- •Titles in the series include:
- •Overcoming anger and irritability a self-help guide using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques william davies
- •Isbn 978-1-84901-131-0
- •Table of contents
- •Acknowledgements
- •Introduction
- •Part one Understanding What Happens
- •What are irritability and anger?
- •Irritants, costs and transgressions
- •Irritants
- •What makes us angry?
- •Why am I not angry all the time?
- •Internal and external inhibitions
- •Inhibitions as brakes on anger
- •Constructing a system to explain irritability and anger
- •Figure 4.1 Kept waiting in hospital
- •Figure 4.2 Mug breaks on floor
- •Figure 4.3 Door left open in bar
- •Why don’t other people feel angry at thethings that bug me?
- •Figure 5.1 Kept waiting in hospital
- •Figure 5.2 Mug breaks on floor
- •Figure 5.3 Door left open in bar
- •Why isn’t everybody irritated by the same things?
- •Figure 6.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Why am I sometimes more irritable than at other times?
- •Figure 7.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Is it always wrong to be angry?
- •Figure 8.1 The traditional inverted u-curve
- •Figure 8.2 Graph showing effective anger
- •Part two Sorting It Out
- •Getting a handle on the problem: The trigger
- •Figure 9.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Why do I get angry? 1: Appraisal/judgement
- •Figure 10.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Identify and remove ‘errors’ of judgement
- •Why do I get angry? 2: Beliefs
- •Figure 11.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Cats, camels and recreation: Anger
- •Figure 12.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Putting the brakes on: Inhibitions
- •Figure 13.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Internal and external inhibitions
- •1 Steve at the bar
- •2 Ian dropping mug on floor, irritates Sue
- •3 Vicky tells of Danny and her underwear
- •4 Anne finds her daughter in the bath rather than tidying her bedroom
- •The bottom line: Response
- •Figure 14.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •‘But I’m not always irritable, just sometimes’: Mood
- •Figure 15.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Item Average caffeine content (mg)
- •Illness
- •Testing your knowledge
- •Figure 16.1 a model for analyzing irritability and anger
- •Good Luck!
- •Appendix
- •Useful Resources
- •Institute for Behavior Therapy
Figure 4.3 Door left open in bar
This concept of anger building up to the point where it overflows is an important one. Adrian, a senior salesman, told me the how he was repeatedly away from home on business, jetting around the world to various exotic destinations for weeks on end. While he was away his very attractive young wife Jenny took to having one affair after another. Gradually Adrian became suspicious and, after he had confronted her several times, Jenny admitted what had been going on. Though obviously hurt, Adrian thought he could cope and put it to his wife that so long as she told him everything he would be prepared to make a fresh start. So, through the course of the evening, Jenny confessed to the four affairs she had had. She went slowly and tactfully, and Adrian was able gradually to come to terms with what had happened. They went to bed, resolved that they could put it all behind them and make a fresh start.
But Jenny had remembered a fifth affair, and when they woke up the following morning, in the spirit of making a clean breast of everything, she confessed it. For Adrian, this was enough to make the bucket overflow, and they divorced.
What makes you angry?
By now you should be able to start making a tentative analysis of what makes you irritable and angry.
You may well be able to identify several triggers; for most people there is more than one thing that makes them angry.
You may even be able to quantify the amount of anger that each trigger typically produces, perhaps using a ten-point scale where 10 out of 10 is the angriest you could ever be!
Maybe you can identify what inhibitions come into play: both your internal inhibitions (the personal morality and rules you have for your own behavior) and the external inhibitions (consequences that may befall you if you over-react).
You may also be able to reflect upon the various responses you have made in the past when these triggers have set off your anger.
There is no need to do all that at this stage unless you want to; later on we will look at how to analyze these elements carefully, and what to do once you’ve analyzed them. It can be very rewarding work. But for now it may be useful to consider the kinds of questions we will be asking.
SUMMARY
We can construct a realistic model which explains how anger and our subsequent reactions to it come about.
It is well worth doing this because we can then analyze both our own actions and reactions, and those of others. Armed with this awareness, we can then intervene to lessen the anger we experience – and, moreover, to alter the responses we produce. It is those responses that people normally refer to as our ‘irritability’ or ‘anger’.
We will be developing this model as we go on through this book. The key headings so far are: the trigger (what triggers our anger); the anger itself (which can gradually build up, like increasing amounts of water being poured into a bucket); inhibitions (which stop us constantly giving vent to our anger); and the response (which can range from nothing at all, when we completely control our anger, through to catastrophic responses when we totally fail to control it.)
Importantly, there is no need to let our anger out’. Very often, letting our anger out’ simply makes it worse. Better to let it slowly seep away, like water running out from a leaky bucket.
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