Anger is an emotion and like all emotions it serves a purpose but anger and an inability to manage it can often cause issues, in this post I will explain why online hypnosis is a very effective way to deal with anger management issues.
What’s The Purpose Of Anger?
Anger and anxiety are both part of the fight or flight response, as I explained in this post when the fight or flight response is triggered our body releases all kinds of hormones to give us energy so we can either fight or run away. As with anxiety we need anger and we should never try and remove it completely from our lives. The purpose of anger is to allow us to defend ourselves, our property, boundaries and dependants.
How Managing Anger Correctly Can Benefit Us
If we learn to harness and manage any emotion correctly it can have a major benefit on our lives, this is especially true of anger. Anger may improve our negotiating position as it shows other parties that we won’t be pushed around. Anger stops us from experiencing loss and it can motivate us to take positive action such as moving out of an abusive situation. Anger can alert us when we are being treated badly or taken advantage of. Anger can also allow us to discharge built up negative energy such as stress or tension.
When Anger Can Become A Problem?
Anger will become a problem when people use it as a way to make them feel powerful, to get attention, to stop them experiencing more painful emotions or remembering traumatic memories. If you let other people past or present make you angry you are actually giving them control over you.
Many people will be triggered into angry responses when they perceive they are being rejected and because no one likes to be around someone with anger issues this can actually lead to them being rejected. Feeling rejected and isolated will lead to more feelings of anger.
Anger can be displaced, a person may displace their anger as a way to self soothe or they may be angry at a person or situation they have no control over such as a partner, past abuser or boss when this happens they need to direct their anger somewhere so they direct it at walls, doors, work colleagues, random people they meet or even their own children.
How Anger Affects Children
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” – Mark Twain. In some cases Mark Twain may have been correct with this quote about anger but it can certainly do harm to others especially if they are your own children.
Being Angry Around Babies
Until around 3 years of age children are looking to their parents to co regulate their emotions, if a child is growing up with a parent who is emotionally dysregulated they will pick up on that and feel those emotions themselves.
Children Internalise Dysfunction
As I say in many posts on my blog, children internalise dysfunction and think it means there’s something wrong with them, it creates toxic shame. Children are looking to their parents to help them understand the world and themselves, if they have a parent who is always angry then it will normalise angry behaviour for them, they may displace their anger onto siblings or peers and when they grow up they will be very likely to find themselves in relationships with people that have anger management issues.
Anger As A Sign Of Healing
As I said above, when we grow up with dysfunction we internalise it. We can also internalise abuse as adults. Living with and internalising abuse can cause us to have a low self worth, to see ourselves as bad objects, we will internalise our abusers and suffer from negative self talk. As people start healing, increasing self love, self esteem and self acceptance they often experience anger, they become angry about what happened to them and how it affected them. Anger in this scenario is a good sign. It means we are healing and realising that we aren’t to blame for the abuse we suffered but staying angry about events or at abusers is not good because as I said above this anger will be displaced towards innocent people in our lives or even ourselves.
How Hypnotherapy Can Help With Anger Management Issues
Like anxiety, anger is part of the fight or flight response, angry outbursts can often be triggered in the same way as anxiety and panic. I explain more about how the fight or flight response is triggered on my hypnosis to reduce anxiety page.
To help people with anger management issues I use many techniques that always include hypnosis. Hypnotherapy is very effective for people with anger management issues because it increases mindfulness, when we are mindful we can consider our reactions to triggers. The hypnotic state also increases our ability to visualise, by visualising ourselves remaining calm and reacting calmly to events which previously triggered us we will actually create new neural pathways in the brain until we naturally start to respond that way. Hypnosis can also be used to help with trauma and bad memories which may be causing you anger management issues.
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