. This is because when you see yourself as a…
Is all anger modifiable?
Anger clearly has clear evolutionary value. That is, it is there to protect us so we can survive. If this is so, can we change it? Do we even want to change it? The answer to the first question is that it probably depends on the depth of the problem. There are many ways to…
Dealing with anger over job loss
I have been receiving calls lately from people experiencing a great deal of anger over recent job loss due to the deteriorating economy in the United States. They are asking how they should deal their angry feelings and what advice I might have to help them cope with what is usually experienced as very scary and…
Poor Anger Control is Bad For Society
Extreme conflict, violence, and intolerance are all anger-based social issues that greatly affect marriages, families, children, the workplace, and entire cultures. Take the fact that it is estimated that between 2.3 million and 10 million children are exposed to intimate partner violence (parents fighting) each year in the United States alone. Or the fact that…
New Beginnings – Dedicated to Cjon Damitri Patterson
At the brink of every New Year we make promises to ourselves and to the ones we love to change. Often we’ve made the same promises every year for the last decade and find ourselves repeating the same negative habits, hurting ourselves and the people we care about. In some circles the number 8 is…