Over the last three years I have developed an approach for counseling people with anger issues. My approach is intended to engage the mostly men I counsel for anger. A lot of I what I do with anger clients is help them understand interpersonal relationships and build better tools for working within a relationship. The reference to tools is of course “a guy thing” and helps us relax more and enjoy the counseling process.

My approach to anger counseling assumes that:

· An anger issue is interpersonal in nature

· Anger is an emotion and therefore provides information

· Anger is most frequently directed toward a Significant Other

· Anger is Situational

· Counseling is directed toward creating a dynamic understanding of the situation

· Anger is functional when a client accurately appraises a situation and takes constructive action

For the record, the primary structure of what I do is from the work of Jeffrey Binder (2004). My ideas concerning emotion are primarily from Clore (1994). Other people contributing to my academic understanding include Levenson, Butler, Powers, and Beitman (2002). In addition, just for fun, I like to set anger counseling in the frame of the OODA model developed by the late Col. John Boyd. However, the combination I will present here is what I do and therefore not exactly what any one of these authors specify.

Anger is Interpersonal

The anger I counsel for, to a man (also to an occasional woman) takes place between people. None of the clients I have seen over the past few years has sought counseling because they were angry with inanimate objects. A rarer version of anger is that a client seems to be angry toward large groups of people in general. Even then, it is more likely that this anger provides a background. The fear is that a spike in anger will show itself in a more intimate relationship. The most common mode of anger is toward someone well known and close to the client in some way. Expressing anger toward a boss or a peer is one possibility. By far the most common “target” for anger is the significant other in the life of the client. Again, the most common target for anger is the most significant other: a spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, fiancé, etc .

Given that the target of extreme anger is a significant other, it makes complete sense to use an approach from theory that recognizes an interpersonal perspective. My early approaches to anger counseling were adapted from Levenson, Butler, Powers, and Beitman (2002). They quote Harry Stack Sullivan, an early proponent of interpersonal theory, who defined personality as “the relatively enduring pattern of recurrent interpersonal situations which characterize the human life.”

In a very deep sense, and to the determent of many clients, an angry outburst toward a significant other has become a defining feature of their personality. Counseling is an effective way to change this pattern of interpersonal interaction.

Emotion Provides Information

Anger is an emotion. But, what do we mean by emotion? According to Clore, an emotion is a mental state in which “a situation is perceived as positive or negative for one’s concerns.” Because emotion is a mental state we are always aware of the emotion. That is, emotion is never unconscious. The mental state requires an appraisal of everything going on, including the typical physical symptoms such as racing heart, sweaty palms and so on. Very important to working with anger, the appraisal can be done unconsciously. Yes, the appraisal may be long and exhaustive as in appraising business performance for a quarter. But, the appraisal can also be done automatically by making an analog between current experience and experience with similar situations in the past. The outcome of the appraisal is that we perceive a situation as positive or negative.

The short version of the emotion process is this:

Situation >>> Appraisal >>> Emotion

Last, Clore states that emotion provides information. What is the information that emotion provides? Simply that the situation that has been appraised is either negative or positive to our self interests. We use the information provided by emotion to guide our attention and as input for what we do next.

Walking through this for anger looks something like this: A situation arises, say between our Self and our Significant Other (SO).As the situation unfolds we appraise the situation. At some point we decide the situation is negative to our interests. Our mental state becomes anger. The information provided by the anger informs us that the situation is important to us and that if we want to improve the situation we need to do something… unfortunately for people who need anger counseling… what they choose to do is often harmful to the relationship with their Significant Other.

Now for people who need counseling we have:

Self<>SO in a Situation >>>Appraisal >>> Anger >>>Harmful Action

This is the problem that is usually presented in the first session:

· Situation: I thought I was doing something nice. I thought she would like what I did.

· Appraisal: She made some critical remark, like she always does.

· Emotion: I got mad.

· Harmful action: I pushed her.

The reality of this “simple” example is complex. What we do in counseling is sort this all out.

Anger Directed Toward a Significant Other

As noted earlier, the direction of anger is frequently toward a significant other (SO). For a long time taking anger out on a SO did not make sense to me. I went to some trouble to find why this would be. David B. Wexler (2004) presents the best answer I have found. In his very good book, Wexler develops the concept of mirroring.

It seems that a very important human need is to have someone reflect back to us that we are a good person, okay, straight with the world, doing what is necessary to be held in high esteem and so on. The process of this reflection that we are okay is called mirroring. The folk example we all recognize is “mirror mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all.” We want someone to answer that we are, or at least okay.

In the beginning a parent provides the desired and necessary mirroring. Wexler points out that, especially for boys (who become men), the father is a critical component. If the mirroring is done poorly the boy suffers as a man. Having not received the necessary mirroring as a boy, the man searches for mirroring, and demands it from his SO. The SO cannot make up for years of ineffective mirroring and is presented with a hopeless task. Given the inevitable failure of the SO to adequately mirror that he is okay, the mirror is broken. The broken mirror does not reflect what is desired and the affronted person becomes angry. The handy target for all of that anger is the SO.

Anger is Situational

As noted earlier, anger involves another person and that person is most frequently the SO. Yet, my clients are not angry toward their SO all of the time. In fact, no surprise here, my clients usually have strong positive feeling towards their SO. In addition, as I have said, the anger is not actually about the SO as a person in general. The anger derives from an interaction of my client with the SO. Said differently, the anger always reaches a peak during a “situation.” The situation is interpersonal and involves the Significant Other.

An additional note is that emotion is frequently disconnected from the original event, or displaced. I wrote a post earlier on this phenomenon. Essentially, anger from some prior event or time is carried forward into the present. When this happens, the situation can be compounded by anger that has been carried from some past event.

Counseling Objective

I added (and posted about) the OODA Loop later in my work and use it as a nice analog for what we want to accomplish in counseling. OODA stands for:

· Observe

· Orient

· Decide

· Act

In the Self<>SO situation an OODA loop might look like this:

Observe what it going on. Observe your own Self, your Significant Other, and the overall interaction. Take everything into account.

Orient yourself to the current situation, not yesterday, not this morning, but now. Rather than “he said” or “she said” (the past), you need to see what is happening in this moment.

Decide what you want to do rather than reacting. When you react you often live with unfortunate consequences later.

Act in a way that is helpful to you and to your partner. Do something that resolves the problem not something that damages the relationship.

Remembering that emotion results from an appraisal, the counseling objective is for my client to 1) arrive at an accurate appraisal of the situation and 2) find a response that resolves the situation without damaging the relationship. The outcome may, or may not, include feeling angry as a result of the appraisal.

Using OODA terms, I want the client to Observe the situation more accurately, Orient his self to what he truly wants to accomplish, make a conscious Decision, and then Act in a way that is more functional.

The details of what to observe are critical and are the subject of the next section.

Accurate appraisal

Gathering information and observing what happened is central to my approach for anger counseling. This section is the very heart of what we do. At first the client and I review past situations. The client learns to observe what he actually did, this is called self-observation. On graduation, the client is capable of self-observation in-action. That is, the observation process becomes dynamic and fast. The client has mastered an interpersonal OODA Loop. That takes awhile and the first step is to fully understand one situation.

The process I use to “appraise” one situation relies almost completely on the interpersonal model explained both by Levenson (1995), and by Binder (2004). Information is gathered in the following four areas that comprise an interaction between two people.

1. Action (Intent)

· What did you actually do?

· What was your intent or wish regarding the other person?

· How do you feel about the other person?

2. Expected Response (Their Intent)

· What did you expect from that person?

· How did you think they would perceive your wish or intent?

· What were they trying to accomplish, their intent?

3. Actual Response (Interpretation)

· What did the person actually do?

· How did you interpret their action?

4. Self image – Self treatment

· How did the interaction influence the way you view or treat yourself?

· What did you say or visualize to yourself, about yourself or the situation?

5. The Situation (step 1-4) is appraised resulting in emotion.

· (Note that I have added a step to the original four step model).

Insert image (OTW)

The questions are designed to fathom what was “really” going on. Sometimes I ask what did you intend followed by what did you “really intend.” The meaning of the interaction tends to fall in layers. The deeper layers are closer to the true meaning.

The information gathered in these four places is all part of Observe in the OODA Loop. With more accurate observation we are able to Orient, or understand. At that point the client is ready to think about other options and other decisions that could have been made before the harmful action was taken.

This process is repeated many times until the client is able to perform accurate appraisal dynamically, that is, as the action unfolds.

Summary

I have presented my approach to anger counseling. I see anger as an emotion. Emotions are mental states that provide information. The information is used to direct our attention and as input into future actions. The emotion of anger comes from the appraisal of a situation as negative to our interests. With the majority of my clients the situation in question is between them and their significant other. I use the OODA Loop as an analog for what we need to accomplish in counseling. The first objective is to make a more accurate appraisal of the situation. The more accurate appraisal is based on gathering information using the four parts of an interpersonal interaction. The interpersonal model tells us what to observe and makes it possible to see repeated patterns. Accurate observation leads to understanding and orients the client to the situation. At this point the client is in a position to make better decisions on how to act. Many situations are reviewed in counseling to the point where the client can appraise what is going on dynamically. At that point they have mastered an OODA Loop for Interpersonal Interaction.

References

Binder, J. L. (2004). Key competencies in brief dynamic psychotherapy: Clinical practice beyond the manual. Guilford Press: New York.

Clore, G. L. (1994). Why emotions are felt. In Ekman, P. & Davidson, R. (eds.) The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions. Oxford University Press: New York

Clore, G. L. (1994). Why emotions require cognition. In Ekman, P. & Davidson, R. (eds.) The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions. Oxford University Press: New York

Clore, G. L. (1994). Why emotions are never unconscious. In Ekman, P. & Davidson, R. (eds.) The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions. Oxford University Press: New York

Clore, G. L. (1994). Why emotions vary in intensity. In Ekman, P. & Davidson, R. (eds.) The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions. Oxford University Press: New York

Levenson, H. (1995). A guide to clinical practice: Time-Limited dynamic psychotherapy. Basic Books: New York.

Levenson, H. L.; Butler, S. F.; Powers, T. A.; and Beitman, B. D. (2002). Concise guide to brief dynamic and interpersonal therapy. 2^nd ed. American Psychiatric Publishing: Washington DC.

Wexler, David (2004). When good men behave badly. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.