Outbursts of anger can negatively affect different areas of our lives. Personal relationships deteriorate or break and work relationships may be affected and our employment may be compromised. Furthermore, outbursts of anger make situations worse, prevent proper communication, encourage aggression, and can affect our physical and mental health. That’s why in Psychology-Online we explain to you Why they occur and how to control angry outbursts.
What are angry outbursts?
Anger is an emotion normal that is adaptive in that it warns us that they are attacking our integrity, violating our rights or failing to satisfy our needs. However, when it takes over or is disproportionate to the damage suffered, we suffer an outburst of anger.
These outbursts of anger are harmful to ourselves and our environment. Not only do they deteriorate social relationships, with all that that entails, but they affect our mental health and usually also our physical health.
In the following article you will find more.
Causes of angry outbursts
As we have mentioned, anger appears when something frustrates us, hurts us or seems unfair. In these types of situations, the adaptive thing is to feel angry, hurt, frustrated or disappointed, but sometimes we feel rage, anger or fury. These reactions are fundamentally due to a series of erroneous or irrational beliefs about ourselves, others and the world in general, which we have adopted as true:
- “I must do things well and earn the approval of others. Otherwise, I am bad.” This belief often leads to anxiety, depression, shame, and guilt.
- “Others should treat me well. They must be kind and fair to me. They should treat me the way I want. Otherwise, they are bad and deserve punishment.” This belief leads to anger, passive aggression, and violence.
- “The world must give me what I want and not what I don’t want. Otherwise, it is terrible and I cannot bear it.” This belief leads to procrastination.
Understand that it is not possible to be perfect or demand that others be perfect, that we cannot please everyone and that things will not always turn out as we would like; It is the first step to respond adaptively and reduce angry outbursts.
How to control angry outbursts in adults
To learn to control our anger effectively and in the long term, we will work on our thoughts, since they are the cause of disproportionate reactions and it is in our hands to change them for rational and adaptive ones.
The rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT) by Albert Ellis provides excellent results. This technique proposes that an event (A) activates our thoughts or beliefs (B) that cause our emotions or behaviors (C). That is to say, it is not the event (A) that causes the emotions and behaviors (C), but rather our thoughts or beliefs (B) that cause them. And these thoughts and beliefs (B) can be modified.
The most common thoughts associated with the irrational beliefs that generate our anger are:
- Describe a situation as terrible. Ex: “It’s terrible that this happened to me.”
- Thinking that someone or something should be different from how it is. Ex: “I shouldn’t have done that”, “I shouldn’t act that way”.
- Thinking that what happened is unbearable or intolerable. For example: “it is intolerable that they treat me like this”, “I can’t stand that situation”.
- Generalize and label someone for a specific fact. Ex: “she has acted badly, so she is a bad person and should be punished.”
Once we identify irrational thoughts or beliefs, we must analyze if they are as true as we believe. Here you will find more information about the . Then we will replace them with other, more real and beneficial thoughts.
Little by little and with practice we will be able to modify these thoughts and we will have the necessary ability to calm down and react to an imminent outburst of anger. We will finally know how to manage our anger.
Other ideas for managing anger:
- Practice relaxation to reduce our activation when faced with an outburst of anger.
- Use humor to downplay the situation that generates anger in us.
- Practice changing your thoughts and relaxation by exposing ourselves to situations that provoke anger.
- Accept ourselves It will give us security and will also help us not be so affected by events that we do not like. The following article explains it.
- Time out. Get out of the situation that causes us anger, to reduce our activation, when possible.
How to control anger outbursts in children
The most important and at the same time the most difficult thing when faced with a minor’s outburst of anger is keep calm. Boys and girls learn by imitation. Furthermore, if we get angry or appear aggressive we will encourage a tantrum.
When the boy or girl calms down we will try to talk to him or her. We will ask what caused her anger and how she felt during and after the outburst. We must use words appropriate to her age.
Knowing what caused your anger will allow us to teach you alternative solutions that will make you feel better if a similar situation were to arise. Reinforcing acceptable behaviors maintains them.
Techniques that help children manage anger
We can teach the following techniques and strategies to children so that they learn to manage anger properly.
- Work on empathy. You can help yourself with dolls or comics while you tell how the protagonist is feeling.
- Channel your anger. Propose an activity that allows him to channel her anger into herself instead of against the things around him. It can be coloring, playing with plasticine… When they are older, writing about how they feel is highly recommended. In the following article you will find more information about .
- Relaxation training using age-appropriate techniques and doing it with them as a game
- Release tension through games or sports. Team sports also promote social relationships.
- emotional intelligence. Learning about different emotions will be useful to manage them.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Anger outbursts: why they occur and how to control themwe recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- Buela-Casal, G. Sierra, JC (2009). Manual of psychological evaluation and treatments. Madrid: New Library.
- Ellis, A. (2007). Control your anger before it controls you. Barcelona: Paidós.
- Vallejo Pareja, MA (1998). Behavior therapy manual. Madrid: Dykinson.