Anger: Part I
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
In order to discuss anger management, it is important to know exactly what we’re trying to manage. Everyone gets angry. In fact, to repress anger is unhealthy (Hankins and Hankins, 1988); also, see “IV. Scientific and Medical Findings.” But what exactly is it? We’ve all felt it. But do we recognize it? As Mr. Shakespeare illustrates, perception is key. Someone coming from a strictly and typically Midwestern American background might be more convinced upon first encountering a “discussion” of those from a classically Italian cultural background, that he was witnessing or experiencing the expression of “anger.” Raised voices, passionate viewpoints, gesticulations…he or she would recognize all these things as anger. And they certainly might be, in the context of his cultural upbringing. However, they wouldn’t necessarily be expressions of anger to a person from an Italian background, for these expressions are not always seen in Italian culture as anger.
The New World Dictionary (2000) defines anger as, “A feeling of displeasure resulting from injury, mistreatment, opposition, etc., and usually showing itself in a desire to fight back at the supposed cause of this feeling.” Every working definition of anger recognizes and defines it as a “feeling” and/or “emotion.” And, within this New World Dictionary definition, anger is recognized as an essential emotion (Ellis, 1992; Luhn 1992; Gaylin 1984). In fact, most mental health experts agree that anger has been a necessary tool in man’s evolution and development. It is an instinct of self-preservation. Without anger, one retreats to passivity in the face of opposition (Rubin, 1997). Passivity would, evolutionally speaking, lead to the loss of livestock, land, food and freedom-elements essential to survival, civilization and ultimately the establishment of “leisure time” (time not spent in the pursuit of food and shelter), which permits education and the development of higher faculties. If we return to our dictionary, we see that the word “anger” evolved from the Old Norse, Greek and German words meaning “constriction,” “strangulation” and “fear.” Obviously, as civilization and language developed, the word had connotations honestly derived from the causative feelings and the of the anger experience.
We recognize anger internally in ourselves as a feeling or emotion, but anger more often is seen, felt and talked about in terms of an action and its consequences. In a more modern context, we can extend the previous metaphor to see that anger could be a stimulus that encourages one to pursue better wages, more desirable jobs, deeper relationships and opportunities for inner growth or self-expression because, in short, anger prompts us not to accede as a victim to a particular situation.
The reasoning behind this is best chronicled by Gaylin in The Rage Within (1984). Though most serious works on anger management give at least passing reference to anger’s roots in the “fight or flight” evolutionary development, Gaylin extensively and allegorically explains it at the primal state, rather than jumping in and building of the reader’s supposed and perhaps faulty understanding of “fight or flight.” According to Gaylin, “Rage and fear are ‘emergency emotions’ established biologically to protect us from danger when the meaning and nature of ‘danger’ were unequivocal.” The body physically reacts to a threat with an autonomic biological response readying for a frontal assault. Muscles, functions, secretions, hormones, chemicals…all react instinctively and automatically to our perception of threat or danger. But while the threat and danger response remains unchanged from its primitive origin, the more civilized threats and dangers of today are usually far from what we can call “life threatening.”
Nevertheless, anger remains with us for the primary reason that we retain a sense of threat and danger from multiple and perhaps evolving sources and for a myriad of reasons. We are left with a set of biological mechanisms, that left unchecked, unmanaged, actually diminish rather than enhance our chance of survival. The “animal” becomes armed for assault…but assault on what? We rarely face the object of our anger but rather it’s agent: the boss’s memo…the clerk following manager policy…a television report about crime or terrorism. If one becomes fixated on the object or the object’s agent as a particular person or group of people, then the potential for seriously hurtful and abusive relationships presides. The good news is that intelligence can be an alternative to fixed instinct. The bad news is that emotions can distort the memory and perception of the event that triggers it. Anger is linked to associative emotions and feelings of fear, rage, false pride, jealousies, depression, anxiety et. al. along with causative feelings of betrayal, self-doubt, disapproval, deprivation, manipulation and the like (Ellis 1992, Gaylin 1984, Rubin 1997, Valentis 1994). Each of these sources also indicate that the perceived presence of any of these associations can make the most mundane environment seem more hazardous, and thus—a threat.
The anger emotion may be an important and necessary thing, but it is not necessarily a positive experience—unless it can be managed positively. “To repress anger is unhealthy and yet to express it impulsively…may give momentary relief but will inevitably carry negative consequences.” (McKenzie, http://www.SelfHelpMagazine.com/articles/growth/anger.html, 9/14/2004). Unmanaged anger can be linked to other emotions such as false pride and jealousies (Ellis, 1992), senses of betrayal, deprivation, disapproval and the like (Gaylin, 1984) that begin to overtly or covertly influence one’s actions. Underscoring this point, note that the dictionary carefully and expressly points at “…the supposed cause of this feeling,” indicating, again, the importance of perception.
“Fear and anger were designed to serve as responses to threats to our survival…not [affronts] to our pride, status, position, manhood or dignity… We respond to an affront with biological defenses appropriate for assaults. We experience these assaults as though they were threats to our survival.” (Gaylin, 1984). This crucial linkage between the biological “emergency response system” and our emotional perception of events is hardly a new or recent phenomenon. It has, not surprisingly, roots and a history as old as civilization itself. For as much as it was a necessary component to our becoming civilized, anger has also infringed upon our civilization when it rules unconsciously with obsolete and unnecessarily counterproductive behaviors.