Understanding Anger

Today at the gym, my trainer started talking about the inevitability of World War III. He was reflecting after watching the latest news of conflict between the US and China. As he shared, I felt a familiar grief well inside me.

The world we live in is such a traumatized one. I believe our disconnection from our own anger is at the root of much of our relational disharmony… the root of war.

Anger is something I am deeply familiar with. Through my own journey of healing and transformation, I’ve looked mine square in the face, plunged into its treacherous depths, let it roar from my lungs and leave my clenched fists. This process helped me re-calibrate my relationship with anger. I can now connect to anger with ease, grace and healthy non-violent expression. It’s something I am incredibly proud of!

One of my great wishes, is that as a collective, we find a way to process and integrate our anger. This may be the path to relational harmony… which is ultimately what will heal our traumatized world.

Anger is a topic I work with as a therapist and I also teach my students about my take on anger. I consider myself somewhat of a psycho-somatic analyst. One of my gifts is to feel and know what is unsaid, to make sense of the body’s storied and illuminate the ‘why’ behind our dysfunction.

As I gear up to teach my students this week, I decided to openly share a section of my teaching manual that communicates what I understand about anger:

Understanding Anger – an excerpt from ‘Trauma-Informed Relational Somatics’ Module 2 Manual 

The abused or oppressed will always hold an element of suppressed anger. They should be angry. Their right to sovereignty has been violated. However, in the case of abuse, it is likely that there was not a safe space to express their anger. Expression may have incited either further harm, or abandonment.

I. Psychology & Organizing Principles of Anger

‘I am harmed (by you, by the world, by myself)’

The above is how healthy anger should be interpreted. However, in the case of abuse and any form of oppression, the relationship to anger is mis-calibrated. There are two main categories of mis-calibrated anger:

a)   All anger is bad

 ‘Anger is wrong and it incites harm’ (dissociation), or ‘There is no anger/I am not angry’ (dis-identification). The way anger is suppressed or mal-expressed, will depend not only on the experience of abuse, but on the familial, cultural and religious views on it. For example, if you are brought up in a culture where anger is considered ‘bad’, it is more likely that dis-identification will occur.

This archetype will often arrive for treatment experiencing strong feelings or outbursts of anger, that they are confused and ashamed by. Their family/friends may experience them as ‘Jekyll and hyde’ – lovely one minute and rageful the next. It is also common for the anger to have been expertly suppressed for years, and a certain experience short-circuits the person’s ability to hide it… all of a sudden they are having uncontrollable angry outbursts. Trigger events may include: Child-birth, loss of a loved one, career change, abusive relationship or difficult break up.

It is important to understand the client’s triggers for anger AND find the root cause, which will be the experience of abuse or disempowerment.

b)  Aggressive anger is healthy

‘It is ok for me to hurt you, and/or for you to hurt me.’ Here, aggression becomes a ‘normal’ way to express in the world. It is ok to yell, to shame, and in some cases to cause physical harm. Boundaries do not exist and therefore, neither self-respect or respect of others is possible. When this mis-calibration occurs, the ability to relate in the world is severely compromised, as the basic human rights to sovereignty are discarded, and empathy is non-existent.

This archetype will often arrive for treatment either a) The ignorant perpetrator - unaware that they are ‘vomiting’ anger on those around them or b) The quiet victim - experiencing abuse, but identifying it as normal and acceptable, making excuses from their abuser.

The quiet victim is more likely to show up for support, but needs to work through layers of fear, shame and grief first, before anger is available to process.

Note: In my experience, the ignorant perpetrator, usually shows up with no intention to process their anger, but looking for some kind of self-improvement quick fix. When this client shows up in my treatment room, I work in a very different way that falls outside the scope of TIRS. Interestingly, I have only ever met males in this category.

II. Maps for Anger

When a child has witnessed ‘aggressive anger’, they will automatically a) mark all anger as harmful or b) mark aggression as healthy and normal. This causes us to disallow the emotion in its healthiest form. In fact, anger can be a very helpful emotion for letting us know that a boundary has been breached, and inviting us to re-create a new or stronger boundary. Because so many of us have disallowed any experience of anger, it has led to a humanity that struggle with boundary setting, which is essential for harmonic and peaceful relationship.

A big part of recovering from abuse and oppression, is learning to safely process and integrate suppressed anger and develop a safe relationship with healthy anger. This leads into boundary work and ‘relational restructuring’. When we can help our clients identify and express their boundaries, they are being empowered to reclaim their sovereignty. Often, working with anger and boundary setting invokes incredible relational healing in client’s lives.

III. Neurophysiology

Suppressed anger always exists as a co-activation in the nervous system. Either there will be two concurrent threat responses- fight/flight AND freeze/shut down- or there will be one threat response as the baseline and a flicking into the alternate response when anger is triggered.

IV. Somatic Presentation

The most common somatic signs of anger include: tightness in the forehead, jaw and neck as well as gut issues. There may also be narrowing of the eyes and pursed lips, as well as lots of heat present in the body.

The manual goes on to share how to work with anger through both talk and touch methods.

The intention of sharing here isn’t to train you as a therapist.

All of us need to start thinking about how anger shows up inside us and in those around us. This inquiry may be the beginning of the relational restructuring that the world desperately needs to see.

Anger begets anger. Anger leads to war. War and suffering will continue until we start to address our individual and collective anger.