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Anger is a normal, healthy emotion that every human experiences.
But sometimes, anger begins to dominate every experience and we begin to lash out at others–and that’s when it’s time to get help.
When anger reaches a dangerous extreme, we refer to it as rage.
Extreme anger or rage becomes difficult to control and it can be very destructive, often affecting your relationships, work, and state of mind.
When dealing with anger issues, it’s important to understand what you are trying to communicate and how you want to say it in a way that doesn’t hurt others.
Often, anger can be a cover for what we’re really feeling, such as deep hurt, sadness, or shame.
It can also be a symptom of underlying mental health problems, such as depression, trauma, or chronic stress.
In some families, expressing emotions is frowned upon, even healthy anger.
For people who grew up in that kind of environment, it’s crucial to learn how to express anger in a healthy way, instead of suppressing it.
Learning to control your anger and express it appropriately will help you maintain healthy relationships, achieve your goals, and lead a more satisfying and healthy life.
Here are some telltale signs that your anger has reached an unhealthy level.
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The first step towards anger management is to recognize that you are getting angry.
You can do this by becoming aware of the physical effects that anger might have on your body, such as clenching your hands or rapid breathing.
After you recognize your anger, take a step back so that you are able to distinguish exactly what is making you fired up.
Use a “cooling” technique such as counting to ten, perhaps going for a walk, or even distracting yourself by doing another activity.
This will give you time to calm down and get your system out of fight or flight so you can begin to think about things in a more balanced and realistic way.
If you feel like you’re not in control of your anger, and anger is controlling you, we encourage you to seek help.
Individual therapy provides a safe place to process real reasons and triggers behind your anger.
Often, our caregivers model expressing and processing all feelings through anger, and we’re not even aware of our deeper feelings.
Sometimes they taught us it wasn’t okay to feel angry at all–and that’s when we tend to suppress our anger until it explodes.
Still other times, we may find ourselves holding onto past resentments that we haven’t learned to heal and let go.
At My LA Therapy, we incorporate a variety of research-proven techniques to help you heal and gain control of your anger.
We’ll use CBT to challenge your irrational beliefs, somatic and experiential techniques to get in touch with and release anger in your body, and psychodynamic methods to get to the root causes and past experiences that may have contributed to latent anger.
Therapy can successfully improve your life by helping you identify and change underlying thought and behavioral patterns that contribute to your struggles, and provide you with strategies to decrease discomfort while restoring an overall sense of peace.
To experience true and lasting joy in our life, we must face and conquer our pain by healing our underlying trauma and confronting our fears.
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I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
