Blog #3: Anger Part 2 - The Mechanism of Anger

In the last post, we covered the whys of anger – the reasons anger exists, its protective function and the purposes it serves. As we dive deeper into the different aspects of anger, I want you, our reader, to become curious about how this content applies to your personal experience, and notice what stories, emotions, and feelings this brings up for you.

The Difference between Anger and Aggression:

A few years ago, I was working with a client who never seemed to be able to get angry. She is the kind of person who is compassionate and never shows any aggression. One day, she started to talk about her child’s father, who was a daily heavy drinker, who left her when their child was four months old. As she was telling me that story, I noticed I couldn't help but feel angry about her circumstances, and most importantly, I felt angry at the “baby daddy”. As I became distracted by narratives in my own head such as “What kind of father would abandon his own baby?”, and “What kind of legal actions can she take?”, I noticed my client continued to stoically let out streams of words detailing names, places, events, describing the situation as if it was a comprehensive written report about a complicated legal case.

When I finally came to my senses, I interrupted my client and said, “ I am sorry to hear that. Those details really build a big case against him. However, may I ask what it was like telling your story?” She looked up, pondered for a quick moment, and proceeded to tell me about how he had only bought diapers a handful of times in the first four months. Hearing that, I then quickly interrupted her again, put my hand on my chest, and asked, “No, I hear you. What I want to ask you is how are you feeling revisiting the memories of what he was like before he left.” My client then nodded her head and took a pause. She closed her eyes and tipped her head downward in silent contemplation. She uttered, “I feel sad… and… angry”. 

That was the first time I heard the word “angry” being used by her. In my way of conducting therapy, I usually try to allow my clients to narrate about how their emotions are experienced through their bodily feelings whenever I think it is appropriate. When this client expressed feeling sad and angry, I asked her to tell me what “anger” feels like in the body. She mentioned “heat”, “a rising energy”, “simmering and bubbling”, “fists that are clenched”, and “a focused mind”. In that session, my client was able to label her feelings of anger and identify them openly for the first time in therapy. I shared some information about the functions and purpose of anger, and she remarked feeling more “at ease” by the end of the hour. 

When I followed up in the next session by asking her about how often she feels “angry”, she admitted she does feel that from time to time, but she pushes those feelings away. If these emotions were strong enough that she could not easily ignore them, she would feel guilty, and try to occupy herself with another activity. In other words, she felt the emotions of anger, but she did not easily display aggression.

Anger and aggression are two different things. Anger is a feeling and emotion, and Aggression is a behavior. It is no coincidence that we tend to use these terms interchangeably. My client is an example—Although she feels anger from within, outward aggression is controlled and absent. In an opposite example, some of us may feel a lot of anger, and organically, we raise our voices, flail our arms, and act with destructive intensity. However; even if this is the case, anger and aggression are still two very different things.

The Freedom to Choose

Anger is inevitable, but aggression can be a choice. Imagine seeing someone deep in sleep. Unbeknownst to us, they are dreaming about feeling anger at their insufferable boss. As the awake observer, we might not be able to tell, because there will be very few cues in terms of facial expression and body movement. In other words, the sleeper might feel angry, but they are not aggressive. Now, we don’t have to put ourselves to sleep in order to curb our habits of acting out in aggression. However, our first step is always going to be understanding what anger feels to us. Once we have a higher degree of awareness, we can develop an ability to label anger as what it is before we go into autopilot—to either push our anger away or let it become aggressive action.

To relate to your anger in a healthy way, you need to first start by understanding yourself. In post #2, I introduced the anger iceberg to discover what is underneath your angry feelings. This time, I want you to explore the very nuanced experience of your anger. Think about an excellent car mechanic who understands the intricacies of the machine. They can diagnose an issue based on perceiving a slight vibration, a small variant in noise, or a minute difference in how a mechanical part moves. I want you to be like a knowledgeable mechanic for your own psyche. 

For some, anger might be associated with descriptions like “rising”, “hot”, or “searing”. For others, anger can feel “icy”, “cold”, or “frigid”, yet others might describe anger with words like “clustered”, “haste”, or “rapid-fire”. There are no wrong ways to describe your experience of anger. What is important, is when we become familiar with our own feelings, we can perceive subtle changes in our bodily experience that would suggest an onset of emotions such as anger, sadness, joy, etc. We then have the freedom to choose how we want to address our feelings.

Exercise: Describing your Anger by Journaling

This exercise aims to further explore the experience of anger. It is highly recommended that you first complete the exercise in Blog #2 - Why Do I Feel Angry. 

1. Get a notebook or a digital device you can journal on and make it accessible on a daily basis.

2. Set regular times for this exercise. If you already have a habit of journaling, see if you can do this every time you go through your regular routine.

3. Here are some repeatable questions and prompts for this exercise:

• How many times did I feel angry this day/week/month?

• When I was angry, did I recognize I was angry? If so, how do I know? If not, how did I label the experience instead?

• What consequence did my anger/lack of anger lead to?

• What was the intensity of my feeling of anger from 0 -10? 

  • 0 being not angry at all with no body sensations that remind me of anger.

  • 10 being so angry, that I couldn’t think straight, and there isn’t any room to be more angry.

• What does anger feel like within? Is it hot, hard, cold, sharp, etc? What other words can I use to describe the feeling?

• Does my body react to this feeling? Do I literally feel hot? Was my heart rate elevated? How did I breathe when I was angry?

• Are there other emotions present when I feel angry? If so, what are they?   

  • Are they sadness, anxiety, guilt, powerlessness, elation, power, numbness, etc?

• If applicable, how would I want to feel instead?

Tips:

• Distinguish between anger and aggression. If you are writing about aggression, see if you can switch your perspective, and write about the internal, unspoken emotional experience of being angry instead.

• Keep venting to a minimum. Even if it is a complicated situation, keep it to five lines or less.

• Sometimes it might be appropriate to end with expressing gratitude, but ONLY when it feels right to do so.

• Be kind and compassionate to yourself—practice writing reminders that anger is a valid emotion, especially if you have a hard time believing so.

For more content, check out our podcast, and become even more psychologically savvy.

Disclaimer: Psychotherapy is a psychological service involving a client interacting with a mental health professional with the aim of assessing or improving the mental health of the client. Neither the contents of this blog, nor our podcast, is psychotherapy, or a substitute for psychotherapy. The contents of this blog may be triggering to some, so reader’s discretion is advised. If you think that any of my suggestions, ideas, or exercises mentioned in this blog are creating further distress, please discontinue reading, and seek a professional’s help.

Therapy Uncomplicated is a podcast that is meant to help people who feel alone and unsupported with their day to day struggles. We want to educate people on mental health and show it isn’t something to be afraid of. We provide the “whys” and the “hows” for a path to wellness. We are here to promote positive change by offering education and new perspectives that destroy stigmas in mental health, and encourage people to go to therapy.