![\"choke2\"](\"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/files\/2020\/03\/choke2.jpg\")
If your loved one came home with a cut on his finger, you would know where to put the Band-Aid. If he had an upset stomach, you would give him an antacid. What do you do for someone who is heartbroken, enraged, guilt ridden, furious, or frustrated? Where do you put the Band-Aid? What is the Band-Aid?<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n We do not know. We did not learn it in school. As a consequence, we feel inadequately prepared to cope with this emotional stuff. Our\u00a0education \u00a0tells us that facts and figures are valid and important, but our feelings and emotions are irrational, therefore weak, therefore unacceptable.<\/p>\n That is why we need an education in emotional problem solving. Emotional problems are not \u201cweaknesses\u201d at all. They are as legitimate as a broken arm or a blood clot. They just don\u2019t show up on the x-ray. We need to establish courses in\u00a0emotional education \u2014 the competent management of our human emotions. As imperfect human beings, we overcompensate for our inadequate preparation for this task of coping with emotions. We overreact, we defend ourselves against the potentially humiliating exposure of\u00a0 inadequacy; we deny the validity of\u00a0the anger.\u00a0 Instead we can offer the following remarks when faced with others\u2019 anger:<\/p>\n 1. \u201cYou must be very angry.\u201d He may say, \u201cI am not angry.\u201d This is called Denial. He may have learned that it is acceptable to be \u201cupset\u201d but never angry. We are not put off by this \u201cdefense\u201d. We bounce right back, still on our terms. We do not debate with him the truth or falsity of these non-rational retorts. \u201cI hope you aren\u2019t\u201d (agreeing with him), \u201cbecause anger is a very painful emotion. But if you want to talk about it, I\u2019ll listen.\u201d We are standing our ground, letting him know that we do not intend to force our emotional first aid upon him. We are not deceived by his denial or distracted by it. The issue here is not the name of his emotion.\u00a0 The issue is not \u201ctruth\u201d.\u00a0 We do not say, \u201cYes, you are angry! Admit it!\u201d The issue is that we are prepared to cooperate.<\/p>\n 2. \u201cYou sound very angry. Did anything happen to make you angry?\u201d Or, \u201cWhat happened to make you so angry?\u201d This intervention has the advantage of skipping the issue of emotions and focusing on the precipitating factors that caused it. It offers an invitation to get relief by verbalizing the event in a non-threatening, non-judgmental context. The issue is not who is right or wrong, the issue is his painful anger that needs to be drained and cleaned so the wound can heal properly.<\/p>\n 3. \u201cThat must have made you very angry. I\u2019d be angry if that happened to me.\u201d By using the word \u201canger\u201d, in our intervention, we are giving his out-of-control emotion a handle he can grasp. We are also giving him permission to express the emotion that he is experiencing.<\/p>\n 4. What if they say, \u201cI\u2019m so mad I could punch him right in the face!\u201d We can choose to say. \u201cI don\u2019t blame you. I feel that way sometimes myself.\u201d This technique is called \u201cself-disclosure\u201d. It is often the last thing we think of doing. \u201cI\u2019m glad you can tell me how angry you are. It isn\u2019t pleasant, but it is much better for both of us if you can get your anger out of your system before it makes you sick.\u201d We are not glad that he is angry. We are not glad that he is being unpleasant. We are glad that he is behaving appropriately under these difficult circumstances to rid his system of this emotional pain. We are validating him as a person in spite of his unseemly behavior. We are bringing his unmanageable anger down to more manageable proportions. It is like putting an ice pack on an inflamed tendon. We cannot calm him down by calling him dirty names, giving him orders or falling apart ourselves.<\/p>\n 5. \u201cI\u2019m sorry you are so angry.\u201d Many people find it hard to say that they are sorry when someone is angry. They have learned that \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d is tantamount to an admission of guilt. \u201cWhy should I say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry?\u2019 I didn\u2019t make him angry,\u201d but \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d is really an expression of regret. Regret is the sincere wish that things were not the way they are. We know that anger hurts, and we regret that our angry other is in so much pain. When a self-respecting individual says, \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d with the right \u201cmusic,\u201d it is not perceived as an admission of guilt but as a sincere, heartfelt expression of empathy in a difficult time.<\/p>\n Man talking to therapist image<\/a> available from Shutterstock.<\/small><\/p>\n Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If your loved one came home with a cut on his finger, you would know where to put the Band-Aid. If he had an upset stomach, you would give him an antacid. What do you do for someone who is heartbroken, enraged, guilt ridden, furious, or frustrated? Where do you <\/p>\n Read More<\/a><\/span><\/div>
Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger<\/a> March 13, 2020<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1109,"featured_media":8398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5630],"tags":[4140,10105],"class_list":["post-8397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clinicians-blog","tag-anger-management","tag-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cedar-crest-ok-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}