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Anger Management · Trauma Free Relationship

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Let's talk about anger management.
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Okay, I'm glad we're talking about this because I get a lot
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of phone calls from people that want anger management classes or
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I get a phone call from a couple that that say their husband or
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their wife is just so. Angry kind of reminds me of that
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Tim McGraw song Why are you so Angry All the time?
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And and so when I see couples, they often come in and present
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as very angry and rightfully so. I think they're not getting what
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they need in the relationship. They often feel misunderstood
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and what I've also seen is it's not very helpful.
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If if we as clinicians start focusing on the anger directly,
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what I've seen is that it doesn't.
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It's not very helpful if we start taking these sort of top
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down skills based approach to anger because I think it misses
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and this is the point of our conversation today.
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It misses two things. It misses the functions that the
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anger serve in the relationship. And so we're going to drill down
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and we're going to move sort of past the skills based training
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type of approach to anger management.
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And instead, especially within the context of relationship,
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we're going to talk about the functions that anger serves
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within that relationship and the unmet needs that are behind them
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because that is often at least in my experience.
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Is what I have seen really drive the anger?
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Even more so the top down anger management approach.
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Usually it's a skill brace based approach.
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It involves things like teaching people how to suppress or
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distract their anger. So if when you feel yourself
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getting angry, stop count to 10 before you respond or try to
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distract yourself focusing on something else.
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It might involve some deep breathing exercises.
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It might involve somebody based exercises helping the person
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become more aware of when the the body's responding and the
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Physiology is responding with anger and what that that is like
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from a body based perspective. Like think about it from a like
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a thermometer that sort of is rising.
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Up, up because the heat outside is causing the the mercury
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inside to rise up and the temperature increases.
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Can we notice that in our body? And then there are also skills
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based which are sort of cognitive restructuring so.
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Are you thinking about something in a in a rigid sort of way, as
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are you? Are you applying the rules of
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always or never to this situation?
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You must always act this way. You must always get people to
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like you, you must always respond with kindness, so on and
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so forth. And so a lot of those skill
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based are sort of cognitive top down type of management
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techniques and some of them can be helpful.
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And some of them can be definitely be helpful in the
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short term. But what I've seen is that in
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the context of a relationship and working with couples, often
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times their anger is being driven as a function of what is
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missing for them in the relationship.
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And there's really two primary functions.
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There is anger serves A protective function or it serves
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A protest function. And so we're going to talk about
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those two different functions that anger can serve in the life
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of a relationship. But right before we do that, I
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want to talk about just anger as an emotion itself.
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Anger is what we call a primary emotion, meaning it is, it is
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written into our DNA. It is often a primary response
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to to a situation, much like sadness is a primary response to
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loss. Anger is a primary response to
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feeling something is unjust. That could be everything from
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being falsely accused of something to feeling
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misunderstood to feeling somebody has your intentions
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wrong, so on and so forth. But this, there's this
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unjustness that sort of is baked into our our being, and anger is
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often a response to that. Anger is not always bad.
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Matter of fact, there is a healthy and an unhealthy anger.
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So if we think about anger on a continuum from everything from
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say, mild annoyance to outright rage, that's sort of where anger
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falls. Anger often is unhealthy when we
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are using it to right or wrong, but it has become dominant.
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In our our thinking and our feeling and it is no longer a on
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some level justifiable, so to speak.
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So maybe our response is much bigger, very disproportionate to
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the situation. So if my spouse has a tone with
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me and I respond with this large angry response, well that's
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really kind of disproportionate to the situation, her tone.
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Might I might not have liked it. It might have felt condescending
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to me. It might have felt like she was
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treating me like a child. It it might have evoked all
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these feelings of me that I didn't like.
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And so as a result, I sort of respond in this angry response.
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But it's not a justifiable angry.
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A healthy type of angry looks more like assertion.
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When we assert ourselves to right or wrong, we do so in a
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way that is not not over the top, it is not disproportionate
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to a situation, but is very much synced with our our thoughts.
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And so it's not, it doesn't sort of take over our brain.
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We're now only operating from our angry limbic system.
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Portion, but rather we're operating what the full
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functions our brain because we've integrated it with our
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prefrontal cortex, which is our ability to reason, think
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logically, have empathy for others.
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So a healthy type of anger when we're talking about this
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continuum as I mentioned earlier, is really a a how can I
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assert myself. To feel more hurt, to feel more
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understood, to express myself better, to right or wrong that I
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feel like is unjust here, but not in an over the top
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disproportionate way, but rather in an assertive way.
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And so anger as an emotion itself can be healthy and it can
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be unhealthy most the times when we talk about anger management.
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We're talking about unhealthy anger, Anger that seems
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disproportionate to a situation, a person that seems angry all
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the time. You have to walk on egg shells
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around them. I know my couples have often
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expressed that, where one partner feels, my gosh, I can't
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say or do anything without upsetting this person.
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They get mad, they raise their voice, they yell, and they just
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they're angry all the time. And so there's an unhealthy side
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of that anger, but then a healthy side of the anger.
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And I think this is important to emphasize.
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It's not as if we should not ever be angry.
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It's just that we need to be able to manage our anger and
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understand the function of our anger so that we can best
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integrate it with our thoughts and we are able to respond and
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not just react. Because when we react, we're
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simply letting our anger take over.
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And we are often acting in a disproportionate way to the
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situation. Oftentimes, we end up shooting
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ourselves in the foot because we end up creating a situation
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that's worse than then what our actual goal is, which is to make
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something better. So one of the things we talk a
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lot about with couples is how can we deescalate and learn to
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deescalate. When we have ruptures in the
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relationship, when we start to have conflict as a couple and it
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starts to become escalated, often time it's because anger
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will take over and it's this reactive anger.
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It's not a responsive anger. And as such we end up escalating
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that argument as opposed to learning to deescalate.
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So anger is not always a bad thing, it is a primary emotion.
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It is a. Sort of baked into our DNA.
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There are things that should evoke our anger when we hear
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about something that is unjust. When we see somebody treated in
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an unjust way, we should get mad about that.
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That should make us angry, not in a in a way that we're going
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to go over and punch somebody. Because again, that's more like
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a rage. It's it needs to be a response
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that's going to best help the situation.
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And and right or wrong in that sense and oftentimes violence is
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a reactive rage that is not a reasoned response.
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So let's let's drill in for just a moment.
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Let's talk about the two different functions of anger,
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especially in the life of a relationship and especially as
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this impacts trauma because we talk a lot about trauma and
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relationships. So the first function is what we
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call protection and protection. What I mean by that is it shows
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up in the relationship by putting up walls, by shutting
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down, by raising our voice or having a quick trigger and and
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so we often use our anger because something is behind the
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anger. That is more vulnerable.
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So we put up walls, we get mad, we feel like we can't solve a
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problem in our relationship. We keep running into the same
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problem over and over and over with our partner and and as such
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that that can trigger our our anger and and and oftentimes
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rage. And so we respond with that as
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opposed to the more vulnerable or softer emotions.
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That are behind the anger. So emotions never come by
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themselves, They're always usually linked to another
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emotion. Often times when we get
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triggered, if we find ourselves responding with anger, there's
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usually something behind the anger that we're trying to
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protect that is more soft, more vulnerable.
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That is more elusive. We're often not aware of what it
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might be. We just know we're mad.
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And so we respond with this anger.
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But if you get people to slow down, if you get people to to
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understand what's what function that anger is serving, then
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oftentimes they're able to look behind that angry response and
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realize that, oh, what I really was is I felt.
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I felt ashamed or I felt embarrassed.
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My partner pointed something out and and that I had done wrong
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and and and I felt embarrassed by that and so as opposed to me
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being able to lean in to that sense of oh gosh, that was kind
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of a foolish thing to do or I simply made a mistake.
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A lot of people can't tolerate that feeling and hold on to that
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feeling in order to react and respond from that feeling.
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But rather, they'll quickly move into a protective anger, which
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is the function it's serving because it's serving to protect
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that more vulnerable emotion. So that is one of the functions
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that anger can serve in the life of relationship.
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And this is especially true when or if our trauma gets triggered.
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When we find that our trauma has been triggered, oftentimes we'll
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respond with anger. Because that is such a
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vulnerable, scary thing to do. There's a lot of fear in being
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able to get close to that traumatic response and and it
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feels like we are now reliving what we went through the first
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time. And so it it seems like it it
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empowers us to be angry, it empowers us to respond with
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anger to our partner when we get triggered, because somehow that
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doesn't feel as vulnerable. As sitting with with this
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vulnerable, sometimes helpless, sometimes hopeless response of
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not knowing what to do in our in our sadness or in our shame, or
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in a variety of other feelings that might come with that, so so
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the first function that anger serves is the function of
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protection. We use it to protect ourselves
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against. Other vulnerable feelings, or we
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use it to protect ourselves against feelings of inferiority
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or feelings of of ineffectiveness in the
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relationship. So one of the things I've seen
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when we talk about anger as protection is in the life of a
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relationship, and research bears this out.
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There are many, many issues that couples come across that are
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just simply unresolvable. What that means is you can't sit
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down, talk through it and and tie it up in a nice little bow
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and say you know what, we're we're so on the same page here
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right now. We feel just totally In Sync.
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I don't think this is an issue for us anymore.
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I think we can set this on the shelf and not worry about this
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issue that that that's actually a very large percentage of
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issues. In the life of a couple that
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they're able to resolve them and then not have to deal with them
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and worry about them anymore. One of the examples I use is
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when we talk about sex in the life of the couple.
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So the the sex life in the couple when they first begin
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looks very different Five years in or 10 years or 15.
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It takes on a very different look and feel after children.
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For the for one partner, if not for both partners, for sure.
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So oftentimes you have to renegotiate this aspect of your
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lives as you're as you're moving through life together.
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Biology's change, especially for women after childbirth, but for
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men too, you can take on tremendous amount of stress at
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work. So maybe you just your libido's
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not the same. You don't have the same sex
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drive as you did before. Sometimes there's a mismatch of
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sex drives in the relationship and that can go through
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different seasons. So one partner might want it
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more than the other and then another seasonal life the other
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partner might want it more. So I use this as an example that
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often times there are issues in the relationship that we have to
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manage and and what. What the research shows is that
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those couples that are successful know that they have
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to learn how to manage these unresolvable issues and that
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they're probably not going to come to a perfect solution so
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that they can completely resolve it.
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But what that means is that often times when we run back
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into this issue over and over in the relationship, anger can
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serve the function of protection because it makes us feel
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incompetent. And so when we feel incompetent,
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that's that's a vulnerable feeling.
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And what anger does is it empowers us to once again try to
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work on this and force a solution somehow.
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And oftentimes what that does is it trips us up and it escalates
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the conflict even more. So learning how to deescalate,
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learning how to be assertive and to speak from your unmet needs
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in the relationship, learning how to manage and address.
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Issues in the relationship that aren't going to easily go away
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is what I have found a much better way to tackle anger
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management in in the life of the couple and in the relationship.
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So I want to add that bit as well because there's an
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incompetent piece that anger serves to protect us from when
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we keep running back into issues over and over and over.
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Now the second function that anger serves is that of protest.
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And what I mean is that often times when partners are feeling
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disconnected, they aren't feeling as close.
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Their attachment bond is is straining in the relationship.
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Often times anger will come out as protest and it might look
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different for different partners.
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One partner might use a very assertive, almost aggressive
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type anger where they're coming at the other partner.
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They're trying to get the partner to engage.
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They're trying to understand that they're feeling
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disconnected. They need empathy, they need
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validation, They need that emotional attunement piece.
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And so they're they're sort of turning up the heat on the
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partner to try to get what they need and and often behind that
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anger, that that aggressive type of assertive anger.
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Is this feeling of disconnection, and it is serving
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as a protest to try to get their attachment needs met.
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Now for the other partner, they might protest in a very
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different way. They might protest by by
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acquiescing, by going along with the partner.
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Whatever it is they want to do. They might protest by sort of
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not talking, not opening up, because that makes them feel
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very vulnerable. So their quietness might be a
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protest. They might find themselves
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shutting down or emotionally removing themselves from the
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conversation when they get triggered as a way to 1.
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Yes, protect themselves, but two to also protest that they're not
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getting their needs met either. But the protest can look like a
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very quiet, slow, soft compliance for their partner.
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And so. When we're protesting that we're
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not getting our needs met, it's tricky because it can look very
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different in each partners. And that's where somebody who's
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trained in couples therapy, who's done extensive training,
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that field can be able to recognize, oh, you're protesting
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in your own way. You're trying to protect your
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partner, you're trying to protect the relationship because
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you don't want to fight and argue.
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Rather, it feels safer to you to shut down because then we get
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along better. That makes sense to me in some
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ways. You are protecting your partner,
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you're protecting the relationship, and you're
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protesting in your own subtle way that you want to be more
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close and connected to your partner as well.
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So what I've often found is that whether it's protection,
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protecting a more vulnerable emotion.
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Whether it's the form of protesting, letting our partner
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know that that we're feeling disconnected, the attachment
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bond is is bending a little bit. It's fraying a little bit at the
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edges. That that anger often shows up
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as a predominant emotion in the life of the couples that can
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serve these two different functions.
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And ultimately what happens is there's an unmet need behind
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these functions. When I.
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Have worked with couples often when we get behind the function
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of the anger and we get to the unmet need, somehow the anger
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begins to dissipate. When I have one partner, be able
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to turn to the other partner and say, I know you're upset, I can
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see your anger and I want to be closer to you as well.
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I want to hear you. I want to understand where
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you're coming from. And I want to get past you just
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being angry with me. And I want to be able to to
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really understand your perception of this relationship
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because you are important to me. When I can get one partner to
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say something like that to another partner, what you see is
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this. This anger just dissipates and
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falls away and all of a sudden they're now able to get in touch
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with their more vulnerable feelings.
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And they are able to communicate better the unmet need they have
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in the relationship and as such they can begin to rebuild and
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reconnect to their partner. So I think it's important to
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think about the functions of anger, not and and and the the
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the functions it serves in the life of a relationship.
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I think this is true not just in romantic relationships, which is
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primarily what I deal with. I also think this is true in all
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kinds of relationships, whether it's true with your best friend,
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whether it's true in some of your work relationships with
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your colleagues. Anger often shows up and serves
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one of these two functions, and so.
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When we start talking about anger management, I want us to,
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I want to challenge the conception a little bit that
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it's always sort of a top down skills based cure, but rather
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there's something from the bottom up where it serves a
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function for us in trying to get our needs met in our closest
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relationships, but certainly in all our relationships as well.
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Hey, I hope you liked this video today.
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I hope this shed a little bit different light when we start
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talking about anger and anger management, especially within
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the context of trauma and relationships.
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If you like this video, be sure and follow us and hit the Bell
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service. And don't forget that we've got
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an absolutely free assessment that you can take and the link
23:04
is down below on both platforms that you can take this free
23:09
assessment and it covers the five areas of your relationship
23:14
that trauma impacts. And then it also follows up with
23:17
the work port you and your partner can begin to work
23:20
through. Hey, thanks for watching and
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we'll see you next time.