What Is the Connection Between Stress and Anger?

Why are we angry? How will children treat angry parents? Suppressing anger is bad for your health, so must you vent it? Authoritative experts in the United States tell you the true and credible reasons and scientific and reasonable response methods. This book helps you: understand the root causes of anger. Identify myths and misunderstandings about anger. Watch out for anger in the family and avoid letting children imitate. Master the five rules and three steps to controlling anger. ^[1]

Riding Negative Energy Series: Away from the Abyss of Rage

Preface Part I The Origin and Impact of Anger / 1
Chapter 1 The Origin of Anger / 3
What is anger / 6
When a person loses balance
Biological Basis of Anger / 10
How the growth environment affects expression of anger / 15
There is also anger in healthy families / 17
Chapter 2 Myths and Misunderstandings of Anger / 20
Anger in Ancient Literature / 21
Anger and Aggressiveness in Psychoanalytic Theory / 22
Different views on anger / 28
Science: A Binder of Various Theories / 31
Myths about anger: your thoughts can hurt you / 34
My wife and daughter also don't understand anger / 37
Chapter 3 Beware of Anger in the Family / 39
Anger and Identity / Imitation Process / 40
What do children think of angry parents / 42
Angry parents never think they are the wrong party
The paradox of punishment / 52
How can we not know that we are angry / 55
How angry childhood affects a lifetime's health / 56
Effectively control anger / 58
Part Two Breaks the Vicious Circle / 61
Chapter 4 Dr. Allen's Wrath Prescription / 63
An Effective Starting Point for Anger Control / 65
Rule 1: Just respond when angry, no need to fight back / 67
Rule two: Do nt believe rumors that you will explode without expressing anger / 71
Rule 3: Controlling anger is not easy, it will go up and down / 73
Rule 4: Breaking the cycle of family anger starts with parents
Rule 5: Do not threaten to leave or abandon each other when angry
Chapter 5 Step One: Identifying Bait / 84
Figuring out what makes you hooked / 86
Two decoys that begin with "no": unfair and inadequate / 89
Learn to identify things that provoke anger / 92
Value of decoy logbook / 95
Find out the small bait / 95
Find out the big bait / 99
What do you do
Chapter 6 Step Two: Identifying Requirements / 104
Respect and understanding / 106
Territorial issues / 117
Chapter 7 Step Three: Meeting Demands / 126
Review every event / 131
How to deal directly with demand / 133
The difference between selfishness and reasonable self-interest / 136
A useful tip: Mirror Reflection / 139
Review your needs often / 143
Chapter 8 Other Keys to Controlling Anger / 147
Setting aside the old bait and establishing new rules / 149
Suspended Value / 152
Isolated Art / 155
Denial: How to judge / 157
The danger of replacing anger / 159
Should you talk to others about your anger / 162
Whether Expectations Are Actual / 164
Controlling the "three don'ts" in anger / 165
Chapter 9 A New Beginning: The "Best Anger" Family / 168
Best change: back to an angry family again / 171
Flexibility: Anger Control Guide / 174
Best Practice: The Benefits of Open Discussion / 177
A Common Family Site Battle: Intergenerational Parenting / 180
The Final Stage of Anger Control: When You Should Let It Down / 184
Minimizes the possibility of anger after divorce / 185
"Three Solutions" under pressure / 192
postscript

After my psychotherapist said the unpleasant phrase-"Your voice sounds cold and ruthless", what are I doing now after years of exhaustive research on anger and its control? My 12-year-old daughter gave me a "good". When asked to rate me, my wife abstained. Once we were in Japan, she picked a robe and prepared it for her mother as a gift. "Why do you buy a robe?" I questioned her. "You know she never liked what you bought for her." My wife said nothing, and then I realized she needed someone to help her express her ideas So I stood by her side. "You want to buy, that's the reason. Even if she doesn't like it, you still want to bring her a gift. She's your mother." That's it. By standing by my wife in arguments, I help her learn how to express effectively Yourself. (A man full of anger inside will usually marry a soft-spoken, empathetic woman as his wife, as a form of compensation.)
In fact, I am still entangled by many angry thoughts and feelings. I care about fairness and excellence, and if I don't meet the requirements, I will still respond-usually at least a little bored. Injustice and inadequacy are omnipresent. However, I rarely succumb to the urge to "give someone a lesson" and I know it will not help. On the contrary, I don't express anger almost all the time.
The conditions that cause anger require adequate sensitivity and communication skills to resolve them, and these qualities are hard to come by when angry. So I waited; often, things got better or they didn't seem so important afterwards. When a problem does need to be discussed, I will try to choose a suitable time to raise it. Although it's not always easy, this has clearly become my "best" way to resolve conflicts.
Finding the "Holy Grail"
Writing this book was an intellectual challenge for me, and during the two years of writing this book, my perception of anger was constantly improving. I'm glad that I've remained calm during the adventures I'll talk about below.
My research on the relationship between anger, attack drive, and the principles of fluid mechanics brought me in contact with Dr. George Makari, my colleague at Cornell University, and a contemporary psychoanalyst He is also an expert in the history of Freud's thought. Dr. Macari suggested that I find a copy of Freud's Educational Background in Neurology, published in 1965 by Peter Amacher.
I looked it up in the catalog of the Will Cornell Medical Library and found it. But when I went to the shelf with the call number, the book was not there. When I told the librarian about it, she told me that the book was at the Rockefeller Library and we had permission to borrow it there. Early the next morning, I hurried to the Rockefeller Library, but my god, the book wasn't there either. "I made the same mistake when I came here for an interview," the cheerful librarian said frankly. "This is the Rockefeller Library in memory of Sloan Kettering Hospital. The library you are going to is across the street. , At Rockefeller University. "
With an indomitable spirit, on a cold windy day, I trek a few more blocks to reach the solemn Rockefeller University-it was built on a steep hillside, then walked into the founder's hall, in A security officer there asked me for an ID. After a quick glance, he said, "You don't have a bar code. You have to go to Cornell University Library to get one." Then, I went back to the cold wind, walked three blocks hard and got me. Bar code, and then back to the Rockefeller University Library, this time I can finally get in.
It was a huge cave-like open space, and the light was dim, but I eventually found a woman who was sitting behind something like bullet-proof glass. I gave her my ID, and she asked me if I had logged into the system. I suggested that maybe she could help me log in, and then I went to look for that book. She agreed quickly, and led me to a narrow staircase, let me go down to find it, the staircase seemed to lead to a dungeon. When I walked down the stairs, I found a huge room, and the sun was shining on a long row of books from the outside. I quickly found that precious pamphlet, next to a few books written by former NYU professors, where I studied psychoanalysis many years ago.
...
"The manager is not there," the manager's receptionist told me, "but his secretary may be able to help you." I met her on the way to Joanne's (secretary) 's office, and I did not calm down at that time and started to Hurry up to the hall. "Since we checked into the hotel last night, we have had a terrible life." I exclaimed, "Sorry, I was so angry, but it was really a bad experience."
Joanne asked me to sit in her office for a while, sympathized with me and was willing to "listen to her ears," she wrote down my complaints one by one. She apologized for the less satisfying dinner and offered to waive the bill. After listening to the question in the room, she said, "I'm sorry for your bad experience here. This is not always the style of our hotel, Dr. Allen, during your stay here, we A presidential suite will be provided for you and your family, you only have to pay the same price. This is the best room in our hotel, I believe you and your family will definitely enjoy it. The suite includes free breakfast, Teatime snacks and desserts after dinner, and you can become members of the fitness center for free. I am sorry that you have encountered so many problems before. I hope this will give you a compensation. "
Soon, our family moved into the duplex presidential suite, which has floor-to-ceiling windows that are more than 7 meters high, overlooking central Florida. The room includes a living room, a dining room, and a separate bedroom for my daughter. There is a jacuzzi and a TV in both marble bathrooms. My anger quickly disappeared because our vacation was really on track.
Note that in this example, I didn't yell at anyone. (Well, when I learned that the manager was away, my tone might be a little gloomy.) I even apologized for my anger, realizing it would be unpleasant, and I made no demands. Although there is no guarantee that help will be provided in the future, when someone complains, most people will still help, as long as they can do it. The lady in the room service department does not have the authority to help us much. However, the higher a person's position in the organization, the more actions can be taken. Generally speaking, it is best to deal with the highest level of people as possible.
In this way, this unpleasant experience at first turned into a successful example of anger control. It's a win-win situation for everyone. If we go to Orlando again, our family will probably stay in that hotel. And we really enjoyed our luxurious suites and the rest of our vacation.
One last point: I mentioned this success story to my daughter Sara, and wanted to raise my level of anger control from "good" to "excellent". "No way, Dad!" She didn't budge. I hope that I will continue to hone my skills and strive to become a better practitioner before this book is republished.

"Your voice sounds ruthless." This is what the supervisor said when he heard one of my earliest case recordings. I cannot deny this. My voice sounded so mean and a little helpless at the time. Part of the reason I work in psychology is to ease the emotional harm I suffered during my childhood. I was scared of my father's tantrums since he was a child. He would suddenly become furious, anytime, anywhere, without warning. I remember when I was about 10 years old, he accidentally hammered his thumb, and then yelled, and a strong anger hit me like a typhoon. However, when I was a graduate student, after a few years of psychological treatment, my tone of speech was almost the same as that of my father, just as cold and ruthless, only to a lesser extent.
Mother and sister also struggled in the shadow of father's fretful irritability, the threat of being abandoned has been flooding all corners of the home. My mother lacked sufficient livelihood skills and never dared to talk back to her husband, because she was afraid that her father would abandon us and leave, just like her brother-in-law did. I can hardly imagine how my mother lived through those years. As long as my father is a little uncomfortable, he can become furious at any time, and we can't know in advance what it means to "submit his will." One night, after making a big business, he was so disappointed that he threw the dinner directly from the restaurant into the living room, insisting on eating steak every night. After such a big eruption, the house was shrouded in silence for several days, until one day the atmosphere gradually eased. The easing of the atmosphere, like the outbreak, came without warning.
At that time I was about 25 years old. As a fledgling clinical psychologist, I had a severe voice. What should I do? I chose to continue my work in psychotherapy. I kept up with the trend of the times and became a prodigal who was not subject to worldly restrictions. I supported free love and refused to acknowledge my anger. At that time, my girlfriends had left me one after another, and they complained that I was a bitter person. But I can hardly believe what they say. One of the important points of our own anger is that we always make excuses for our actions and push the responsibility to others-"I wouldn't be angry unless you did those things."
My father's manic and irritable personality led me into the world of cardiology inadvertently. He had a first heart attack at the age of 46, and I hope to avoid the same fate as him. In 1981, I made my first trip to San Francisco, where I met Dr. Meyer Friedman, a cardiologist and one of the founders of the "Type A Behavior" theory. Dr. Friedman's study provides, for the first time, data demonstrating that heart disease is related to stress. At the Meyer Friedman Institute, I quickly learned that "emergency" or hostility that is easily provoked is one of the two main symptoms of type A behavior (the other is "a sense of urgency "--Too much to do in too short a time). Some people will take the opportunity to vent their anger with a little pressure.
The word "stress" generally refers to something that happened outside of us. How to deal with major stressful events becomes a core part of personal psychological state, such as unemployment or loss of loved ones, as well as some more common and frequent stressors, such as disagreement with children. In other words, some people, including me, are typical examples of situations where anger is used to cope with external stressful situations. Indeed, when the situation is unsatisfactory, I often perceive the inner monologue lingering in my head, angry and abusive.
In my psychotherapy practice and daily life, I find that I am far from the only person in this world with anger issues. When I encounter setbacks, many of us tend to express our emotions through anger. Indeed, for a long time, psychologists and psychiatrists were deeply skeptical that the expression of emotions can cause disease until Dr. Friedman's groundbreaking research. He found that frequent "anger rushing to the crown" (that is, expressing anger) is a related factor that causes heart disease, which is the exact opposite of the psychological knowledge I have learned. In other words, it's not just the external stress that causes damage to our arteries and heart, but also our usual response to these stresses. Although we feel happy when we lose our temper, the surge of adrenaline is like a drug, which makes you feel good at the moment, but regular use will cause harm to our health. This book will discuss in detail a core topic, whether we should express it immediately while feeling angry. So far, the answer is undoubtedly no.
This book is the result of decades of research on anger. It is not just a brief summary, covering the psychological and philosophical views of anger, but also the origin, nature and impact of anger in the family. Anger usually has family roots, as the saying goes, "If you have a father, you have a son."
My father was my teacher in many ways, although far from what he expected. One thing I learned when I first studied psychology, and can be confirmed by empirical research, is that a lot of our behaviors are learned through imitation. At the beginning of life, human beings have communicative ability, and this ability is obtained through observation. Therefore, even though I have always looked down on my father's bad temper and experienced the bad effects it brought, I am unfortunately destined to follow in his footsteps, imitating his behavior without being aware of it. However, I hate my father's bad temper and vowed never to become a devil like him. I want to be a psychologist.
While working at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center (now renamed New York Presbyterian Hospital Will Cornell Medical Center), I started dealing with people of all ages to find better ways to help them deal with stress and anger the way. In 1984, I and the highly respected cardiologist Stephen Scheidt co-founded the Risk Reduction Program for Coronary Heart Disease, a secondary prevention program for people who already have heart disease. . This project is mainly based on the latest anger control techniques I developed during my work.
A few months later, I was shocked by the similarity shown by the different groups of patients. Like me, many of their parents have heart disease. In addition, because this project focuses on correcting negative behaviors, many patients will talk about their continued anger and remember how their parents and even grandparents were angry. Anger seems to have affected all aspects of their lives, not only affecting their physical health, but also their relationship with loved ones of different generations in the family. I have been asked many times: "Do my children learn to deal with stress with anger?" "Do they also experience heart attacks in their old age?" "Are we in a vicious cycle caused by anger? "
In addition to working at Weill Cornell Medical Center, I am also a clinical psychologist at a special education school. There I worked with problem children and adolescents, many of whom faced great difficulties in controlling anger. In adolescent groups, anger sometimes turns into violence. Once you start to express your anger, it is difficult to control the spread of anger, especially when the other party also tends to be involved in physical conflict. On one occasion, my young students expressed deep worries about whether they would grow up to be like their father, mother or brother, and entered their destiny. Through these experiences, I slowly realized a pattern, which also defined the core areas discussed in this book.
Too much anger can have obvious destructive consequences. In my own life and in the lives of my patients, I have seen firsthand the tremendous benefits of effective anger control. This means that in most cases, instead of expressing anger immediately, put anger on the shelf and wait for anger to fade. Regarding the discussion of anger, I love the golden words of Montaigne, a 16th-century French essayist and philosopher: "The passion that can interfere with our judgment is anger. Once we are quiet and calm, we are right Things will really change. In this book, you will read my clinically proven system theory. These theories can be used to help everyone control anger. Its essence can be concentrated into the following three steps.

1. Identify the "bait" that induces anger. Don't "hook" or express anger.
2. Identify the "psychological needs" that cause anger. There are two universal and unknown psychological needs that can easily ignite anger: one is the need for respect, and the other involves a violation of interpersonal boundaries. I will explain in detail later how to identify the specific needs that provoke anger.
3. Meet the needs.

As you can see later, we need to receive some training to help us identify how unmet needs become the source of anger. We often get angry for reasons we don't realize. At this time, once you find yourself angry, ask yourself, "What is my goal?" "How do I achieve the desired result?" Or "What do I want?"
As you follow these steps, keep in mind that you don't need to look back at your past through psychoanalysis to control anger, that will have no effect. However, you cannot consider yourself a victim. Even if there are all kinds of legitimate reasons that make us irritable, in the final analysis anger is our own business. To control anger, we first need to acknowledge that it is our own problem. Pushing blame on others, or wantonly disparaging others, will only delay achieving the time frame that ultimately effectively controls anger. Disparagement may make you feel a little "victory" in the short term, but doing so often breaks relationships with each other. In a way, the anger knows that his anger can hurt a relationship.
Controlling anger also makes the patient's family feel better: the quality of the relationship between relatives is higher, and they can also give more care to partners or parents who used to be angry. It's not fun to have an angry person around. As my own experience has proven, my father's explosive anger has made all of us on thin ice. My mother, sister, and me are always afraid of being hit by my father's anger. This would be terrible, especially when my sister and I were very young, and his anger was accompanied by threats of verbal abuse and abandonment. An angry family will not be a happy family.
Finally, this book delves into how to break the cycle of angry father and son and angry mother and daughter. To a large extent, this process is broken by parents. If their parents and their role models are always "angry and angry," then the children will not be as good at controlling anger. Parents are the only role models for children in learning how to live. The first and key step to successfully controlling anger is not to succumb to the urge to express anger. Although you may feel unnatural at first, you will soon agree with Montaigne's point of view, "Once we calm down and become calm, then our views on things will really change." When you start feeling angry, don't express it, it will give you more choices. You can "make them look good" later, and after careful consideration, you will find that it is the most effective action. As the distinguished psychologist Silvan Tomkins once said, expressing anger immediately will only make "the situation worse."
But then again, my psychotherapist's evaluation of me was, "Your voice sounds ruthless." So, would I be bothered by it? In fact, more than 30 years have passed, and when I think about it, I still feel ashamed and embarrassed. But in fact, when I listened to my recording, I definitely noticed my ruthlessness. My supervisor just opened the skylight to speak brightly. He pointedly pointed out my hidden anger factor, which made me embark on a journey of self-cultivation for more than 30 years and continues to this day.
The reason is simple. What is causing my coldness? My frustration. At that time, I met a patient who had borderline personality disorder and always circled around me. No matter what questions I ask her, she never answers carefully and always directs the conversation in a completely different direction. But I didn't realize the problem until my supervisor directed me to point it out. Shemy patient, controls the situation, not meher therapist. I didn't get the respect I deserved, but I didn't realize it at the time!
This is probably my biggest discovery: when we feel we are not respected, we get angry. But we usually don't realize that disrespect is the cause of anger; instead, we argue over the details of the point of view, and see that the trees are missing the forest.
I hope that my personal experience can inspire everyone, improve self-awareness, and exercise self-imposed anger control to help you better control anger. I sincerely hope that this book will improve everyone's lives.
May it be read.