Anger Management For Dummies. W. Doyle Gentry
are those little pictures in the margins throughout this book, and they’re there to draw your attention to certain kinds of information:
Beyond the Book
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, Anger Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. No matter how much you gain from what you read, check out the free Cheat Sheet for additional ideas and tools. Go to www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/angermanagement for
✔ Ten ways to cool down
✔ Tips for expressing yourself assertively rather than aggressively
✔ Anger do’s and don’ts
✔ Keeping your cool at work
We also provide six concise online articles associated with Parts II through VII. Those articles give you interesting ideas for how to think about and handle anger. Check them out at www.dummies.com/extras/angermanagement.
Where to Go from Here
You don’t have to read this book from start to finish – that is, you don’t have to read the whole book from Chapter 1 through the end to benefit from it. Each part and chapter is meant to stand alone in its discussion of anger management. Feel free to choose a topic that interests you, and dive in.
Part I
Getting Started with Anger Management
In this part …
✔ Get familiar with the emotion called anger and the nature of anger’s physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings.
✔ Discover your anger triggers and figure out when anger most likely occurs in your life. Understand how your individual anger pattern plays out.
✔ Decide whether you truly want to change the way you manage anger. See both the costs and benefits of changing or not (yes, there are costs). Then explore the stages of change. Determine which stage you’re in and find out what to expect.
Chapter 1
Understanding Anger
In This Chapter
▶ Identifying anger and where it comes from
▶ Examining the myths about anger
▶ Understanding how emotions work
▶ Finding help when you need it
What do children from Bogota, Columbia, college students in Oxford, England, corporate executives in New York City, mothers from India, and preliterate tribesmen in Borneo and New Guinea have in common? They all recognize an angry face when they see it. Anger, as well as joy, fear, sadness, disgust, contempt, and surprise are universal emotions. All cultures around the globe experience these emotions as an integral part of day-to-day life – and these emotions can lead to both blessings and curses.
But anger can also have the opposite effect and lead to an untimely demise. Too much anger can cause heart attacks, precipitate disabling work injuries, ruin relationships, and lead to a variety of unintended negative consequences. Anger truly is a double-edged sword.
Defining Anger
If you’re like most people, you know what anger is, or at least you think you do. For example, maybe your gut tells you that a friend of yours feels angry. So you ask him if indeed he feels angry, and he responds, “No, not at all.” Of course, your gut could be wrong, and your friend really isn’t angry. But usually your intuition will serve you well in such instances. You can tell by your friend’s tone of voice, posture, and body language.
Finding the key to anger management
As the reader, we know you’d like a simple answer to the question “Why am I so angry, and what’s the single, most effective thing I can do about it?” You’re hoping that one chapter in this book will provide that answer. But, alas, that’s not the way it works.
Anger is a complex human emotion. By reading this book, you can come to understand where your anger comes from – that is, which and how many of those factors that are unique to you are at work here. It may be that you need better coping skills, to cut down on drinking, to increase your social outlets, to increase your sense of purpose and meaning in life, or to look for a new job. A few of these items, all of them, one of them, or perhaps more, may cause problems that result in your anger. The important thing at this point is to find the right recipe for your anger management and to use the information and resources in this book to bring your emotional life to a better place.
Anger is an emotion that involves certain types of thoughts that focus on other people’s intent to hurt you, unfairness, threats to your self-esteem, and frustrations. Anger expresses itself in the body (for example, muscle tension, loud voice, and restlessness) and behaviors (such as threatening actions, pacing, and clenching). Anger is a strong emotion that attempts to express displeasure and disapproval.
Anger Really Is About Choices and Perceptions
Humans are the only animals we know of that have a choice about how they view the world. Cats, dogs, squirrels, hamsters, goldfish –