What About Assertiveness Training
Its true that angry people need to learn to become assertive , but most books and courses on developing assertiveness are aimed at people who dont feel enough anger. These people are more passive and acquiescent than the average person they tend to let others walk all over them. That isnt something that most angry people do. Still, these books can contain some useful tactics to use in frustrating situations.
Remember, you cant eliminate angerand it wouldnt be a good idea if you could. In spite of all your efforts, things will happen that will cause you anger and sometimes it will be justifiable anger. Life will be filled with frustration, pain, loss, and the unpredictable actions of others. You cant change that but you can change the way you let such events affect you. Controlling your angry responses can keep them from making you even more unhappy in the long run.
How Do Feelings Of Anger Lead To Depression Or Contribute To Depressive Symptoms
Individuals can cope with uncomfortable emotions such as anger in one of two ways. They can either use adaptive coping mechanisms or maladaptive ones. Adaptive coping methods would be recognizing the negative emotion and using it to take assertive action. Using adaptive methods to deal with anger leads to feelings of lightness, freedom, and authenticity. Healthy ways of dealing with anger can act as a protective mechanism against depression.
Maladaptive coping mechanisms contribute to feelings of victimization, and isolation. Instead of using anger to take action, people with maladaptive traits will turn anger into dysfunction. In those prone to depression, inward-facing anger becomes a critical inner voice, leading to feelings of guilt and worthlessness, which are common symptoms of a major depressive episode. If anger is left unaddressed, depressed patients can stay in a state of frustration and experience more severe depressive symptoms. They may turn the anger even further inward and engage in self-harm or suicide attempts. Or, they can act out their anger in destructive, criminal ways.
How The Feeling Of Shame Triggers Anger
Feeling shameful, Credit: Pixabay
Shame is also linked prominently to depression and the anger that one repeatedly feels in it. Many psychologists have said that shame occurs in the absence of positive emotions. People often hide it and keep it within themselves, consequently feeling inadequate.
When the shame accumulates over time, it leads to anger with oneself and a chronic depressive episode. Shame causes more distress and regrets that prompt negative emotions to gather and take hold within the patient.
Thus, we see that anger plays a significant role in exacerbating the condition of people with depression. It is the one factor that contributes to the severity of it. There is a need for people to acknowledge and talk about what makes them angry and irritated with themselves and find out how they can manage the situation in a better manner.
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Why Are Some People More Angry Than Others
According to Jerry Deffenbacher, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in anger management, some people really are more hotheaded than others are they get angry more easily and more intensely than the average person does. There are also those who dont show their anger in loud spectacular ways but are chronically irritable and grumpy. Easily angered people dont always curse and throw things sometimes they withdraw socially, sulk, or get physically ill.
People who are easily angered generally have what some psychologists call a low tolerance for frustration, meaning simply that they feel that they should not have to be subjected to frustration, inconvenience, or annoyance. They cant take things in stride, and theyre particularly infuriated if the situation seems somehow unjust: for example, being corrected for a minor mistake.
What makes these people this way? A number of things. One cause may be genetic or physiological: There is evidence that , and that these signs are present from a very early age. Another may be sociocultural. Anger is often regarded as negative were taught that its all right to express , , or other emotions but not to express anger. As a result, we dont learn how to handle it or channel it constructively.
Research has also found that family background plays a role. Typically, people who are easily angered come from families that are disruptive, chaotic, and not skilled at emotional communications.
So How Do You Sit With Anger When It Arises Give Yourself Permission To Notice The Qualities Of Your Anger When It Emerges
When we let ourselves actually feel our anger without judgement, deeper feelings naturally emerge. These might be feelings of grief or fear. Try to nurture whichever emotion you are able to contact beneath the anger. Maybe you can nurture it by placing your hand to your heart or caressing the part of your body that holds most anger. And if you feel unable to offer this care to yourself, you might imagine a close friend lending their hand or a nurturing figure from a movie or book present with you.
For those of us who learn to sit with anger in an open-minded way, there is an opportunity to get in touch with more vitality and to connect with our core needs. If youve been struggling with depression or are aware that you have anger inside that needs a safe place to surface, consider reaching out to Downtown Somatic Therapy to begin exploring the full range of feelings you hold inside.
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Treatment For Angry Depression
Developed by Psychologist Les Greenberg, this type of therapy aims at helping you create a sense of compassion for yourself.
This is done by converting the anger turned inwards into kindness turned inwards. To do this, therapists often ask patients to talk to themselves as if they were talking to a friend. What would you say to a friend who was undergoing the same situation?
Using this simple technique, psychologists can help patients manage their anger and prevent it from turning inward.
In other words, EFT helps you adopt a more positive attitude towards the world around you.
This makes it easier for depression sufferers to let go of negative feelings about themselves that result in being hostile or irritable with
With EFT, a therapist can help patients improve self-esteem and relieve anger-related depression.
Use Your Anger Productively
Anger can also be a wonderful driving force. On the other side of anger are drive, love and protection. It represents an essential life force that helps you find your passion, achieve what you desire in life, protect your rights and stands up for yourself.
Instead of letting it bottle up inside of you, you can harness the power of anger productively. Perhaps you can use anger to motivate yourself into doing something that would better your life. You can channel your anger into a speech, a piece of artwork, a song. You can let it inform you what your lifes calling is.
Embedded in anger is an important message. if someone has repeatedly hurt you, use anger as information, it is telling you that what they offer is not what you want. If someone has betrayed you, you may vow to always treat yourself better than the way they treat you.
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Ambrose Bierce
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How To Treat Depression And Anger
In order to treat depression, individuals should first be screened by a medical or mental health professional who can provide an assessment of the history and severity of symptoms. If the screening results in a diagnosis, there are a number of ways to treat depression including medication psychotherapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy , interpersonal therapy , and problem-solving therapy or a combination. Favas study indicated that anger attacks disappeared in 53% to 71% of depressed patients who used medication.
Therapy will focus on the psychological, behavioral, interpersonal and situational causes. The Anxiety and Depression Center explains how therapy can help patients recover from depression:
Identifying negative thinking patterns that contribute to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness and developing a more positive outlook.
Exploring learned thoughts and behaviors that create problems and contribute to depression.
Identifying problems that may contribute to depression and which aspects of those problems they may be able to solve or improve.
Regaining a sense of control and pleasure in life.
Of course, there are coping mechanisms that individuals can practice to regulate mood. In a study published in Behaviour Research Therapy, researchers found that engaging in self-compassion improved the effectiveness of cognitive reappraisal, or restructuring, as an emotional regulation tool to address depression.
Are You Too Angry
There are psychological tests that measure the intensity of angry feelings, how prone to anger you are, and how well you handle it. But chances are good that if you do have a problem with anger, you already know it. If you find yourself acting in ways that seem out of control and frightening, you might need help finding better ways to deal with this emotion.
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How Depression Makes Us Angry
As Sigmund Freud used to say, “Depression is anger turned inwards.” Most of us are familiar with the common symptoms of depression, such as feelings of sadness, fatigue, lack of interest in normally enjoyable activities, and general feelings of loneliness. But what about feelings not commonly associated with depression? Several studies have found that depression, anger, anxiety, and curiosity are all linked together, with more studies on the topics emerging.
Many of us dont think about anger being just as much a valid reaction to depression as sadness or lack of interest. This reaction dates back to caveman times the “fight or flight” instinct is to blame, in part. The reflex malfunctions as a result of the chemical imbalance in our brains and causes us at times to have outbursts of anger, sometimes at even the simplest things.
Additionally, especially for those who have been dealing with depression for months or years, it can become quite challenging to cope over time. This can certainly lead to general feelings of dissatisfaction or anger. If you are feeling this way, speaking with an online therapist can help.
Final Thoughts On Repressed Anger
Repressed anger is anger that people push down, ignore, or avoid, and is often unconscious. Working to become more aware and attuned to emotions has many benefits, and is associated with being happier, healthier, and having a better overall quality of life. With the help of a therapist, people can learn healthier methods of expressing their anger which feel a lot better than repressing it.
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Signs Of Repressed Anger
Repressed anger can manifest in many ways, causing subtle changes to the way people feel, think, and behave. Some people dont notice these changes until their anger reaches extreme levels or until they lash out at someone. Many people who repress anger describe missing early anger cues like noticing their heart rate increase, their blood pressure go up, or noticing they are tense, restless, or on-edge.
People who repress anger often become defensive when they are accused of being angry, and dont want to admit when they are frustrated, even when it is very clear to other people. This defensiveness makes it harder for them to accept and recognize their anger, making them more likely to minimize, ignore or deny it.
Other signs of repressed anger include:1,2
Control Anger Before It Controls You
Anger can make you feel as though youre at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion. Learn how to control it.
Control anger before it controls you.
We all , and weve all felt it: whether as a fleeting annoyance or as full-fledged rage. Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problemsproblems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life.
Anger can make you feel as though youre at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion.
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Why Would I Turn Anger Toward Myself
First of all, people don’t typically turn anger towards themselves on purpose, although it is always a strategy that our minds and bodies use to survive. It could be that anger feels threatening, or is perceived to be threatening to the deepest parts of our brain. When anger is scary, our minds and bodies have to figure out a way to protect ourselves, or protect the people we love from ourselves and our anger, and so some of us, we may deny it, push it down, stuff it, etc.. But those unexpressed feelings build up within us, unable to release, and can leave us in a state of Depression.
It might also be that deep down, we are angry with ourselves. A student of mine recently confided that after losing sister as an 8 year old child, they believed it was their fault, because they loved their older sister more than their mother, who had separated from the family, and thought she was being punished for the betrayal. . Of course such a belief isn’t realistic, but it makes sense and feels real for an 8 year old. And those kinds of beliefs can live inside of ourselves, causing us to feel angry with ourselves, blaming ourselves, and not knowing what to do with the anger, it can turn into a depression.
The Depression And Anger Connection: How Does It Affect You
Although feelings of depression and anger appear to be opposite emotions, these two emotional states often go hand in hand. Anger can cause depression and depression can cause anger. There is a saying that depression is anger turned inward.
Evidence suggests that, especially among women, a relationship between depression and anger exists. Unresolved anger very well may precede feeling depressed.
Note: This article discusses feeling depressed, not clinical depression which is a medical condition. If you are suffering with severe depression or intense anger, please consult a medical professional.
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Holding In Anger Puts Our Muscles In An Actual Physical Bind Some Muscles In Our Body Will Literally Move Forward And Outward With The Impulse To Say No While Other Muscles Move Inward To Hold It In And Not To Rock The Boat
Anger is a feeling that, by itself, is not destructive there is a vitality and a life force in anger. Yet anger can be tricky to face and easy to want to avoid. Tina Tacorian, another one of our therapists at Downtown Somatic Therapy, says that her patients feelings of guilt often get louder when they first start feeling their anger.
Tina says, I validate the love my patients guilt is trying to protect–while still encouraging them to tend to the anger and put their guilt on the sideline for a while. There is room to feel both love and anger in fact, feeling both of these emotions deeply can reach and heal some of our deeper wounds.
So, how do you sit with anger when it arises? Give yourself permission to notice the qualities of your anger when it emerges. Acknowledge the vitality in the feeling. Anger is informative: it lets us know we feel disconnected and its goal is to take care of us.
Try to take a stance of curiosity. What do you feel in your body when there is anger? Explore your posture. Do you want to make a fist? Is there a lingering, softer feeling underneath the anger?
Is Depression Anger Turned Inward
I had never heard of the notion of depression being anger turned inward until I heard about it indirectly while I was in hospital after a suicide attempt. My primary nurse kept asking me what I was angry about. She was insistent that I must have been angry about something to have tried to kill myself. When I assured her that no, I wasnt angry, and anger had nothing to do with anything, she seemed annoyed with me.
She wasnt the only nurse with weird ideas another thought I was depressed because I was single. I dismissed the anger as a random quirky belief, but I later discovered that this anger turned inward business is an established thing that goes back to Sigmund Freud. It was also a popular perspective in the field of psychiatry in decades past.
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Mindfulness Meditation Or Yoga
Another exercise that may help you deal with anger and depression is mindfulness meditation or yoga.
Both exercises can lead to feelings of calmness, which in turn reduces stress levels. Depression patients who practice either of these activities regularly tend to feel less irritable than those who dont do them at all.
However, keep in mind that its challenging to practice either of these activities when youre already feeling depressed and stressed out.
Depression brings a host of other problems such as lack of sleep, restlessness, and poor concentration levels. This makes it even harder for depression patients to focus on practicing meditation or yoga.
A Change In Perception
John was becoming more aware. He was literally starting to see things differently. For example, on his walk to the mall at lunch each day he began to notice shops he had never seen before.
Have they been there all along? he wondered.
Indeed, the most obvious things had been invisible to John. While driving he was acutely aware of the fall leaves. Colors seemed sharper and brighter. This so perplexed him that he mentioned it to his psychiatrist who asked what John might be doing different.
John admitted that he had been seeing a Hypnotherapist for weight loss. The psychiatrist said, Keep going. The depression is lifting.
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