Life Topics

Understanding Your Anger
By Charles W. Schraub, M.Div, LCSW

Some of us are certainly more angry than others. We feel that surge of adrenalin at the slightest provocation. It’s commonly believed that the degree with which we experience or do not experience this common emotion is a product of our genetics and chemical makeup, but the way we handle and express our anger is a learned reality. Anger, both expressed and silent, has an electric-like energy, stimulating everyone in the vicinity. Whether we feel the need to walk on eggs in the presence of an angry person or not is often not related at all to the degree of anger, but rather to the way the anger is expressed. Anger is a healthy human emotion that is essential in all good relationships. The key to healthy anger is learning how to responsibly express your feelings. The first step in that process is to know and understand how you express your own anger. Neil Warner categorizes people who lack self-awareness or the skills needed to express anger in a healthy way into four anger-management types based on the behaviors they typically employ.

1. Somatizer. The word soma means body and somatizers repress and keep their feelings inside. Somatizers may feel afraid of rejection and loss of approval. Their anger is expressed through their body in physical symptoms such as headaches, ulcers, and extreme fatigue.

2. Self-punishers. This passive anger style is channeled into guilt. Self-punishers get angry at themselves for getting angry at others. They punish themselves with control measures that reinforce their guilt by lowering their self-esteem. They may misuse alcohol, money, food, and dress in syles that are self-esteem deflating.

3. Exploders. Exploders rage at the world and anything in their path. They may be verbally, physically, or emotionally abusive. Exploders often have a stockpile of anger and they displace it on the nearest object who is usually someone close to them. Exploders may feel very unlovable and use their anger to control people through manipulation and fear.

4. Underhanders. Underhanders target their aggression toward the object of their anger but in an indirect and underhanded way. Underhanders seek revenge for injustices to their egos and try to sabotage their “enemy” with little acts of aggression such as coming late to a meeting or date, being sarcastic and overbearing in communication, and being defensive when confronted. Underhanders see themselves as victims who are doing the best they can.

At some point most of us use some forms of these unhealthy anger styles. It is important to identify your dominant style. If you want to know the truth regarding your anger style, ask someone who knows you well and be prepared to accept the answer in a non-defensive manner.