The Psychology of Anger ❧ 241Brandon has always gotten angry when asked to do something he
doesn’t want to do. Getting sober hasn’t changed that, and some of the
counseling he’s getting to keep him sober is actually making it worse by
encouraging him to see his anger as having been caused by childhood
trauma. Now Brandon perceives people making demands as doing the
same thing to him as his father did.
There is no question that people who’ve been physically abused are
more likely to develop anger control problems. Clearly, there’s an element of
imitation. However, it’s usually not imitation of the anger itself, but of the
thinking patterns that make angry outbursts inevitable. Brandon does not want
to be like his father, so he projects his anger on other people, seeing them as
attacking him. This is exactly what his father used to do. And his father before
him. None of Brandon’s forebears ever believed they started a fight, but over
the years, they’ve finished more than their share. In a misguided attempt to
help Brandon feel less guilty about his anger, his counseling program has
also helped him continue the family tradition of blaming everybody else.
Anger is confusing. Many of our ideas about it—that the person who
starts it is to blame, and that getting it off your chest makes it go away—
encourage rather than discourage outbursts.
Speaking of confusing, you’ve probably noticed some inconsistency
in my advice about the expression of anger. In the chapters on fear disorders
and depression, I was endorsingit for people like Jane and Carol. Now I’m
saying it’s a bad thing. What gives?
The answer is, it’s a matter of degree. Anger control problems are
the extreme end of the continuum of aggression that begins with asking
for what you want and ends with bashing someone in the head if they
won’t give it to you. Our society requires and rewards a good deal of per-
sonal aggressiveness. We like winners enough to downplay some of the
unsportsmanlike actions that winning requires.
Freud believed that uncivilized aggressive urges could be sublimated,
that is, channeled into more acceptable pursuits, like sports and art. This
has been a longstanding belief in Western society. If it were true, athletes
and rock stars would be the last people you’d expect to find in treatment
for anger control.
In the sections on fear and depression, I pointed out fixed stars to help
you sight a course through the swirling firmament of conflicting theories.