{"id":7648,"date":"2018-11-27T18:30:15","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T23:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/anger-management-counseling-forgiveness\/"},"modified":"2018-11-27T18:30:17","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T23:30:17","slug":"anger-management-counseling-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/anger-management-counseling-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger Management Counseling: Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Therapist: \u201cDo you want to learn more about yourself as a person?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI guess, but I probably won\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cI didn\u2019t say you had to like it. But, if you do it right, it only hurts for a little while. One thing I\u2019d like you to do is forgive the people who have hurt you. Can you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cSure I can, but I won\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cWhy won\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cWhy should I, after what they did to me? It not fair to forgive them after all the pain they caused me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cDoes not forgiving them help you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cIt\u2019s worse than that \u2013 you can\u2019t care. Your feelings won\u2019t let you. They are in control. They are making your decisions for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cGood. That saves me the trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cIt saves you the trouble: the pain of making a \u2018wrong\u2019 decision, but it causes other troubles you don\u2019t even know are down there. These are the troubles that are making you sick, physically and emotionally. They are killing the happiness you could be enjoying right now. You are paying a high price for this \u2018principle of fairness\u201d you are upholding so nobly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cThat\u2019s right. I have principles!\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cDo you have these principles or do the principles have you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about!\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cNow you\u2019ve got it! You don\u2019t know. You\u2019d be better off physically and emotionally if you did. Would you like to know what I\u2019m talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI guess so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cI\u2019ll settle for that. I\u2019m talking about your obstacles to forgiveness. It\u2019s not a choice you are making, to forgive or not. Your feelings made that choice for you years ago and nothing has changed. Your emotions are the same now as they were when it happened way back when. They are frozen in time. They haven\u2019t been adequately identified for you, let alone relieved. How many more years do you plan to suffer with this unfinished business?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI didn\u2019t know it was up to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cWho else have you got? You just learned something. You are responsible for the consequences of your choices. You can choose to to take ownership over your own happiness. If you don\u2019t give yourself a break, who will? Would it help if you knew what \u2018forgiveness\u2019 means?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI know what it means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cWhat does it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cYou know, forgetting about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what you can never do! The human mind is too powerful to forget. You have such a wonderful memory that these experiences will always be with you. But we can reduce the emotional weight they carry. Forgiveness means letting go of anger, not for others benefit, but for your own. These people who have hurt you will never know about it. It\u2019s none of their business who you forgive. It\u2019s for your benefit. If you don\u2019t forgive, the anger will stay down there inside you forever. Is that what you want? I don\u2019t think so. You have the power of choice now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI never thought of it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cYou can choose to write out your anger. Writing your thoughts and feelings down on a piece of paper makes them tangible and concrete before our very eyes. You cannot evaluate abstract thoughts in your mind about your life or about yourself. However, we can begin to sort them out when you see them in black and white in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cHow do I begin?\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cTo start the journaling process it maybe useful to ask yourself focusing questions. By answering these questions you are able to make your internalized, unconscious, unacceptable feelings conscious and concrete. This allows you to find forgiveness from your conflicting logical and emotional reactions, which helps you to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cSo what\u2019s the first step?\u201d<\/p>\n

Therapist: \u201cYou can begin by using some focusing questions, such as:<\/p>\n

What is the worst part about it?<\/p>\n

How does that worst part make me feel?<\/p>\n

When else have I felt this way?<\/p>\n

What am I trying achieve?<\/p>\n

What scares me about this?<\/p>\n

How will this affect my life in the long term?<\/p>\n

What would be an ideal outcome?<\/p>\n

What advice would I give to someone else in this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Client: \u201cI see how that can help. It would be nice to let all this stuff out on my terms, instead of jumping down others throats over small petty problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>

Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Therapist: \u201cDo you want to learn more about yourself as a person?\u201d Client: \u201cI guess, but I probably won\u2019t like it.\u201d Therapist: \u201cI didn\u2019t say you had to like it. But, if you do it right, it only hurts for a little while. One thing I\u2019d like you to do <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger<\/a> November 27, 2018<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1109,"featured_media":7649,"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-7648","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\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/keokee-va-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}