John was a successful businessman in his late thirties. He came for therapy sessions after a major outburst with a colleague at work. Apparently, this was the latest in a long line of incidents.
Over the course of the next several weeks, our psychotherapist worked with John on what it feels like to be angry. He provided him with educational materials about what happens biologically in the body when we become angry and how it affects blood pressure, heart rate and the “fight or flight” instinctual response. He also helped him to identify what his response was to those biological urges when he became angry.
The psychotherapist also assigned homework for John to complete between sessions. He asked him to keep a log of every time he became angry for a week. John was shocked to discover that he got angry almost every day and usually several times each day. Although he knew he had a problem, he had not thought it was all that bad. Now he had it facing him in black and white.
As the psychotherapist helped John become more self-aware, John began to change his reactions when he became angry. The psychotherapist taught him alternative behaviours that were more healthy for him and for the person he was angry at. He taught him how to be responsible for his own feelings by using “I” statements that identified his feelings to the person he was talking to. He also talked to him about the difference between being aggressive and being assertive.
At the end of eight weeks of therapy sessions, John was able to understand how to identify when he was getting angry and engage in alternative behaviours that were healthier for everyone involved.