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Understand your anger and learn how to manage it
We have all experienced anger, somewhere along a spectrum that ranges from mild irritation to intense rage.
Understanding what triggers feelings of rage and frustration and learning how to channel it appropriately is important to maintain healthy relationships and manage our emotions.
How Psychology Melbourne can help
Our experienced team of anger management psychologists can work with you either individually or in group sessions to help you learn to manage anger and understand its causes.
Individual Counselling
For individual counselling, you can choose who you want to work with from the team. This is a private one-on-one session, in which you can explore on a deeper level what is causing your anger and how to stop it sabotaging your life. It can be done face-to-face or by video link.
Anger Management short course
Alternatively, for the same cost as an individual session, you can join an Anger Management course This is a three-session personal development course that runs weekly for 1-hour in the CBD for up to 10 people. You will learn all about anger, what triggers it and effective practical tools and strategies for managing it.
Anger Management Counselling Team
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Dr Anna Mooney
Melbourne CBD
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Francesco Poci
Melbourne CBD
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Aisha Seedat-Timol
Melbourne CBD
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Assoc. Prof., Dr. Terence Bowles
Melbourne CBD
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Darryl Hodgson
online only
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David Lococo
online only
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Dr Giovanna Lajbcygier
Melbourne CBD
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Dr Ross Leembruggen
online only
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Graeme Miller
Melbourne CBD
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Natalie-Mai Holmes
Melbourne CBD
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Richard Weld-Blundell
Melbourne CBD
Your anger can kill you
While mild anger can sometimes serve a positive purpose – assertively reclaiming your place in that queue for instance – explosive outbursts of rage can cost us our reputation, our job, our relationships ... even our life. Fortunately, there is a treatment.
In man’s primitive past, anger could be a life-saving reaction to physical threats, unleashing the aggressive behaviours which allowed us to defend ourselves from attack. These days you’re not likely to meet a sabre-toothed tiger in the supermarket car park. The fuse is likely to be lit, instead, by being stuck in traffic gridlock, being scapegoated by the boss from hell, or having someone step in front of you in a queue.
A study of thousands of heart attack patients found that those who recalled having flown into a rage during the previous year were more than twice as likely to have had their heart attack within two hours of that episode - and the more extreme the anger, the greater the risk.
Taking charge
Some people justify indiscriminate venting of anger as being preferable to “bottling it up”. In fact, “letting it rip” doesn’t diminish anger. It intensifies it. Almost inevitably it can lead to damaging verbal and physical encounters, anxiety, depression and substance abuse. Never expressing anger can be equally unhelpful.
Learning how to manage anger starts with acknowledging its existence and understanding its causes. It allows you to develop a range of options for handling it, including communicating your feelings in a non-threatening manner.
Even people who have a lower tolerance for frustration as a result of genetic influences or an inheritance of family behaviour can learn how to recognise the triggers and change the way they think and react to them.
Strategies to manage anger
- Identify your warning signs. Physical signs, like the tightening of muscles around arms and jaw, or feeling heat and pressure start building in the face and head, are indicators that your body is getting ready for fight or flight - which may take the form of an outburst of anger.
- Step back. Take some time out from the situation when you are starting to feel angry. If you're speaking with someone, tell them that you need a break and you'll sort this out in half an hour.
- Calm yourself down through relaxation techniques. Deep breathing exercises to steady a quickening heart can help diffuse your anger. Calming self-talk that you can handle it and that it's going to be okay can be helpful.
- Change the way that you think. When you're angry, it's easy for things to seem worse than they are. Use logic and remind yourself that the world is not out to get you.
- Exercise. Regular physical activity can help burn off extra tension and relieve stress, giving you an outlet and reducing your anger.
Psychology Melbourne can help
With clinics across Melbourne, the team of experienced psychologists can help you understand your anger, identify problem areas and develop an action plan to change your thought processes and control your anger.