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While some clients have anger management issues, what I see in therapy with many working professionals is the exact opposite. For them, it’s a scary and threating experience they’d prefer to avoid. Anger is a forbidden emotion and probably has been so since childhood.
In these cases, clients tend to withdraw or even capitulate when presented with an emotional challenge in life. The submissiveness of anger-averse clients can be surprising, given their level of professional functionality and success. But I have learned that while people may be superstars regarding technical proficiency, those are completely separate functions in the brain than processing emotion.
In fact, many high functioning anger-averse clients can become mentally paralyzed with the smallest introduction of an emotional component. Their good judgement can be completely corrupted to the point of emotional regression which would be more commonly seen in childhood or adolescence. For example, it’s possible for an engineer to lead their field in cutting edge innovation while being completely unable to stand up for themselves in relationships with others. For these clients, if someone in the family or workplace is mistreating them, their reaction is to avoid conflict- even if that means adopting a role of permanent subservience.
In order to keep the peace, conflict- and anger-averse clients tend to adopt a deferential stance towards the toxic people in their lives. They can all too easily fall into a mentality of victimization in which they make excuses for those who mistreat them. Then, targeted with the dysfunctional behaviors of others, these clients react—if they react at all—with sadness and tears.
Of course, connecting with one’s sadness and being able to cry are often extremely positive steps in therapy. Allowing ourselves to feel and express our emotions is actually a sign of great personal strength and growth. But there are also times when sadness is not the healthiest response for the context. Our initial reaction upon being harmed is one of these instances in which sadness can be a maladaptive trait.
Generally in nature, when an animal is threatened, it will be prompted to undertake some form of bold action. If possible, it may flee vigorously from the aggressor. But often, especially if cornered, it will fight back. This is the piece of organic human experience that is missing from the emotional repertoire of anger-adverse clients.
It’s true that there are a limited number of animals who employ other options such as freezing or fainting. While I am no expert on zoology, my guess is that these are tactics to avoid engaging in a fight. I’m doubtful that once attacked, they would maintain such a ruse to the bitter end.
Regardless, fight, flight, fainting and freezing are all potentially helpful responses to danger. But what animals don’t tend to do when confronted is to simply sit down and cry. Such a surrender speaks to a maladaptive form of learned helplessness and could not possibly benefit an organism in nature unless it happened to be attacked by some sort of empathetic predator capable of displaying mercy.
Perhaps an argument could be made that in some narrow circumstances, surrender of individual prey might distract the predator for long enough to allow its kin group to escape and survive to propagate its genes. But that’s not the situation in the modern context and no one should have to be sacrificed as willing victims to abusive people. In short, giving up in the face of aggression is not natural or healthy.
I have written before of the metaphor of strength through anger demonstrated by the comic book character the Incredible Hulk. The Hulk is a meek and mortal human but he becomes unbelievably powerful when he’s mad. And the important part here is that he uses this power for good. He is not a villain. He is a hero.
There’s also an episode of Seinfeld in which even-keeled Jerry is challenged by his girlfriend to tap into his anger. When he does so, he’s able to advocate for himself when wronged, even getting a free first class upgrade on a flight when his coach seat reservations were cancelled.
I also want to be clear here that anger and aggression are not the same. Aggression against another includes acts of violence, emotional degradation, financial abuse, etc. Aggression may often flow from anger, but anger can exist without aggression and vice versa.
But anger can be manifested in healthy, even cathartic ways. While it’s not acceptable to yell at people, it may be entirely beneficial to let out an occasional scream of frustration when it’s safe and appropriate to do so. I am aware of research showing that screaming swear words specifically can help reduce physical pain. (In fact, there is a Mythbusters episode where they put this to the test). While there is also evidence that hitting a punching bag may only increase anger rather than releasing it, as long as that anger also does not manifest as harm to oneself or another, I don’t see a problem with that. Some people can benefit from the extra anger.
In therapy, I witness how confusion between anger and aggression wreaks havoc in people’s lives. For example, some couples have either an overt or tacit understanding that anger is not allowed in their relationship, which of course, is impossible. (These are the couples who tend to boast that “We never fight,” not realizing the alarming red flags raised by such a statement.) Resentment and dysfunction will leak out somehow, because anger is an inevitable and essential aspect of the human experience.
Quite a few therapists I know and deeply respect are of the opinion that anger only masks a deeper underlying emotion such as sadness, and this sadness must be processed. In fact, one of my best professors told me something I’ll always remember: “Behind anger is an ‘ouch’”.
While I agree that underlying emotions commonly do need to be accessed and processed, I feel there is great danger in skipping over the anger. And beyond the practical detrimental effects of denying our anger, we also risk an existential loss of our full humanity. For a complete experience of ourselves and others, we must remember that anger does not equal aggression and it can also be a tremendous wellspring of strength.
