The Art of Manliness - How to Get Your Anger Under Control

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when you look

00:00:11.340 back on the moments you regret most in your life a fair number of them likely involved you being

00:00:15.440 angry and if these cringe inducing life and relationship damaging moments happen more often

00:00:20.100 than you'd like then it's time to start thinking about how to get a handle on your anger my guest

00:00:24.200 today offers help in that process his name is dr chip trefady and he's a clinical psychologist

00:00:28.280 professor of criminology and criminal justice and the co-author along with howard kasanoff of anger

00:00:33.000 management for everyone 10 proven strategies to help you control anger and live a happier life

00:00:37.480 chip walks us through what anger is how it's distinctive from aggression and how it can be

00:00:41.180 both destructive and healthy we then get into some of the strategies chip recommends for managing

00:00:46.040 your anger so it stays in that ladder zone including making changes to your lifestyle avoiding anger

00:00:50.700 inducing triggers reframing your thoughts and doing anger exposure therapy after the show's over check

00:00:55.640 at our show notes at aom.is slash anger chip trefady welcome to the show thank you it's great to be

00:01:13.160 here so you are a professor of psychology but you teach at a school of criminology and you ended up

00:01:19.660 co-authoring a book about anger management so how did a professor at a criminology school criminal

00:01:25.060 justice school end up co-authoring a book about anger management well i'm a clinical psychologist

00:01:30.380 by training so i've spent much of my career sitting across from people who struggle with the complexity

00:01:35.580 of making changes in their lives so the question is really how did a clinical psychologist end up in a

00:01:41.000 criminology department and the story is that i did my doctoral dissertation on the topic of anger

00:01:46.320 and this was based on the advice of my dissertation supervisor at the time his name is howard kasanoff

00:01:51.920 and he suggested that i explore an area that was understudied and at that time anger was under examined

00:01:58.360 and even today in psychology anger is still the forgotten emotion and so howie and i've been studying

00:02:04.660 writing and talking about anger issues for the last three decades i say we a lot and i usually mean howie

00:02:10.340 but in terms of the connection between anger and criminology the answer is pretty straightforward

00:02:15.760 and that anger problems drive all sorts of destructive and sometimes extreme behaviors and so most of the

00:02:22.200 listeners of your podcast i would predict that for many of them some of their most cringe-worthy

00:02:28.100 moments of their lives occurred when they were angry so even though anger is a common experience anger is

00:02:33.860 the emotion most likely to lead people to have problems with the criminal justice system it's not

00:02:38.460 anxiety and depression as many people think and the criminology department at central connecticut

00:02:42.580 state university is very behavioral so this line of research was a good fit well so let's talk about

00:02:48.200 anger i think everyone kind of understands what it is they've experienced it but as a clinician

00:02:52.600 is there a a definition of anger that you all use you know it's it's a bit untangible to define anger

00:03:02.620 it's hard to define anger without using a synonym for the word anger but maybe the best way to think

00:03:07.720 about it is that anger is really our built-in threat protective system and it's a complex reaction

00:03:14.920 to perceive threats so in modern life we can feel threatened by all sorts of scenarios such as when

00:03:20.340 our children are bullied by other kids maybe when a driver cuts us off on the road by our neighbors

00:03:25.740 driving too fast down the street and so on and on and on so anger emerges when we perceive threat

00:03:31.240 but anger is complex because we have thoughts that go through our minds there are physiological and

00:03:36.540 biological reactions to threat where our heart rate increases our muscles get tense we get ready to

00:03:41.100 react there are chemicals that energize us in the moment we'll also notice sensations in our body

00:03:46.720 there are urges to react in the moment and of course there are behaviors that we actually do they

00:03:51.040 include things like hand gestures verbal arguments screaming hitting pouting and withdrawing so anger is

00:03:57.860 part of our kind of evolutionarily useful fight flight reaction and so it's really built into the

00:04:06.200 fabric of human life so it's a physiopsychological experience both experienced in the body and in

00:04:12.000 the mind yes and i would also say that it occurs in a context of the environment that the person's in as

00:04:21.700 well yeah well i think this you talk about this in the book when you're kind of sussing out what anger

00:04:26.420 is i think we typically associate anger with aggression but you make the distinction there's actually a

00:04:32.760 difference between aggression and anger someone can be angry but not aggressive or aggressive but not

00:04:38.420 angry can you tell us about the distinction yeah i think that this is a common misunderstanding so

00:04:43.540 people think of the word anger and the next word that pops into their mind is aggression

00:04:47.500 and the difference between anger and aggression is that anger is primarily an internal response and we

00:04:53.420 know we're angry because we feel it inside we can be angry and other people may not know we're angry

00:04:58.780 on the other hand aggression is behavior that can be observed such as throwing things hitting kicking

00:05:03.700 and sneaky indirect actions such as vandalizing somebody's property but most people who become

00:05:09.420 angry do not become aggressive and i think that most often we just get angry another complexity is that

00:05:15.820 aggression can sometimes occur without anger at all so think for a moment about someone who snatches

00:05:20.920 purses on the street the person engaged in that behavior might grab the purse pull the victim to the 0.98

00:05:26.600 ground maybe even harming the person however the aggressor may not have any anger at the victim

00:05:31.200 he or she's simply doing it as a way to get money i think one way to think about this is that in a lot of

00:05:37.320 our anger training workshops we sometimes do this exercise and the workshops are comprised of practitioners

00:05:44.860 of different types and we ask the people in the room how many of you have experienced anger in the past

00:05:51.240 week and so i should say that it's normal for people to feel angry one or two times a week that's just

00:05:56.720 typical so when you ask a room full of people to let you know if they've experienced anger pretty much

00:06:02.100 all the hands in the room go up then we ask a second question okay how many of you have assaulted

00:06:07.020 somebody destroyed property punched a wall kicked somebody in the past week when you were angry and there's

00:06:13.720 almost no hands that go up in the room but the most interesting question is the next one how many of you

00:06:20.100 at some point in your life when you were angry have hit struck pushed or kicked somebody it's an

00:06:26.860 uncomfortable moment and there's a pause but almost all the hands in the room go up again and so what

00:06:32.440 i'm saying is that aggression is the least common response when people are angry and on studies where

00:06:37.780 they actually count and measure this aggression is the thing that is least common on these surveys

00:06:42.080 but the hands in the room exercise shows all shows that all of us kind of know the connection between

00:06:47.680 anger and aggression and most of us have been there and we understand this destructive connection

00:06:52.540 that can occur when we're angry and most of us have a couple of personal and ugly examples of that

00:06:58.940 yeah that anger induced aggression is what gets people in trouble what gets them involved with the

00:07:04.700 criminal justice system because they typically lash out in a violent way but okay so if you express your

00:07:10.860 anger through aggression that can get you into trouble it can cause you can go to jail it can cause

00:07:14.800 problems in your relationships but even if you don't express your anger through aggression

00:07:18.940 what are the harms of experiencing anger well there's a lot of negative outcomes connected with

00:07:25.400 anger so aggression is is one of the least common but more extreme examples but i think that what most

00:07:32.080 people do when they're angry is some kind of verbal behavior so we'll say nasty things we'll criticize

00:07:37.620 people we might sort of uh yell and scream and people damage their family relationships their intimate

00:07:44.900 relationships and their work relationships mostly through by what they say uh when they're angry the

00:07:51.500 other thing that sometimes occurs when people are angry is they'll withdraw they'll pout they'll pull away

00:07:56.020 from situations they won't engage and solve the problem and then there's a whole nother area that if

00:08:02.320 you're someone who experiences sort of chronic and and and strong anger reactions that you're more

00:08:09.060 likely to develop health problems like high blood pressure heart disease and strokes yeah so there could

00:08:15.680 be a physiological consequence of your anger again as you said it's a response to a threat it's a stress

00:08:20.280 response and if you have that over and over again that's going to have detrimental effects on your

00:08:25.620 physical health yeah absolutely we get activated when we become angry so our bodies are kind of

00:08:31.200 preparing to deal with a threat well is anger ever healthy yeah anger you can think of emotions like

00:08:40.420 an internal gps system so some mild and moderate anger can definitely be positive so operating like

00:08:46.820 an internal gps system anger can signal that something isn't right in your life anger might energize

00:08:52.480 us to face a problem that's being avoided or maybe stick up for ourselves in order to make

00:08:56.480 something better also anger can help us energize us to make important life changes also anger can be

00:09:04.000 a driving force for social movements i would say anger leads to zest excitement and passion and anger

00:09:10.760 at the mild or end of the spectrum is life enhancing and we would be impaired if we could never experience

00:09:15.840 any anger and we wouldn't want to live in a world without anger well so when does anger become a

00:09:22.220 problem like how does someone know they've got an anger problem well anger can get out of hand so

00:09:26.880 anger when it's too strong occurs too frequently or lasts too long it becomes a destructive force and

00:09:33.400 and i think for some people anger leads to significant loss and suffering and such negative outcomes are all

00:09:39.540 around us so think about how many family relationship conflicts and career disasters you've witnessed that

00:09:44.860 have resulted from anger or think about the marital and family violence that has followed anger and verbal

00:09:50.240 arguments i think we've all witnessed the destructive results of feeling angry or being the recipient of

00:09:56.160 someone else's anger but some of the negative outcomes include ruined relationships derailed careers

00:10:01.540 impulsive and destructive decisions road rage cardiovascular and medical problems and criminal justice

00:10:08.160 just to name a few i i think the advice to listeners of this podcast is to start paying attention to the

00:10:14.840 outcomes associated with your specific episodes of anger so this can be accomplished by asking yourself

00:10:21.640 you know what good came out of my anger in this situation did i improve a relationship did i damage a

00:10:26.780 relationship did i make a situation better or worse ask yourself what was not so good about my anger in

00:10:31.640 this situation and many people don't appreciate that their anger is usually more destructive for them

00:10:36.440 than for the person they are getting angry at and the negative parts of the world will always exist around us

00:10:41.800 but i think all of us can learn skills to reduce excessive anger to negotiate better outcomes and to

00:10:49.260 manage our personal environments in order to live a better life okay so when you when someone you're

00:10:54.420 working with someone who's got an anger problem because again anger can be healthy it becomes a problem when

00:10:59.020 it becomes a detriment to your life when you're working with this person what's the goal are you trying to

00:11:05.060 help them just not get angry at all are you trying to help them not express their anger like what is your

00:11:10.880 goal with someone when you're helping them with an anger problem well well first i think because

00:11:16.020 anger is sort of part of that useful threat protective system the goal of anger treatment is anger management

00:11:22.780 and not anger elimination and so we want to help people learn to experience anger in a more reasonable

00:11:28.720 manner and to develop skills to be able to navigate life's challenges and to manage the relationships more

00:11:35.300 effectively i think over time and with repetition our anger reactions become automatic and to change it

00:11:41.700 the trick is to get off autopilot so when your anger threat system gets activated recognize that you don't

00:11:48.580 have to go along with it and get swept up in the emotion so just take a moment to stop and ask yourself

00:11:54.260 the question where's my anger taking me and then try on some new behaviors that may seem unfamiliar

00:11:59.460 when you're angry act in a way that is patient maybe kind or compassionate try to search for a

00:12:05.340 solution that will not make the problem worse with practice this becomes easier and it kind of turns

00:12:10.100 into your new autopilot setting i think people are familiar with the phrase that practice makes perfect but

00:12:15.160 that's not really accurate so if you repeat something over and over again it becomes part of your

00:12:20.200 behavioral repertoire so what we kind of repeat in practice becomes automatic and so in terms of

00:12:27.240 treatment there's a lot of individual differences in people and the context of how anger emerges in

00:12:33.340 their lives and so i think in our program we have more of a kind of a menu driven choose and use

00:12:39.540 approach it's sort of like the way people make selections from a restaurant menu and so this means

00:12:44.540 that everyone can explore different strategies that might work within the context of the person's real

00:12:49.640 life so if one strategy is not bringing about a reduction in anger then move to the next one

00:12:54.280 and i should also mention that there's definitely reason for optimism there've been a handful of

00:12:58.660 meta-analyses just kind of large analyses of anger treatment and they all strongly converge around the same

00:13:04.420 conclusion that people who get anger treatment do better than people that don't so treatment generally

00:13:08.400 works and people can definitely make improvements in this area of their lives yeah and i want to dig in

00:13:12.900 some of these menu treatment options that people have that you use so okay the goal is not to

00:13:17.300 eliminate anger it's to manage it have a reasonable type of anger but on the flip side of this

00:13:22.120 this doesn't mean that you're trying to tell people like well one of the best options is to vent and

00:13:26.640 just express your anger unabashedly by yelling into a pillow or smashing something correct well correct

00:13:33.920 so that's one of the options that we don't recommend so that is an intervention that worries me a little

00:13:38.940 bit and i think that the treatment landscape right now in the united states looks a lot like the wild west

00:13:46.340 i think there's a mix of credentialed practitioners and there's a whole bunch of other practitioners

00:13:51.820 such as life coaches and then we have like all sorts of advice givers and influencers and anger is

00:13:58.960 understudied and there's a lot of myths in the anger area and some of the advice is just plain wrong

00:14:04.140 and so some of the things that are delivered to the public may not be helpful and the idea of venting

00:14:10.180 is one of those and so the problem with this intervention is that we're telling people to

00:14:16.720 practice the thing that will actually kind of make their lives worse and so brett i'd like to maybe

00:14:23.540 just make an analogy to other emotions right so all emotions have an action tendency so when people are

00:14:30.220 anxious and fearful they want to avoid and run away when people are depressed you know they want to hunker

00:14:36.780 down and and sort of give up and just sort of sit and and not do much and if someone is suffering from

00:14:45.240 anxiety we would never tell them hey go out and practice avoidance go with the tendency that that

00:14:51.720 emotion pulls for so with any emotional excess we don't tell the person to practice that thing we tell

00:14:57.260 them to push against it take depression for example we wouldn't tell someone who's like kind of sitting

00:15:01.980 there and they're like oh i can't get out of bed i don't really feel it today we wouldn't say hey go with

00:15:06.520 that practice that stay in bed and that's kind of what catharsis is we're telling people hey when

00:15:10.920 you're feeling angry yell and scream and hit something or punch something and this is a

00:15:16.660 problematic intervention because again what we repeat and practice becomes more automatic in our

00:15:22.500 lives there have been people who've studied catharsis it's the idea has been around for a long time and

00:15:27.780 people have studied in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s almost no one's studying it from the year 2000 and

00:15:33.540 beyond because we know the answer this makes people worse but yet it's kind of popular out there right

00:15:39.020 no yeah and i think because i think it makes intuitive sense to people i mean well i guess

00:15:43.360 it depends on what if your analogy of anger is that it's this emotion inside your brain that

00:15:49.920 it's like a a boiler that needs venting and if you vent it'll it'll reduce the pressure

00:15:55.460 in your psyche people like well if they make that analogy well that makes sense if you vent it then

00:16:00.360 you won't be angry but what the psychology is saying like i mean william james understood this

00:16:05.000 feelings follow action right so if you act angry you're just going to feel more angry you're just

00:16:11.700 going to habituate yourself to correct feeling angry yeah yeah the notion of of the boiler or that

00:16:18.960 something's building up inside your body is a simplistic idea that doesn't really make a lot of

00:16:24.800 sense we wouldn't say that about any emotion and so what we want people to do is to push back against

00:16:30.480 those those tendencies i think the reason that catharsis persists is that it feels right so when

00:16:36.260 you're angry you know you're activated to yell scream protect yourself in some ways and so it kind

00:16:43.420 of feels right and so when you tell people to practice this they come back and they feel good in the

00:16:48.560 moment but if you really sort of follow them along to see are they really improving and getting better

00:16:53.760 the answer is a pretty strong no for most people just the way if someone was socially anxious we

00:17:00.100 wouldn't tell them to keep walking out of the cocktail party or the room that they're in with other

00:17:04.600 people they might say they feel good in the moment but they're not learning how to improve themselves

00:17:10.260 in that type of environment we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:17:14.000 and now back to the show okay so catharsis doesn't work let's talk about what does so you mentioned

00:17:21.940 one of the first things that someone needs to do and they have an anger problem is to understand

00:17:25.900 what their anger patterns look like and you in the book and your co-author say that there's a six-step

00:17:32.300 pattern that most anger episodes follow briefly what is that pattern like what what are the steps of an

00:17:38.520 anger episode well i think that to get into understanding anger yeah you have to get into the fabric of

00:17:47.300 people's lives so so you're absolutely correct we do an in-depth analysis of individual anger experiences

00:17:51.760 and that's a starting point but here's what we avoid we avoid having fuzzy and philosophical discussions

00:17:56.840 about anger we also avoid having the person endlessly complain about poor treatment at the hands of others

00:18:02.540 and so we want to analyze anger as it occurs in the person's real life and when you initially ask people

00:18:10.280 about anger it's sort of a confusing mess it's made up of a swirling away of triggers and thoughts

00:18:15.160 and sensations and reactions and so anger does emerge in a predictable sequence and that's the

00:18:21.140 good news and so what we want to do is kind of look at the components of our own anger experiences

00:18:26.320 right and so anger as i've mentioned is is a complex network of components that includes triggers

00:18:32.180 thoughts sensations urges behaviors and outcomes and so i think that everyone who's listening to this if

00:18:40.280 if you are interested in doing better with your own anger experiences one of the first things to do is

00:18:46.680 to kind of examine a recent and strong episode of anger try to describe for yourself what what

00:18:52.280 triggered my anger in this situation and be specific what were some of the initial thoughts that went

00:18:56.980 through my mind when i encountered the trigger what did i notice in my body what was the experience like

00:19:02.160 how strong was it what sensations were there and what what did i want to do in the moment what was that

00:19:07.000 urge what was my autopilot telling me to do and then what did i actually do what behaviors did i engage

00:19:12.380 in and then finally that outcome piece again what was the outcome of me getting angry and and that's

00:19:19.240 sort of the starting point for us and once you kind of figure out what the building blocks of anger

00:19:24.160 episodes are that opens up a whole array of different places where you might intervene we might work with

00:19:31.960 people on changing some of the triggering events around them we might help people work on the way

00:19:36.660 they think when when they're confronted with challenges we might help people learn to relax

00:19:40.900 and calm their bodies or learn social skills to express themselves better and negotiate outcomes

00:19:46.380 that they want in life so i think the analysis of anger episodes kind of is sort of like a lighthouse

00:19:52.460 that tells you the guide you where to go when you're sort of working in this messy area okay so

00:19:58.160 by understanding the the pattern that anger follows you can find places where you can start tinkering

00:20:02.400 with things uh to start managing your anger whether it's at the trigger point or how you think about

00:20:07.420 things or the behaviors you you you express when you experience anger so uh let's talk about some

00:20:12.400 of these things i like i thought it was interesting before you really got into like okay you know what

00:20:16.820 can you do about these anger triggers you have your first bit of advice was just make some lifestyle

00:20:21.720 interventions that i think are geared towards reducing the likelihood of you getting angry and it's just

00:20:26.780 stuff like eating right exercising getting enough sleep i mean in your experience with working with

00:20:32.940 people with anger problems what's their diet exercise and sleep like typically you know people who

00:20:39.600 struggle with anger difficulties often have multiple problems and difficult lives and they're often

00:20:45.680 not taking care of themselves and so this isn't so i think not considered a specific element of an

00:20:52.020 anger episode there are a variety of environmental factors and habit patterns that can make episodes

00:20:57.100 sort of more likely to occur so you can think of episodes kind of like wildfires right there are

00:21:02.280 environmental conditions that make wildfires more likely you know if there's drought and heat if

00:21:08.580 there's an accumulation of brush in the area if there are problems with power lines or lightning strikes

00:21:15.620 you're more likely to have wildfires so i think we sometimes ask people to just take a step back and look at

00:21:21.040 their lifestyles and consider factors that make it more likely that their own anger wildfires

00:21:25.800 might ignite the major culprits as you mentioned are poor nutrition lack of sufficient sleep alcohol

00:21:32.780 misuse and also other drugs and maybe just unpleasant kind of background noises and smells and things like

00:21:39.160 that and and most professionals rarely consider changes in the client's environments and routines and other

00:21:44.400 background factors and these lifestyle issues are often important and it may help just to kind of

00:21:49.840 rearrange your life in a way that makes negative reactions less likely so we sometimes ask people

00:21:55.420 to plan to face challenging situations or have difficult conversations with others once they've

00:22:00.300 eaten properly and slept well right we also ask people to be honest about their drinking habits and

00:22:05.460 whether that's fueling their anger episodes and affecting relationships with family members friends and

00:22:10.140 colleagues and we ask people to be kind to themselves and think about their daily environments and try their

00:22:15.460 best to arrange things in as nice a way as possible yeah the alcohol thing is uh important because what

00:22:21.440 alcohol does it disinhibits you right so you if you feel angry you're more likely to express

00:22:27.060 maladaptive anger behaviors so cutting back on your drinking can reduce a lot of not good anger episodes

00:22:34.880 yeah and and there's a connection between alcohol use and anger so one of our early treatment studies we did this

00:22:42.580 study in the 1990s and we advertised for for men who had anger problems between the age of 25 and 50 and we asked

00:22:52.680 them to give us a call and if their anger was high enough we were going to give them a free treatment and we what we

00:22:58.240 wanted was a sort of pristine treatment group we wanted a group of people that just had an anger problem and didn't have

00:23:05.080 other problems and so we got a lot of calls but i have to tell you like three months later there was nobody in our study

00:23:10.380 because the lives of people with anger problems are very messy they have multiple problems and one of the leading

00:23:16.240 problems was substance abuse and i think that anger is a negative experience generally right so there's there's probably

00:23:23.480 nobody listening that is thinking when they wake up in the morning you know i want to have a really angry

00:23:28.400 day today right and so early on in people's lives they learn that if they take a drink you know take a drug

00:23:36.520 take a pill that they can kind of sometimes reduce that internal activation and so anger problems go along

00:23:45.320 with substance misuse okay so don't do drugs don't drink if you're feeling angry go to that whole advice don't

00:23:52.280 go to bed angry sometimes i think the best thing you do is just if you're feeling angry just go to

00:23:55.820 sleep because then the next day you feel awesome and you can take on the issue right if you're hangry

00:24:00.560 eat something uh you mentioned the study on men that made me think about another potential factor in

00:24:06.960 anger gender sex have we found a difference between how the sexes experience or express anger

00:24:12.280 you know anger seems to be an equal opportunity emotion and so i'll go back to that 1990s studies we were so

00:24:18.760 naive back then so we placed these advertisements for men who had anger problems right we got a couple

00:24:24.000 calls that sounded like this you know i have an anger problem and i would like free treatment

00:24:30.420 and you people are sexist i'm a woman you know and i have to tell you that those callers were right 1.00

00:24:37.440 i think that we used to think that anger was just a male problem but there's been a couple of

00:24:42.240 descriptive studies that have been done that kind of look at you know how anger emerges in people's real

00:24:47.900 lives and what we have learned is that anger is actually more similar than it's different for men

00:24:52.880 and women so men and women get angry at about the same rate they get angry about the same things

00:24:57.620 they express themselves in similar ways so i think that both men and women can experience anger problems

00:25:04.900 i guess the issue with men is that when they do express it with aggression because they're bigger

00:25:10.220 typically that it causes more damage than women yeah that's absolutely true so so men they're behaving 1.00

00:25:16.340 with aggression will cause will cause more physical destruction okay so let's talk about so we took

00:25:22.580 some lifestyle things to help maybe reduce the chances we're clearing out the brush so we don't

00:25:26.240 experience as intense anger when it does pop up let's talk about the interventions we can make with the

00:25:31.340 the anger triggers what are some things there that you you coach clients on or recommend to your

00:25:37.000 patients well i think that in terms of triggers right a lot of people who struggle with anger

00:25:43.360 difficulties have this pattern of confronting every injustice right their lives just become full of

00:25:49.380 conflicts for example you know does the person who cuts you off on the road need to be tailgated and

00:25:54.460 approached at the intersection and given a piece of your mind does the clerk at the coffee shop need to

00:25:59.480 be scolded because she's texting instead of quickly getting you your cup of coffee if you're never going to

00:26:04.560 see the person again and there's no way to get a resolution with someone you might be better off just

00:26:09.160 walking away so sometimes in terms of just thinking about triggers we try to encourage people to

00:26:14.800 practice letting go of the small things right some problems will of course get worse with the passage of

00:26:19.860 time and those may need to be dealt with and there's an art to knowing which people and situations are worth

00:26:26.940 dealing with which to let go and deciding when and how to engage with certain challenges in one's life

00:26:33.820 so this might mean for some people if it's really they have a really extreme anger problem like they

00:26:38.320 just avoid the trigger or the provocation in the first place and but that again that that's going

00:26:43.180 to take some judgment to figure out can i do this and have a good outcome or if i keep avoiding it

00:26:49.460 we'll just make the problem worse yeah exactly so you know there might be a family member that you know

00:26:57.340 when you show up at a family picnic or holiday that you have a negative history with and that there's

00:27:04.720 you know often ends in an argument you might decide not to go to that event right or if you do to try to

00:27:11.400 limit your actual contact with that person or to limit the amount of time that you spend there

00:27:16.580 you know there's different ways to sort of navigate that i think that if you're at the workplace there

00:27:22.540 might be certain employees where it might be better just to sidestep the person instead of having the

00:27:27.140 conversation face to face maybe you really think about a thoughtful email but of course be careful

00:27:32.400 with emails and electronic communications because people send angry communications those are often

00:27:37.800 part of the record so i think there are different ways to respond to people that don't necessarily

00:27:42.620 mean responding in the moment so i think looking at your life and figuring out what do i really need

00:27:47.940 to face here what kinds of things need to be resolved and which ones can i let go and i think the big

00:27:53.740 i mean the biggest benefit of just paying attention to your triggers like just knowing what makes you

00:27:58.260 angry i think a lot of people go through life angry and they don't even know why they're angry you ask

00:28:03.140 like why are you angry i don't know i'm just angry and like paying attention will help you i don't know

00:28:07.740 it does something once you know yeah and so that's that's sort of why we sort of start with that

00:28:13.020 analysis of anger episodes and and so you know so you know everyone's feels anger so let's just look

00:28:17.940 at your anger and let's just kind of dissect it and see how it looks in your real life okay so you

00:28:23.400 experience everyone experiences that that sort of flash of anger it's automatic because it's part of that

00:28:27.220 fight or flight response what can intensify so like that's kind of when you experience like that

00:28:32.800 anger that initial anger it's like a lightning bolt right that strikes a forest now it can kind of

00:28:37.740 smolder and just sort of extinguish itself but it can start you know growing and getting more intent

00:28:44.500 into this raging fire because of our thoughts so how can thought how the way we think when we experience

00:28:50.800 that flash of anger make anger grow out of control yeah i i think that in terms of thoughts we want to

00:28:59.420 sort of reverse engineer the rules and assumptions that people live by that that drive their anger right

00:29:06.560 and so you know there are a number of cognitive interventions that involve looking at what people

00:29:13.400 are saying to themselves at the moment when they're angry and then trying to kind of talk back to that

00:29:18.360 inner voice and try to replace those anger prompting thoughts with thoughts that are going to lead to less

00:29:23.040 anger but maybe a better way to think about it is sort of to imagine the scenario imagine that we are

00:29:29.740 visited by an alien race and they come and they land on earth and they're very curious about human beings

00:29:37.360 and they don't experience emotions the same way that we do and they're wondering about anger and your job

00:29:44.600 is to write a rule book on how to become a really angry person and so what would your rule book look like

00:29:51.480 like what would some of your rules be and i'll share with you some of the rules one rule might be to

00:29:58.260 jump to negative conclusions about the actions and intentions of others so interpret any potentially

00:30:04.140 negative or ambiguous behaviors as being deliberately and maliciously targeted you maybe another rule might

00:30:11.040 be demand that people act in a way that you want them to and assist that situations turn out the way you

00:30:17.700 want another rule might be don't make a distinction between life's minor hassles and inconveniences

00:30:23.360 and those things that are really important treat every difficulty and challenge as a significant setback and so

00:30:30.300 what we want to do is figure out what what are the what is it of the self-statements what's the person saying when

00:30:34.860 they're angry what rules of life are they living by and we want to kind of know the inner world of the person a

00:30:40.380 little bit and help them learn to sort of change those those thoughts in the moment

00:30:45.040 no you can see these uh these cognitive bias i will call them biases like let's use an example like

00:30:51.460 someone cuts you off right right in traffic so what we feel that flash of anger and then we start

00:30:56.640 we have this demand is well no one should ever do that they should be really thoughtful and never

00:31:00.640 they should have thought about getting to the other lane before they did at that moment and then 1.00

00:31:05.060 they're like this guy did that on purpose you know you see you yeah exactly and he's just a jerk and 0.98

00:31:09.820 he's just trying to get my goad and then like it's a low frustration tolerance because it's a minor 0.97

00:31:13.640 thing it's not that big of a deal you i like the word awfulize you guys use you're like oh well this

00:31:18.320 is just the worst thing that could ever happen to me what a way to start my day off all the that

00:31:23.200 thought process is just making you more and more angry it's not helping right it's sort of fueling

00:31:28.700 your anger and ramping it up and for those folks that aren't familiar with the term awfulizing it just

00:31:33.000 means kind of exaggerating you know any adversity or hardship that you might experience and all of us

00:31:38.300 experience setbacks in our lives so people that do awfulizing a lot they're actually saying to

00:31:43.600 themselves in their heads like it's awful it's terrible it's horrible and what they lack is

00:31:47.620 wisdom they don't seem to have the wisdom to know what's a big deal in life and what's not right

00:31:52.100 and this this is where like a therapist could come in handy because they help you challenge or reframe

00:31:57.620 that type of thinking yeah they do and and i think when it comes to awfulizing what it does is it takes

00:32:03.840 energy away from solving your problems and awfulizing also makes you unpleasant to be around because no one

00:32:09.600 really wants to be near a complainer so what are some things you could say to yourself instead of

00:32:14.060 saying you know that when the person cuts you off this is awful and terrible and horrible just say

00:32:18.760 yourself you know bad drivers exist this is part of life i'm not the policeman of the universe let it go

00:32:25.340 i can give you another example just in terms of trying to change some of those thoughts yeah that

00:32:30.060 i think that for many people who struggle with anger they're like injustice collectors right they're

00:32:34.860 constantly scanning for disrespect and seeing the worst in others in situations so one alternative

00:32:39.800 might be practicing forgiveness in everyday situations as they come up in your life so you know it's

00:32:45.380 possible to practice this in the scenario you just mentioned so if someone cuts you off in traffic

00:32:50.040 you know the next time you're faced with this kind of behavior you can recognize that you're having 0.99

00:32:55.140 the same old angry thoughts in your head that might sound like you know he's a real jerk and what an 1.00

00:32:59.100 asshole and i'm going to show him and and try to catch yourself right but then try to guess what might be 1.00

00:33:04.080 happening or what may have happened in the other person's life that's causing him or her to behave 0.94

00:33:09.680 in that way or in this case cut you off right but this is hard to do and you won't know for sure but

00:33:14.320 maybe the person who cut you off is going to the hospital to visit a friend maybe they have some kind

00:33:21.760 of cognitive impairment perhaps you know they're having a really bad day and they're distracted by

00:33:27.680 something going on in their world and so you can silently in your mind wish the person well

00:33:33.260 let go of your anger and move on with your day we sometimes ask people to practice this simple

00:33:38.720 sequence of just practicing kind of forgiveness in small situations it's not what they're doing

00:33:43.920 naturally and so this will seem very sort of foreign to many many people who are acting automatically

00:33:49.400 but slowing down and just sort of kind of practicing forgiveness in small ways and changing those thoughts

00:33:55.100 in your head over time can pay dividends as you mentioned earlier that we often resort to these

00:34:01.340 maladaptive thinking patterns you know this awfulizing low frustration tolerance demandingness

00:34:06.300 etc when there's situations that are ambiguous right so we're not sure if if this person meant

00:34:12.740 ill or good or there's neutral i think this is why digital communication can be so fraught because

00:34:19.200 oftentimes it's ambiguous as like intent behind a typed message on a computer screen so that's why

00:34:25.660 someone types something like our initial response like man this guy means this awful thing but really

00:34:29.900 they probably didn't yeah i think we've all we've all done that right yeah you know it's probably

00:34:36.660 better to give people the benefit of the doubt and to not look for the worst in terms of other people's

00:34:45.020 intentions and so we know that if you analyze anger episodes for many people there is this distortion

00:34:51.680 and there's this sort of kind of looking for malicious intent in other people's actions

00:34:58.760 that that maybe isn't there and so that occurs for many people and we try to slow them down and get

00:35:05.160 them to think of you know what are some other possibilities maybe this person doesn't mean this

00:35:09.480 what might they mean okay so this uh looking at your thought patterns and kind of challenging it this is

00:35:15.220 the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy so this is one option right of managing anger but as you said

00:35:21.420 earlier you offer sort of like a menu of options so so you can find the one that works best for you

00:35:26.400 and another option you you highlight in the book is acceptance and commitment therapy and we've had

00:35:32.340 stephen hayes on the podcast a while ago yeah so but for those who aren't familiar like what is

00:35:37.180 acceptance and commitment therapy and how can that how can you apply that to anger so yeah this is an

00:35:42.940 approach that is helpful for many people and from an acceptance and commitment therapy perspective

00:35:48.860 angry behavior results from unskilled attempts to fulfill one's sort of personal values and cope with

00:35:55.020 their life's challenges right so this style of intervention incorporates elements of buddhist 0.62

00:36:00.540 philosophy it emphasizes mindful awareness and values based actions so just to get a little bit more

00:36:08.460 concrete about this the focus in this approach is not on eliminating or changing your thoughts and

00:36:13.820 feelings but rather learning to accept those thoughts and feelings as they are but acting in a way that

00:36:20.080 moves you in a productive direction and to do this often we have conversations with people

00:36:25.360 about their personal values right to establish kind of anchor points like how do you want to be as a

00:36:30.840 parent you know what what do you value do you want to be a a calm parent do you want to be a parent

00:36:35.840 that models productive behavior for your kids and so i i think that in this approach there is this idea that

00:36:45.220 people do not have to act on every thought emotion and urge in fact during a typical day all of us have

00:36:51.900 impulses that we don't automatically translate into behaviors such as i'm hungry we might think i wish

00:36:59.200 he'd shut up or i'd love to take a nap right now or something like that right but from this perspective

00:37:03.480 the problem is less about the thoughts but it's more about the behavioral kind of expression and so what

00:37:10.720 we try to do here is we explore what clients want out of life so we sort of try to identify their values

00:37:16.160 and life priorities and by the way values are like big life directions that require ongoing attention

00:37:22.140 in your life you might value being a nurturing parent you might value being excellent at work or being

00:37:28.080 involved in your community but but i think that what we try to do here is explore to the degree to which

00:37:34.320 your everyday decisions are consistent with what you say your core values are right and so that means

00:37:39.500 kind of fostering values based actions and so what we're trying to do is align people's everyday

00:37:46.500 behaviors with the things that they value most in life and from a acceptance and commitment

00:37:51.180 therapy standpoint a meaningful life is sort of defined by living in accordance with what you value

00:37:57.060 often your angry reactions are the opposite of that yeah so again i think the point to reiterate here

00:38:03.460 is that these are options so if you try the cbt route the cognitive behavioral therapy where you're

00:38:08.120 challenging angry thought patterns maybe that works for you for some people it doesn't it kind of there's

00:38:14.200 like a backfire effect the more they fight it the stronger the thought pattern becomes it's like okay

00:38:19.320 i'll try acceptance and commitment therapy maybe that will help me manage my anger so again i think

00:38:24.100 there's no silver bullet here you have to experiment and try to figure out what what works for you

00:38:28.880 absolutely and there's a whole range of options and it you know this is actually a big area we could

00:38:33.820 talk for hours about the different types of interventions that people have we've just touched

00:38:37.600 on a few of them there's definitely more than one way to work on reducing your anger and improving your

00:38:45.720 effectiveness in the world one thing you mentioned the book is this idea of exposure therapy and i think

00:38:51.080 we've heard people talk about exposure therapy with like phobias and extreme anxieties so the idea is

00:38:55.780 if you have a fear of spiders then you kind of gradually expose yourself to spiders to the point

00:39:01.980 where you no longer like you kind of extinguish the fear how does this work with anger how can you use

00:39:07.400 exposure therapy just you put yourself in angry situations like what do you do here yeah exposure

00:39:11.920 practice is one of the more attention grabbing techniques yeah and so you you know i think when

00:39:18.120 you if you want to understand exposure the idea might be this if on the on the anxiety side if you

00:39:25.040 watch a scary movie and you feel some kind of anxiety watching the movie what would happen if you saw the

00:39:30.460 movie 10 times yeah not scary okay right i know it's coming yeah so the idea here is that you know

00:39:37.880 we want people to practice new skills right in their lives and it's one thing to maybe practice your

00:39:44.020 tennis serve against the wall in a gym but it's another to have a real live opponent kind of hit the

00:39:50.540 ball back at you and so with exposure we're trying to give people the opportunity for simulations and

00:39:56.340 practice and there's different ways to to do exposure techniques one way to do it is to sort of send people

00:40:04.500 out to do exposure type of assignments and so i'll try to describe this briefly but we have people sort of

00:40:12.800 spend some time thinking about and imagining maybe some real life anger scenarios and think about the things

00:40:19.160 that people might say that typically trigger your anger reactions in those situations the second step is to

00:40:26.140 sort of practice some relaxation techniques there's different sort of ways to kind of tense and release

00:40:32.280 your muscles practice breathing techniques sometimes we ask people to practice coping statements in

00:40:38.420 response to some of these triggers that means what can you say to yourself in your mind that would

00:40:42.480 lead to less anger so like if someone cuts you off you can say you know what bad drivers exist i'm not

00:40:47.220 the policeman of the universe i'm going to let it go but the final step is to transfer whatever skill

00:40:53.360 you're practicing whether it's breathing staying calm coming up with a new statement in your head

00:40:58.240 is to transfer this to real life and the goal is to get to the point where you can intentionally put

00:41:03.220 yourself in some of these situations and handle yourself with less anger it's that practice makes

00:41:09.240 automatic idea again right but essentially we try to get people to the place where they can do a live

00:41:14.440 practice round now i do need to say that it's important not to react to your anger triggers by making

00:41:19.640 anger statements and using provocative body language and gestures and your goal is to tolerate triggering

00:41:24.340 situations stay calm while hearing things you don't like then try to exit gracefully right and so this

00:41:30.260 could be done with a difficult topic with your kids or maybe a partner interacting with a co-worker

00:41:35.680 dealing with the rude salesperson the goal is always the same stay calm keep your angry autopilot response

00:41:41.900 turned off use your new coping skills and try to try to make a graceful exit so when people do this

00:41:48.800 we ask them to gauge what went well and what could they do to improve this right and we ask people

00:41:52.940 to start small don't pick a situation that if it goes poorly it'll result in like a significant loss

00:41:57.600 like you'll lose your job if you you know put yourself in a situation with a critical supervisor

00:42:02.400 and if you don't think you can deal with a difficult situation then you may need to spend more time

00:42:06.420 practicing and imagination and if people think that facing a particular situation in real life is

00:42:11.160 likely to result in a significant problem or loss then maybe skip the live practice and and think about

00:42:16.620 getting some professional guidance okay so the idea is just again we're trying to minimize the intensity

00:42:22.680 of anger and how and minimize the response that we we have when we we have that anger yeah and take

00:42:29.180 new skills out for a test drive actually try them out yeah try them out and you know it's funny as as i've

00:42:35.540 had this listen to our conversation and whenever i've talked to other psychologists about how to manage you

00:42:41.840 know emotions strong emotions i always keep on i'm sure my listeners are tired of hearing this but i'm

00:42:46.960 like this sounds like aristotle aristotle had this down 2500 years ago you know he you know when you

00:42:53.760 speak of anger aristotle would say anger's not good or bad it's good if you express it in the right way

00:43:01.000 at the right time for the right reason the right intensity if you don't do that then then anger is bad

00:43:06.880 it can become maladaptive and like that's what you were saying like anger is not necessarily bad it can

00:43:11.460 just becomes bad when you express it too much or in the wrong place at the wrong time and then

00:43:15.920 aristotle also talked about okay well how do you how do you learn how to manage your anger well he says

00:43:21.060 well you practice it that's only you you have to you can't just think about it you actually have to

00:43:24.640 to practice the virtue of managing your anger so i always think that's interesting whenever i talk

00:43:30.700 like well man aristotle got it right yeah the um early philosophers did get it right and so they they

00:43:36.620 wrote about anger as something that can get out of hand and derail people's lives and also be a

00:43:43.640 destructive force for societies and nations and that to to live a truly effective life meant that

00:43:50.440 you know you had to sort of master your own anger reactions well chip this has been a great

00:43:55.760 conversation is there some place people can go to learn more about the book in your work

00:43:58.860 yeah people can get the book it's called anger management for everyone

00:44:03.240 10 proven strategies to control anger and live a happier life it's an inexpensive paperback and you

00:44:09.160 can find it on amazon also howie kazanov and i developed a comprehensive online udemy program

00:44:15.840 called anger management for any situations 10 ways to control anger fantastic well chip trefady thanks for

00:44:22.020 your time it's been a pleasure thank you for having me my guest today was dr chip trefady he is the author

00:44:27.180 of the book anger management for everyone it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere

00:44:30.920 check out our show notes at aom.is slash anger where you find links to resources where you delve

00:44:34.900 deeper into this topic

00:44:35.840 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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The Art of Manliness - May 25, 2022

How to Get Your Anger Under Control

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