Explosions into Anger

How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People

By Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D.

What Are Anger Control Problems?

Anger control problems are like this : Nobody can define them, but everybody knows them when they see them. In public, everyone is against excessive anger, but a surprising number of people indulge in it in the privacy of their own minds.

To understand what anger control problems are and how to deal with them, more instructive than a list of symptoms is a discussion of why there is no official list of symptoms to discuss.

In many ways, anger control problems are the mirror image of other psychiatric disorders. Those afflicted usually don't think there's anything wrong with them. This is quite different from fear and depression. Unlike other disorders, anger control problems are defined less bu what the people who have them are experiencing, and more by the effect their experience has on us.

The words and action may be disparate, the one thing all these people have in common is the negative emotional response their behaviors elicit. Angry people make us angry at them. Anger, unlike other mental disorders, is highly contagious, and one of its most salient symptoms is not realizing that you have it.

If you think the people in the examples make you afraid rather than angry, you know what I mean about not realizing, or are about to find out. The differences between anger and fear are more semantic than psychological. Choosing one state over the other means that to you, the distinction between anger and fear is clearer than it actually is in reality. This is a polite way of saying you're in denial.

You are not alone. The words we use to describe our own experience are different, more varied, and often more positive than those we use to describe that of other people. They may be angry, but we are afraid. Or hurt, upset, irritated, out of sorts, or perhaps premenstrual. We can almost fool ourselves into believing that we're talking about different emotional states entirely. But why do we need to do this?

We need to do it because anger is inseparable from morality. People get angry because other people are not doing what they're supposed to do.

Many people who suffer from mental illnesses use different substances. Photograph by Elena.

Brandon, who you probably guessed was driving the pickup truck, believes that you insulted him by making a big stink over his perfectly reasonable request to be allowed into the line of traffic.

David believes that punctuality is one of the many ultimate measures of love. If you're late, he feels abandoned.

Jenna is adamant that anything short of a perfect product – meaning that something is done exactly the way she would – constitutes lack of proper respect to the firm and to her. She takes every deviation personally.

Zack would say that toasters should work correctly or suffer the consequences. Brittany would say that nobody has the right to tell her what to do.

Of course they're wrong. But before you try and convince them, wait. You're about to step into their world, where everything is clearer and in sharper contrast than in ours. Over there, it's so much easier to tell the difference between right and wrong.

Anger involves an almost hopeless intertwining of morality and psychology, yet our only hope for communicating effectively with angry people lies in being able to separate the two. The reason there is no diagnostic category for anger control problems is that mental health people can't decide whether angry people are sick of just bad. Sick people are entitled to sympathy and treatment. Bad people deserve punishment. Grudgingly, we insert not guilty by reason of insanity between the two, but that's for people who are really crazy. Where do we put people who are convinced they're fine but whose actions drive everybody else crazy?

Enter the personality disorder, which today is diagnosed along a separate axis from more genteel problems like anxiety and depression. According to the DSM-IV, a personality disorder is “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture.” The pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:

1. Ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events.
2. Range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response
3. Interpersonal functioning
4. Impulse control

We can't be sure about what happens in our brains when we suffer from anger. Illustration by Elena.

Isn't this a remarkably civilized way of saying “bad”? The trait that supposedly distinguishes people with personality disorders from those who are normal is disturbed object relations, which means treating people not as people, but as objects to supply one's own needs. I've never met anyone who doesn't do this to some degree, but most of us are not exploitative enough to meet the criteria for full-fledged personality disorder.

A good way to think about these disorders is as the unbridled pursuit of a single psychological goal- excitement, attention, affection, adulation, and control are the usual suspects – that feels as necessary as air and water. Personality disorders are like addiction, another mental disorder with moral overtones. Actually, they may be variations on a single theme. People with personality disorders are often addicted to various substances, and treatment for addiction usually involves the structured force-feeding of morality, which is similar to current treatments for personality disorders.

Personality disorders wound up in their own separate category because many psychiatrists believed that they weren't really medical disorders, meaning they couldn't be treated with drugs, and wouldn't improve much, even with years of expensive psychotherapy. Such attitudes are changing, but slowly. To this day, your medical insurance will not cover the treatment of personality disorders.

You may be wondering why we bother with these morally and chemically impaired people at all. There are, however, two problems with ridding ourselves of those exhibiting personality disorders. First, the symptoms of these disorders are pervasive if not universal. Every has them to a certain extent. Second, and more fiendishly ironic, is the fact that much of what makes people attractive and interesting bubbles up from the same dark source as personality disorders. People who don't want anything are dull. But our desires distort our perceptions, make us do things that aren't good for us, and mess up our relationships with other people. The question is: Does this make us mentally ill or human?

All of the above.

The elements of personality disorders – yours, mine, and theirs = keep life interesting, sometimes to o interesting. They also keep me employed. If personality disorders didn't get in the way, anybody could have mental illness. Everybody would get along, and you could just tell people what to do to get better, and they would do it gratefully. A computer program could then handle the psychiatrist's job.

You can fight explosions into anger by different means. Photo by Elena.

Taking the Initiative

Taking the Initiative

Our basic nature is to act, and not to be acted upon. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances. Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.

Over the years, I have frequently counseled people who wanted better jobs to show more initiative – to take interest and aptitude tests, to study the industry, even the specific problems te organisations they are interested in are facing, and then to develop an effective presentation showing how their abilities can help solve the organisation's problem. It's called « solution selling », and is a key paradigm in business success.

The response is usually agrement – most people can see how powerfully such an approach would affect their opportunities for employment or advancement. But many of them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen.

« I don't know where to go to take the interest and aptitude tests, to study the industry, even the specific problems the organisations they are interested in are facing, and then to develop an effective presentation showing how their abilities can help solve the organisation's problem. It's called « solution selling, », and is a key paradigm in business success.

The response is usually agreement – most people can see how powerfully such an approach would affect their opportunities for employment or advancement. But many of them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen.

Don't look like a stone, be active. Photo of Icelandic stones by Elena.

« I don't know where to go to take the interest and aptitude tests. »

« How do I study industry and organisational problems? No one wants to help me.»

« I don't have any idea how to make an effective presentation. »

Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done.

Whenever someone in our family, even one of the younger children, takes an irresponsible position and waits for someone else to make things happen or provide a solution, we tell them « Use your R and I » (resourcefulness and initiative). In fact, often before we can say it, the answer their own complaints, « I know – use my R and I! »

Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming. Proactivity is part of human nature, and, although the proactive muscles may be dormant, they are there. By respecting the proactive nature of other people, we provide them with at least one clear, undistorted reflection from the social mirror.

Of course, the maturity level of the individual has to be taken into account. We can't expect high creative cooperation from those who are deep into emotional dependence. But we can, at least, affirm their basic nature and create an atmosphere where people can seize opportunities and solve problems in an increasingly self-reliant way.

(From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey).

Suggestive dancing. Illustration by Elena.

All Nature Is Synergistic

All Nature Is Synergistic

Ecology is a word which basically describes the synergism in nature – everything is related to everything else. It's in the relationship that creative powers are maximized, just as the real power in these Seven Habits is in their relationship to each other, not just in the individual habits themselves.

The relationship of the parts is also the power in creating a synergetic culture inside a family or an organisation. The more genuine the involvement, the more sincere and sustained the participation in analyzing and solving problems, the greater the release of everyone's creativity, and of their commitment to what they create. This is the science of the power in the Japanese approach to business, which has changed the world marketplace.

Sinergy works; it's a correct principle. It is the crowning achievement of all the previous habits. It is effectiveness in an independent reality – it is teamwork, team building, the development interaction or the synergistic process itself, a great deal of synergy is within your Circle of Influence.

You own internal synergy is completely within the circle. You can respect both sides of your own nature – the analytical side and the creative side. You can value the difference between them and use that difference to catalyze creativity.

You can be synergistic within yourself even in the midst of a very adversarial environment. You don't have to take insults personally. You can sidestep negative energy; you can look for the good in others and utilize that good, as different as it may be, to improve your point of view and to enlarge your perspective.

I don"t design clothes, I design dreams (Ralph Lauren).

You can exercise the courage in interdependent situations to be open, to express your ideas, your feelings, and your experiences in a way that will encourage other people to be open also.

You can value the difference in other people. When someone disagrees with you, you can say, “Good! 

You see it differently.” You don't have to agree with them' you can simply affirm them. And you can seek to understand.

When you see only two alternatives – yours and the “wrong” one – you can look for a synergistic third alternative. There's almost always a third alternative, and if you work with a Win/Win philosophy and really seek to understand, you usually can find a solution that will be better for everyone concerned.

Application Suggestions

1. Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.
2. Make a list of people who irritate you. Do they represent different views that could lead to synergy if you had greater intrinsic security and valued the difference?
3. Identity a situation in which you desire greater teamwork and synergy. What conditions would need to exist to support synergy?  What can you do to create those conditions? 
4. The next time you have a disagreement of confrontation with someone, attempts to understand the concerns underlying that persons's position. Address those concerns in a creative and mutually beneficial way.

(By Stephen R. Covey. The 7 habits of highly Effective People).

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... I am tempted to think... there are no little things. (Bruce Barton).

Proactivity Defined

Proactivity Defined

While the word « proactivity is now fairly common in management literature, it is a word you won't find in most dictionaries. It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feeling to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make thing happen.

Look at the word « responsibility » - « response – ability » the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feelings.

Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default chosen to empower those things to control us.

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn't a function of whether the weather is conductive to it or not.

We have all known individuals in very difficult circumstances, perhaps with a terminal illness or a severe physical handicap, who maintain magnificent emotional strength. Illustration by Elena.

Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the « social weather ». When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don't, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weakness of other people to control them.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values – carefully thought about, selected and internalzied values.

Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social or psychological. But their response to the stimuly, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.

As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, «No one can hurt you without your consent». In the words of Gandhi, «They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.» It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place.

I admit this is very hard to accept emotionally, especially if we have had years and years of explaining our misery in the name of circumstance or someone else's behavior. But until a person can say deeply and honestly, «I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,» that person cannot say, «I choose otherwise.»

It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

(The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Powerful lessons in personal change. By Stephen R. Covey).

Proactive model: Stimulus — Response — Freedom to choose — self-awareness — independent will — imagination — conscience. Illustration by Elena.

Pirate by Clive Clusser and Robin Burcell

Pirate

By Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell

Sam decided that their overnight trip to the Inn at Spanish Bay and dinner at Roy's on the Monterey Peninsula would have to wait for another day. He contacted his flight crew and had them fly back to San Francisco from the airport in Monterey. Remi was too worried over not being able to in touch with Bree. That, along with this morning's events, had put a damper on Sam's plans for the week. Within a few hours, they were at cruising altitude aboard their G650, relaxing to the soothing allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh. Remi had received a text from Selma that the book arrived this morning in “fairly good shape”, and other than some minor damage to the inside cover, possibly from being jostled during shipping, there was nothing that stood out. No keys or anything else packed with it.

Even with Selma's text, Remi seemed restless. Sam saw her check her phone, then return it to the table, a look of frustration on her face, no doubt hoping to hear from her friend. He wished he could ease her worry. He didn't know Bree Marshall well, but Remi had worked quite closely with her these last few weeks and had grown fond of the young woman.

xx

When they arrived at the San Diego Airport, the drove straight to Bree's apartment in La Jolla. She lived on the second story in a complex about two miles inland. Palm trees lined the parking lot, the offshore breeze rustling the fronds above them. Sam and Remi climbed the stairs, Remi ringing the doorbell, waiting a few seconds, then trying again. When no one answered, Sam knocked sharply. The door behind them opened, and a blond-haired woman poked her head out. “No one's home.”

Going on a treasure hunt. X marks the spot. Photo ob Bahamas by Elena.

“Any chance you know how to reach Bree? Remi asked.

"You are...?”

“Remi Fargo. My husband, Sam. We work...”

“That Foundation. I've heard her mention her job there,” she said, opening the door wider, eyeing both of them. “Just wanted to make sure you weren't some random strangers. She took off suddenly.”

“When?” Remi asked.

“Late last night. I was just getting home, and she was running down the stairs, saying something about her uncle. Going to see him, I think.”

Sam pulled out his wallet, took a business card from it, and handed it to her. “If you hear from her, ask her to give us a call?” It's very important.”

“Of course. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.”

In the car, Sam glanced over at his wife. “She's probably already in San Francisco.”

“I'm sure you're right. I just hate to think how awful this must be for her.”

“She has our number. She'll call. In the meantime, let's go home, check in with Selma, and take a look at this book Mr. Pickering wrapped up for you.”

They lived just a few miles away in the hills of La Jolla's Goldfish Point, overlooking the ocean. The moment they stepped inside from the garage, their massive German shepherd Zoltan, the only Eastern European bilingual dog in the neighborhood (he knew only Hungarian commands), bounded down the hallway toward them, his nails clicking on the tumbled-marble tile floor as he skidded to a stop in from of Remi and Sam.