In the United States, a large number of citizens suffer from clinically significant levels of anger dysregulation, with rates of chronic anger possibly as high as three to five percent and episodic aggression even higher (Deffenbacher, Oetting, & DiGiuseppe, 2002; O’Leary et al., 1989; U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2001). Deciphering the actual prevalence of clinical anger, however, is somewhat difficult due to the strong comorbidity of anger dysregulation with other forms of psychopathology (e.g. Borderline Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, etc; Beck & Fernandez, 1998).
While anger is, as previously mentioned, actually normative and sometimes even appropriate, anger seems to connote negativity in our American culture (Tangney, 1996). Part of the confusion may be that anger is a broad and ambiguous term that can communicate a range of feelings and thoughts from frustration to violent intent. To successfully study clinical anger requires a discriminating definition that allows researchers and therapists to tease apart individuals who are experiencing normative verse non-normative anger.
A useful distinction between positive and negative aspects of anger is to note the difference between the emotional state which might be labeled as angry, and the negative expression of that angry state, which might be termed aggression (Gottman & Levenson,1992; Novaco, 1983). When clients receive therapy for anger management (also called stress inoculation therapy) it is meant that they have a difficulty inhibiting inappropriate negative responses, or that they have a propensity to express their anger through negative modalities. Therefore, anger management implies that therapy will target increased awareness of our emotional state of anger, a greater understanding of anger processes, and control or regulation over our emotional experiences.
Multiple factors, including biological predispositions, systemic and societal modeling, poverty, affective disturbance, and psychological disorders are all contributory to the problem of anger dysregulation (Garbarino, 1995). Undiagnosed and untreated, these individuals often find themselves in legal, and/or relational troubles, secondary to physical aggression (Beck & Fernandez, 1998).
-Heath Sommer
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