How Can I Manage My Anger?

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Unmanaged anger can become destructive.

Managing anger internally may be of limited utility.

A new study provides evidence for the utility of an anger management technique that uses symbolic action.

Anger can be a dangerous emotional state. Uncontrolled, it can lead to violence, poor decision-making, and conflict. Unprocessed anger often leads to rumination, which in turn tends to increase the anger.

Controlling anger is an important, and often challenging, social skill. Work to date suggests that one key to anger control may be found in distancing one’s internal experience from one's sense of self. Such distancing can be achieved via cognitive reframing and distancing techniques, but these are effortful and may be less effective under stressful, emotionally "hot" conditions. Distraction may also work, but its effects tend to be transient.

Work to date in this area, moreover, has focused on such internal processes. This is limiting since studies on emotion regulation have shown that emotion is strongly tied to—and can be shaped and changed by—external conditions and behaviors. For instance, people may take a shower to "cool off" emotionally or hold on to someone's hand when they feel afraid.

Research on this action-emotion axis has shown that writing down anger........

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