Six Parental Tips For Your Angry Children

It was labor day when 8 year old Brandon’s mother heard a commotion from her childs room. Seems that his 14 year old visiting cousin said something that upset Brandon which caused Brandon to strike the other boy. His mother Michelle hysterically called her therapist wondering what to do and how to handle the anger…

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Anger Management In Action: Let sleeping dogs lie?

“How did your week go, Samuel?” I asked my married patient who  consulted me for anger management and anger management skills to deal with his wife. “Much better,” he replied, “because I kept my mouth shut this time when I desperately wanted to argue with her because I knew I was right. I decided to…

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Anger Management In Action: Relationship Blowups Can Be Costly

“Dr. Fiore,” the voice on the phone pleaded, “I need anger management classes right away. I blew up at my girlfriend last night and she said it’s over until I get help”. As Kevin recounted the first night of anger management class, he and his girlfriend had argued in the car over which route to…

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Anger Management In Action: Need More Respect From Your Family?

Case #1- Elizabeth, a 40 year old homemaker was always feeling angry and used by her family, constantly saying that everybody took advantage of her. She felt that she worked like a slave but her family showed no appreciation or acknowledgment of her many efforts. She needed anger management to help deal with her feelings….

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Anger Management In Action: Forgiveness.Let the Past Go

  Thirty-two year old Elizabeth cried during her anger management class as she related how one year ago her 19-month-old girl was permanently brain-damaged as the result of medical error at the hospital in which she was delivered. She definitely had a legitimate grievance toward the hospital and the medical staff and felt that she…

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Anger Management In Action: Three ways to Deal With A Passive-Aggressive

Thirty-three year old Roberto had promised his wife Tina that he would be home after work in time for her to attend her weekly “women’s group” at her church. Having only one automobile, Tina was completely at the mercy of Roberto’s promise. You guessed it! Roberto did not show up until 8:45 PM—way too late…

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Anger Management In Action: Handling Anger on the Road

Anger on the road is seen everywhere! Could road anger be a medical condition? Headline: Road Rage may be due to medical condition called Intermittent Explosive Disorder. What is the science behind this? The study, reported in the June (2006) issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry was based on a national face-to-face survey of…

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Anger Management In Action: In Trouble at Work?

Leroy’s Story Leroy was a superstar in the Real Estate business, producing three times the monthly business of his nearest coworker. He was a driven, highly competitive young man who saw his manager as getting in the way of even higher production. Tension turned to irritability. Yelling and shouting followed. On the day he was…

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Control Your Anger – Self-Talk in Action

In our Anger Management Local Classes, as well as in our online programs, we teach participants the value of changing your “self-talk” in order to dial down those angry feelings triggered by any number of events in our world. The following story about a grandfather and his  spoiled out-of-control 3 year-old grandson illustrates this beautifully – and…

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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…

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Can’t change your partner? Try Looking in The Mirror!

Anger is an emotion. But, angry emotions often trigger a specific behavior (like yelling, throwing things, hitting, insulting someone, etc) which causes problems for you either at home, at work, on the road, or in your family. Most people in our anger classes tell us that one of the reasons they exhibit the angry behavior is because they want to change someone or…

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Dealing With Life Stress: Should We Use a Scale or a Broom?

This cartoon illustrates how stressful life can be, even in normal  situations like family life. (By the way, if you enjoy mental health humor, visit (http://blogs.psychcentral.com/humor) for more.) In our anger management programs, we teach specific methods to handle stress as one of our anger control tools, because stress and anger are very much connected…

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AngerCoach Show – Episode #11 – Anger and Sex

This months episode we discuss the relationship that sex and anger share. As a practicing Psychologist and Marriage Therapist, I have come across many couples who experience sexual frustrations in their relationships. Often times anger can arise from sexual frustration, and as this episode discusses, sexual frustration can result from anger. In this podcast we…

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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,…

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AngerCoach Show – Episode #10 – Is Humor a Remedy for Anger?

This months episode we discuss the positive effects that a sense of humor can have in dealing with anger. Appropriate humor can help all of us deal with difficult situations better, and if we have a problem with anger humor can gives us new ways to respond to frustrating situations. Humor shifts the way we…

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AngerCoach Show – Episode #9 – Managing Expectations

This months episode discusses the benefits of managing your expectations. Learn what your expectations are, where they come from and understand how the world around us influences our expectations. When we understand these things, then we can better adjust what our expectations are when it comes to our lives, our relationships, our families, our possessions…

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Managing Expectations: A powerful happiness tool!

When people graduate from our anger management classes, we ask them which of the eight tools of anger control helped them the most. Often graduates tell us that it was Anger Tool # 6– “Adjust expectations” that was of most help to them. But managing expectations helps in more life areas than just anger; it…

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Anger and Sex: Part 1- Sexual Frustration

As a practicing psychologist and marriage therapist, I often encounter clients who are angry because they suffer sexual frustration in their marriage or relationship. As we teach in our anger classes, anger is sometimes a secondary emotion, meaning that there is something underneath it which triggers it. Often that “something” is sexual frustration. The most…

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Is humor a remedy for anger?

I recently returned from Phoenix, Arizona for a visit with a high school buddy that, save for a brief visit two years ago, I had not seen for fifty years. What an experience that was – catching up with each other’ s lives covering a half of a century! He had heard that I had…

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Can you change? Maybe. Maybe Not. Probably.

Have you heard this psychologist joke? Question: How many psychologists does it take to change a light-bulb? Answer: Only one – but the light-bulb has to really want to change. In my experience as a psychologist and marriage therapist, I have often see people struggle with the question of how much they are capable of…

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How Self-Talk Changes Moods

A famous psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis changed the face of psychology on the 60’s and 70’s by arguing that it is our self-talk  or thinking patterns that determine how will respond to events in our world and what we will feel about them. He went on to explain that this also explains why person “A”…

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