Man’s Search for a Leaner, Keener, Meaner Demeanor

Did you hear the one about the psychologist who had a hissy-fit when a neighbor kid trampled on his newly laid sidewalk? "I do love kids in the abstract," he fumed, "but not in the concrete!!"

OK, I'll admit it's a lame joke. But it's no joke that anger outbursts are seemingly more common and more frightening every day. On an almost daily basis, we hear tales of bullies raging on the road, on the internet, and in homes, schools and offices. It has been estimated that nearly two-thirds of U.S. adolescents have experienced an anger attack that involved threats of violence or destruction of property at some point in their lives.

We know from laboratory research that too much anger can cloud one's thinking, impair judgment and even prove to be physiologically harmful. It can lead to high blood pressure, headaches, strokes, and a host of other physical problems. It can also cause serious problems in relations with co-workers and with family members.

Over the years and particularly nowadays, I am an anger manager to many of my clients who have been referred by the CBS network (Courts, Bosses, Spouses). My goal, as such, is to help these clients become more aware of their anger and figure out how to modulate it appropriately. They can, with practice, be strong and assertive without being aggressive, allowing anger to surface in constructive ways. According to Dr. Steven Birchak, professionals like me who have a calming effect on others should be called “Jerk Whisperers.”

When it comes to my own personal style, I am afraid I have to admit that I have been more of a jerk than a whisperer. Just as too much anger is a bad thing, so, too, avoiding anger is just as self-damaging as constant fuming. Studies have found that suppressing anger can cause anxiety and depression. Luckily, I have been spared these symptoms; but my life-long battle with controlling weight is, I suspect, tied to over frequent swallowing my words, biting my tongue and eating too much humble pie.

When and how did this start for me? The male authority figures in my family, my father and my uncles, were all gentle men. My father, in particular, was a soft-spoken tool and die maker who suffered his first heart attack before I was in my teens. I remember that my brother and I were told to tone things down lest we upset or bother our Dad too much. I remember only one time, when I was acting obnoxious and deserving a smack, that he hit me; and I know that slap hurt him more than it hurt me.

In short, I grew up with a lot of what I call stinking thinking about anger, such as, anger is dangerous; if I get angry, I’ll hurt or damage others or I’ll be punished. I realize now that there were many situations in life where, instead of standing up for myself or taking a stand against someone, I had the habit of giving in, going along with, and putting others first. As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, I didn't fight back when three kids jumped me on the way to school; instead I ran home to my mother who, thereafter, played the role of my bodyguard until the kids stopped bothering me.

As a professional, my tendency to remain unresponsive and detached in the face of hostility has served me in good stead. In other professions, people might not turn a blind eye to patients' discriminatory remarks or abusive statements; to mental health providers, tolerating such hateful acts is just part of the job. We know that beneath the bluster and fury is a deeply hurt but not truly bad person. Denigrating others corresponds with how, unconsciously, the wounded person imagines others treated him; therefore, using his anger to taunt or demean others creates a momentary illusion of power and importance.

So even if we are the subject of the patient’s inhumanity, cruelty or intolerance, health care professionals are bound by honor and ethical codes to treat everyone equally, no matter how fervently we may disagree with them.

On the other hand, an under-active anger response does not dovetail when it comes to dealing with bully bosses who berate others, rule by intimidation, insist on getting their way and fly off the handle easily. Unfortunately, it’s currently not against the law for a boss to be a jerk because general harassment by supervisors is not considered illegal in most states. Sadly, too, there are plenty of "bosses from hell" even in educational administrative posts. As a school psychologist, I remember one particularly grueling ordeal I had to face annually for many years with one principal. I and other members of my child study team (social worker and learning specialists) would come well prepared in late spring to share relevant information and insights with the principal, his counselors and child study team about students who would be graduating from our level and entering their school in the fall. It should have been a simple, straightforward, collegial conference. Instead, I felt I was facing a rabid prosecuting attorney in a do-or-die trial; the principal invariably hounded me most of all with nonsensical, immaterial, and hypothetical questions. None of my explanations or answers satisfied him, and I usually left those gatherings feeling crestfallen and shaken but not knowing how differently to respond. The young man from the Badger State had simply never learned how to cope with this type of badgering!

Sadly, it took more life lessons for me to learn that (1) appropriate anger is a vital skill for anyone and (2) a strong person does not tolerate exposure to meanness.

It took thoughtful writers to teach me that anger is actually a "gift," a "helpful symptom," and "an inner teacher." They have rightly pointed out that anger is natural and neutral: its use can be good or bad. Actions can be dangerous, not anger.

For one thing, anger can stimulate the production of adrenaline, which increases our strength in order to accomplish demanding physical tasks. Acknowledging anger can help lower pressure on the heart and can help manage pain, at least in laboratory studies. And expressing anger as it arises (instead of bottling it up and letting it all come out in one explosive fight) has also been found to benefit interpersonal relationships. When you embrace your anger, you can contain it and aim it in a direction that will serve you well.

Perhaps more than anything else, I learned that what we consider trivial will not arouse our anger. Anger benefits us by alerting us that something is wrong on an individual, interpersonal, or societal scale. It can motivate us to speak up and take action to right the wrong. Put simply, anger may be one of the reasons why we no longer tolerate sexual harassment, why someone chooses to end a deadening career, or why a person leaves an unhealthy relationship.

Does that mean that we should all go around punching walls every time we get annoyed or witness injustice? In laboratory experiments, whacking a punching bag or attacking a pillow actually seems to increase anger, not tame it. Reacting with controlled anger rather than runaway anxiety releases less of the body's stress hormone cortisol.

The objective, it would seem, is to be like Goldilocks and strive for the not-too-hot and not-too-cold appeasement porridge. Maimonides, that renowned codifier and philosopher of the 12th and early 13th centuries, said it best: "Don't be a bad-tempered person who becomes angry easily," he wrote. "Neither should you be like a corpse that doesn't feel anything. Rather, be in the middle. Don't become angry except over a serious matter . . . . “

So what have I learned about how to express anger and what do I try to teach others? The key, it seems to me, is to work on ourselves to develop inner strength and serene empowerment, avoiding both helplessness and aggression. We can develop self-mastery to consider ourselves a valuable person regardless of how anyone speaks or acts towards us. We can view the other person's insensitivity, aggressiveness, or one-upmanship as the other one's problem. While we cannot change how others act, we can learn to ignore, sidestep or confront the bullying and negative remarks of anyone who spitefully wants to cause distress.

We can speak up in a dignified manner with calm confidence and control. Our dignity is valuable, so anyone who attacks it is acting wrongly and should be told to stop.

Harking back to that angry principal, I should have let him know that I want to abide by the rules of proper speech and expect him to do as well. I should have countered with such statements as "That wasn't helpful," or "I would appreciate it if you would please not do that again," or "That wasn't right to do, " or "Please speak to me courteously," or "I treat you with respect, please treat me with respect also," or "I think that this request is unreasonable," or (my personal favorite) "I'll come back when you are calmed down and civil."

Might standing up to a boss invite fallout or sanctions? Possibly, but in the short run, getting angry when we face an unfair situation can actually improve our well-being and buffer stress. Might it also, in the long run, stem the tide of raging anger in this country? Perhaps, if we take a cue from Edmund Burke, the 18th century English statesman who wrote that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” When another person wrongs us, it is improper to just remain silent and feel animosity. We are instead supposed to speak up and talk to the person, but we need to do so with dignity and respect. We may need to become "broken records," being willing to repeat the same message over and over again as many times as necessary. Properly done, the right dose of anger can go a long way.

There are also other strategies we can use to reduce anger where it is most often insidiously displayed, with our loved ones. I would like to close with some apropos lessons in domestic diplomacy from my favorite new book of the year, The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler. The author, although not a psychologist, has carefully culled the literature to offer simple but bold suggestions for reducing anger in families. Here are a few of his gems:

BEWARE TRANSITIONS: The lesson: wait until everyone is fed, has changed clothes and had some private time before raising sensitive topics.
POSTURE MATTERS, SO LEVEL DOWN: The lesson: everybody in a meaningful conversation should sit at the same level, with the same posture. Sitting alongside the other person has also been shown to increase collaboration.
CUSHION YOUR BLOWS: The lesson: If you want to talk to a family member about a tough subject, sit on cushioned chairs, side by side, because no one will be as doctrinaire and you’ll be more open to the opinions of others.
GO TO THE BALCONY: The lesson: take the macro view, begin to calm down and come up with alternatives; move the spotlight from the rigid positions both sides are starting with to new options you come up with together.
THE THREE-MINUTE RULE: The lesson: Say your piece, then call for a 5-minute break or take a walk.
THE ONE WORD YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY: The lesson: To stop fighting, stop saying “you.”

Anger is clearly a natural feeling. It is, like all emotions, neither good nor bad. It is impossible to never get angry at all; but we can and should strive to be someone who is difficult to anger and easy to appease. Or as one modern writer put it, anger shows us what we must act on, not act out. If we can notice when we get angry and why, then we can learn what to do to improve our lives. In short, anger can motivate positive change and growth, blessings we should all seek in the coming new year.

Shana Tova.