Q: Why should I attend anger management classes?

A: Anger management classes are the most underutilized resources in the criminal justice system.  If conducted properly, anger management will give you a great deal of insight into why you do what you do.

IT IS NOT ABOUT THE ANGER

                Often times when a person is convicted of some type of family violence, the judge will sentence the person to attend anger management classes, in an effort to help the person learn skills to diffuse or redirect anger, and learn more constructive ways to express anger.  If the person attending the classes is open to the instruction, then he will acquire some tools to diffuse his anger.  If he is really lucky, he will gain some insight into where his anger comes from. 

Anger is often a secondary emotion, which we jump to in order not to feel the pain or vulnerability of the initial emotion.  So, while there may be a great deal of anger in the workplace, at home, at school or on the internet, the anger comes from very different emotional places.  For example, when one person feels afraid, the fear is often quickly replaced by anger.  Fear is associated with being a victim, or being weak, while anger has the power of a victor.   Similarly, hopelessness is associated with being fragile or dependent.  So, the more hopeless a person feels, the more that emotion may demonstrate itself as anger.  Betrayal, shame, jealousy, almost any emotion that has a negative impact on a person’s emotional state can be replaced by anger.  The effect is to feel the anger, rather than the true emotion.

Here is the kicker:  Each person has one emotion that triggers the anger more than any other.  So, a person who was traumatized by the feeling of being abandoned as a child, converts his fear of abandonment to anger whenever he begins to feel that he might be abandoned.  So, you can clearly see, an argument between a 25 year old husband and a 23 year old wife, disagreeing about finances, can quickly escalate because while she is trying to establish some rules in order to improve their economic situation, his fear of abandonment is clouding his judgment and driving the argument.  They aren’t even arguing about the same thing.  In another example, a 28 year old husband traumatized by the feeling of being betrayed by a parent or guardian at 19 years old, reacts violently to his 25 year old wife suggesting that she wants to spend a weekend with girlfriends in Aruba, reacting not to her desire to spend time with friends, or his feelings of abandonment,  but the possibility that she might find someone else in the exotic locale, and betray him.

Because each person has a different trigger (e.g. jealousy, fear, shame, betrayal, helplessness), counseling is useful to help identify the trigger.  Once the trigger is identified, then each person can work on resolving the anger that grows from the emotion.  That resolution will probably lead to all types of emotional, intellectual and familial breakthroughs. 

By Lawrence Lewis - Felony Defense Attorney - Deposit Account Fraud Lawyer