Owning your anger

Your temper might get you into hot water if you don’t learn to keep it in check when you need to.

Peter Winter often deals with young people who have to take court-ordered anger management classes. These are different from his standard Anger Management courses, which are more involved and holistic. In this context, Peter is required to concentrate on more immediate issues, whilst keeping to core principles and treatments. Given that it is a legal requirement that the person being treated attend the course, it is more likely that Peter will focus on the more obvious problems concerning the client, in order to fulfil the court’s mandate.

Tactics to improve one’s anger management skills include some of the following:

• owning one’s anger, rather than blaming the other party
• learning compromise and acceptance, and that one can’t always be in control of every situation
• counting down from 100
• relaxation techniques
• changing one’s thinking by not dealing in absolutes

Anger can become a habitual response to even the smallest infractions, and learning to spot stressors whilst identifying personal responses to same (physical, emotional, cognitive & behavioural) are good behaviours to learn. It might even save your life! Talk to Peter today if you feel that your temper is getting the best of you.