Rogers Peter Denny - When anger hurts: quieting the storm within

When Anger Hurts

Quieting the Storm Within

Matthew McKay
Peter D. Rogers
Judith McKay

New Harbinger Publications

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2003 by Matthew Mckay, Peter D. Rogers, and Judith McKay

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

Cover design by Amy Shoup

Edited by Kayla Sussell

Text design by Tracy Marie Carlson

ISBN-10: 1-57224-344-9 Paperback

ISBN-13: 978-1-60882-433-5 ePub

All Rights Reserved

New Harbinger Publications Web site address: www.newharbinger.com

First Edition 19892003

Second Edition

For Our Children

Dana, Noah, Jordan, and Rebekah

Ian and Becky

Contents

By now, When Anger Hurts has sold 250,000 copies. Its used all over the world in clinics, as well as anger management groups and classes. Hundreds of therapists regularly recommend it to clients, and thousands of readers have found and bought it, hoping to change their lives.

In the fourteen years since the book originally appeared weve gotten a great deal of feedback, and we are honored that our book has proven useful to so many. But since it was introduced many things in our field have changed. Research, particularly the work of Jerry Deffenbacher, has pointed the way to more effective treatment protocols. So we have put them in this bookadding new chapters on 24-Hour Anger Management, Anger Inoculation, Problem Solving, Assessing the Cost of Your Anger, and Road Rage.

There have also been major changes made to the chapters on Anger and Children, Controlling Stress Step by Step, and Coping Through Healthy Self-Talk. And there have been deletionsnotably the chapter on thought stopping that recent research has shown to be a questionable technique.

We believe this extensively revised second edition will give you an opportunity to learn the crucial skills you must have to change your life. Everything you need is here to alter even lifelong patterns of anger and reactivity. To the therapists and clinicians whove used the first edition, we wish to express our thanks. And we offer the promise that this second edition will be even more effective, more helpful. To those who are just discovering When Anger Hurts, we invite you to make a commitment to change, by making the commitment to work your way through each step of this program. It is true that doing the exercises will take time and energy. But your reward, in the coin of stronger, healthier, more loving relationships, will be more than worth it.

Matthew McKay, Ph.D.

Nances Hot Springs

Calistoga, California

Anger has enormous costs. The impulse that felt so right at the moment, so justified, becomes in the quiet hours another source of guilt and regret. What seemed so worthy of blame passes. What remains are the scars, the hurt, and the alienation.

If you are often angry, every one of your relationships may be affected. Marriage can become a minefield. Distance grows. Walls thicken. Children may become hardened, resistant, while carrying deep feelings of worthlessness. Coworkers may withdraw or sabotage you, bosses become critical. A bitterness may grow with certain friends.

And anger affects your health. A twenty-five-year followup study of law students who had taken a test measuring hostility revealed a startling fact. Twenty percent of those who had scored in the top quarter on the hostility scale had died, compared to a death rate of only five percent for students who had scored in the lowest quarter on the same test (New York Times 1989). Frequent anger is damaging to your body and increases the death rate from nearly every cause.

When Anger Hurts

This book is for people who are concerned about their anger, whove grown tired of the emotional and physical toll that anger takes. Its for those who want less anger in their relationships, who seek better ways of expressing needs and solving problems.

This is a self-help bookwhich means that you are in for a lot of work. You cant achieve anger control without learning and practicing crucial coping skills. A passive reading of the text will prove disappointing. Nothing will change in your life.

A real change in your experience and expression of anger can be achieved only by doing the exercises, trying the techniques, and practicing your new skills on a daily basis. Whether you are learning stress reduction or a system to alter your anger-triggering thoughts, the book can help only if you master each step and then apply what youve learned to real events in your life.

The work will pay off. The skills youll learn in this book can help you achieve these important benefits:

1. The ability to control destructive anger venting. And the chance to protect and rebuild relationships that have been damaged by venting in the past.

2. A reduction in the frequency and intensity of your physiological anger response. There is a wealth of scientific data that anger damages your health (see ). The less anger you experience, the longer you live.

3. A change in the beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes that trigger chronic anger. As you learn to restructure anger-triggering thoughts, youll find that fewer and fewer things upset you.

4. Identification of the stresses and needs that lie below your anger. When youre clear about the real problem, you can move past anger to decision making.

5. The ability to cope effectively with your stress. Instead of exploding when stress exceeds your tolerance threshold, you can employ specific relaxation tools.

6. Greater effectiveness in meeting your needs. Anger generates resistance and resentment in others. You may get short-term cooperation. But in the long run your needs will be ignored and you will be avoided. Problem solving and communication tools can help you get what you want without anger.

When Anger Helps

Despite its costs, anger can be adaptive. Its a warning signal that something is wrong. Just as physical pain can be a warning (this stove is hotmove your hand right now), anger can warn you of imminent trauma. Anger can provide the energy to resist emotional or physical threats. The following exceptional situations are examples of when anger helps:

1. Perhaps the most obvious situation in which anger can be helpful is that of physicalthreat or actual attack. Anger can mobilize you to defend yourself or escape.

A few years ago Iris, a middle-aged woman living in New York, heard footsteps following her as she was returning home alone from the theater. She was frightened, of course, but then she became angry at the thought of being victimized. She slowed down. Then, when the footsteps came near, she whirled around and shouted at the top of her voice, Get away from me you son of a bitchor Ill kill you! The would-be attacker fled.