Anger Management or Trauma/PTSD Treatment?
Anger is neither good nor bad. Like most emotions, it’s perfectly healthy and normal and helps motivate us to take an action of some sort. Healthy aggression helps you to set good boundaries and spurs you to get what you want. Anger becomes a problem when it harms you or others. This is often the case when anger is the result of traumas or PTSD.
If your temper leans towards the hot side, you probably feel there’s little you can do to cool it down. But with focused intention and practice, you can learn to calm the triggers that set you off and gain control over how you express your emotions. When you do, you will start to develop better relationships, get what you want more easily, and lead a more satisfying life.
Sometimes, however, anger is the result of traumas in the past and the body’s reactions to them that continue to manifest in the present. If that is the case, then learning techniques to manage anger will yield poor results. Then in addition to anger, you’ll probably start feeling frustration and guilt over your inability to master your anger, which will make you more angry.
If you anger seems uncontrollable, it could be due these past traumas that influence your emotions and behaviors today. In that case, seeking treatment for the traumas is the only way to truly rid yourself of uncontrollable anger. Seek help now. Don’t wait.
How can you tell if you need something more serious than anger management?
- No matter what you try, you constantly feel angry and frustrated.
- If your anger causes problems at work.
- If your temper damages your relationships at home and at work.
- You avoid people and going places where you feel like you can’t control your anger.
- If you have ever had run-ins with the law due to your anger.
- If you have ever been involved in physical violence due to your anger.
Somatic-based therapies provide the best treatments for anger. They work with the way the neurology in the body has responded to past traumas and help the nervous system to reorganize itself so it responds to aggravating situations in a more appropriate manner. Personally, I recommend Somatic Experiencing, perhaps the best and most thorough of the body-based techniques.
It you’re interested in a free eBook on anger techniques, click here. However, if you’d like more information of trauma treatment, especially if you know you have a history of traumas or PTSD, then click here.
You don’t have to live with anger anymore.
I’m so glad to hear you say that anger is not good or bad, because then I don’t have to add guilt (for getting angry) to my list of negative emotions. 🙂
Could I ask a clarifying question about trauma please?
What is a good definition of “trauma”? Does it have to be one major event, or can it me an accumulation of a lifetime of small things that build up? How do you know if your anger, fear, resentment, etc stem from trauma?
Thank you!
Trauma is any situation or event, either experienced or witnessed, that is perceived as life-threatening and overwhelms the nervous system. Shock traumas tend to be one-time events, such as a car accident, mugging, a fall or accident, etc. Other traumas are ongoing and experienced over a long period of time, such as physical or emotional abuse in childhood, living with an alcoholic parent, repeated medical or dental procedure, etc. We all experience feelings such as anger, fear, and resentment. They are probably due to trauma if they are experienced frequently, are debilitating, are suddenly evoked without real cause or beyond what the moment calls for, or damage relationships and one’s sense of aliveness. Traumas don’t always express themselves as feelings. Sometimes weight gain, pain that pops up first in one place in the body and then another, sleeplessness, anxiety, sore muscles, weak muscles, and much more can be the effects of past traumas. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Chronic Bowel Syndrome, and other syndromes can find their sources in trauma. That is the nefarious nature of trauma–the symptoms appear years, sometimes decades, after the event. So the link to a specific trauma is never made.