By definition, a rageaholic or “anger addict” is a person who gets excited by expressing rage, or a person prone to extreme anger with little or no provocation.

If anger or rage is a problem for you or someone you love, the following creed will help get things moving in a more positive direction. Click here to read more »

“I’ve been told that I need to learn to express my anger appropriately.”

Again, let’s imagine a pressure cooker, but instead of taking off the lid, let’s set the pressure valve to slowly release the steam when it reaches a certain intensity. For example, we might say to our spouse, “I have some feelings of resentment toward you” or “Your behavior in the last few days has created some growing feelings of resentment” or “I would just like to let you know that I am feeling angry toward you because of your behavior last night at the party.” Click here to read more »

“Build-up/Blow-up” and “Expressive Anger”

One way to consider anger is what I call the “Build-up/Blow-up Theory of Anger.” At the turn of the century Freud relied on the popular scientific theory of his day, hydraulic theory, to explain how psychic energy worked. In hydraulic theory, a pressure or force is either released or it causes pressure in some other part of the system. Let me use the example of a pressure cooker to link anger and hydraulic theory. Imagine a pressure cooker with a flame underneath and the pressure building up. The steam inside the cooker is equivalent to anger and one of the ways to release the steam is to take the lid off the pressure cooker. As a child, I used to ask my mother when she cooked chicken and vegetables in the pressure cooker to please take off the lid so we could eat our lunch. She said it was dangerous to take off the lid too soon. She ran cold water on it and I begged her again. Finally, out of frustration, she took the lid off, steam rushed out, and she got burned. Click here to read more »

Are you addicted to anger?

In the mid-1980s John Bradshaw, author of Healing the Shame That Binds You, wrote about “rageaholics,” those of us who are addicted to anger and rage. The model made sense to me. I worked with rageful drug addicts and I began to think of anger as if it were a drug. As I did more reading, I found that there actually are biochemical changes in our bodies when we rage, use profanity or pound things.

Those of us who rage a lot have more health problems than people who practice containing their anger. The popular psychological theories that suggested a need to express anger for mental and physical health reasons have been proven false when put under the microscope of scientific research. The more we scream and yell, the worse our health gets, the more prone we are to heart attacks and the worse our rage problem becomes.

Sure I get angry. Doesn’t everybody?”

This article is certainly not for all people. Some people may need to learn to express their anger, but others have become addicted to the expression of anger just like the alcoholic has become addicted to alcohol. As with the alcoholic, solemn oaths to use willpower to “control ourselves” have failed repeatedly. Still, we continue trying to do more of what has not worked.

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The age in which we live is full of stressors that can build and trigger a slew of negative emotions.

Anxiety and frustration are everywhere in today’s society and the way in which we choose to deal with them can have a profound impact on our lives. What we choose to do with our pain is up to us.

Channeling it into a negative place can be devastating for us and others. Finding ways to cope with anger positively can improve the quality of our lives and relationships.

The bad news is everywhere, and hitting close to home for many of us. Who doesn’t know someone who is facing the loss of a job or the threat of foreclosure? Companies are downsizing and layoffs are happening.

Unemployment rolls are getting longer by the day. The downturn in the economy is old news. The fallout from this situation is what’s relevant now. The nightly news is profiling the everyday person who is facing homelessness and the ones who are a paycheck away from losing everything. The press has even recently reported on people who have taken their own lives after being foreclosed on.

What’s happening is that people feel they are losing control. And with that fear comes anger, anxiety, depression and desperation.

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Christian Bale is no stranger to the ranting and raving so common today among celebrity types. Whether they feel some sense of entitlement or superiority, gross displays of celebrity anger are everywhere.

In Bale’s case, a July outburst on a movie set has left his public image in tatters. He has apologized for the incident, calling himself a “punk” and saying he was “way out of order.”

But this was not the first time Bale’s misbehaving ways attracted international press. His recent tirade of expletives came on the set of Terminator: Salvation and was aimed at one of the film’s crew members. He reportedly became upset when the man walked into one of Bale’s shots. Unfortunately for Bale, the four-minute outburst was recorded and played back for the world to hear.

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