The Causes of Anger: they’re not all ‘out there' Ask an angry person why she’s so angry and she’s likely to cite a long list of reasons – too much pressure, a nasty boss, a rebellious teenager, a car that’s broken down again, a spouse who’s not helpful, recent weight gain, and so on. The reasons don’t matter; what’s significant is that they’re all ‘out there,’ out of her control. But while our anger may have triggers outside of ourselves, we often promote our own anger through our actions and habits.

For example:

We often respond with anger when we can’t make ourselves understood. If we make the effort to replace our anger with better communication skills, we can do a better job of explaining our needs, feelings and ideas; if we don’t make the effort, we’re using anger as an ‘easy out.’ We may respond with anger because our early role models – our parents or caregivers – expressed themselves that way. If we break that cycle by learning better relationship skills, we’ll have less need to communicate with anger; if we blame our parents and cling to those early messages, our anger will assure that we stay locked into unhappiness. We frequently feel that our anger is ‘righteous,’ that other people are obviously wrong. We feel justified when we lash out with anger. But by using anger to communicate, we are less persuasive and continually undermine the respect of others that we so deeply desire. We may feel that no one respects us or listens to us and that the only way to get attention is to put on a show of anger. Instead of anger, if we treated others with the attention and respect we want for ourselves, our relationships might improve significantly. Interestingly, when we focus on repairing our own habits of anger, we often experience a dramatic drop in the ‘out there’ reasons to be angry. Healing our past wounds and reversing our habits of anger requires commitment and help. But the rewards – restored relationships, renewed self-esteem, improved satisfaction with life and work – are tremendous, long-lasting and worthwhile. A skilled therapist can help us identify the triggers for our anger and develop better ways of understanding, validating and expressing our feelings. For a free phone consult, call Dr. Fibus at 818.395.2831.

How Anger Affects You

Biologically, anger can elevate your heart rate, increase hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, and cause bodily tension. Prolonged exposure to these elements can have a negative effect on your body and shorten your lifespan.

We knowingly do things that place us at risk when we get to a place of anger so intense we simply don’t have the capacity to think rationally.

Anger can be suppressed, but often has negative consequences when it is turned inward. This type of anger may cause hypertension and depression.

Another form of anger is unexpressed anger, which can also lead to physical, psychological, and spiritual problems. Unexpressed anger can manifest in somatic ways such as impacting your immune response and make you more cynical or hostile in your relationship to others and the world.

Our Unique Approach

For the past 33 years, Dr. Fibus’ clients have been learning to take charge (control) of their emotions, relationships and lives. Known for his versatile, creative and customized approaches, Dr. Fibus catches clients doing things right and directs them to Soar With Their Strengths. Nationally recognized as a seasoned relationship expert, Dr. Fibus creates a challenging opportunity for couples to evolve themselves into the top 5% of happy, healthy and successful partnerships and marriages. Free 10 Minute Consultation

Taking Flight By Managing Anger Appropriately

plane To put it in perspective, and to be more literal of the “fight or flight” response, we are the pilots of our bodies. Anger is often an emotion that can mislead us or steer us off course. Anger itself is simply an emotion that is guided by what we feed it or respond to, sometimes referred to as our own “baggage.” If you are consistently feeling angry, then you are flying your own “plane” from the cargo bay. Seems ridiculous right?

Ever heard or said the phrase, “I was so angry, I couldn’t see straight”? Well, allowing anger to be the pilot is a lot like that. Taking flight with anger impairs our ability to see things clearly, rationally, and can impede us from getting to our goal destination. Learning how to manage anger can help us navigate our work relationships, our view of the world, and our understanding of ourselves.

When we fly for the first time it can be scary (similar to when we see the damaging effects of our anger). However, we become less fearful of the sounds on an airplane the more we fly because we learn through our experience that we are relatively safe. Managing anger through practice of new skills (appropriate communication, assertion, recognizing emotions connected to anger) can help us land safely in almost any type of weather we encounter.

Does Your Anger Get In the Way?

Have you found that inappropriate expressions of your anger have affected your work or relationships or both? Do you find yourself to be judgmental of others or chronically irritable? Or perhaps you have noticed increased incidents of illness or social withdrawal? Does your anger cross the line from being a protective warning system to becoming harmful? Anger becomes harmful to us when it gets in the way of our daily functioning, our health, our work, and our relationships. Often times, anger can be triggered by past trauma or negative experiences. For both men and women, learning to effectively communicate the feelings that underlie anger is one way you can benefit from therapy. You can become appropriate and assertive without being aggressive. Accompanied with relaxation techniques, communicating how you feel in the anger can provide room to grow and inherently challenge the way you think.

Why Clients Have Found Success With Us

We understand the tenets of anger. We know that anger that is poorly managed can be counterproductive and unhealthy.

When anger is misdirected or overly aggressive, it can lead to poor decision making processes and affect your work, close relationships, and your overall mental, physical, and spiritual health.

We help you take on varying perspectives to your unique problems in an effort to open your mind to the possibility of change, whereby you make subtle, but significant changes to a healthier, better adjusted you.

Our Testimonials

"Dr. Fibus, your patience and compassion kept us in our chairs, but your skill and understanding of relationships guided us toward renewed commitment that will last a long time. We are deeply grateful for your help."

"I’ve been to a number of good therapists in my lifetime. Dr. Fibus’ approach is different than all of the others and I have gotten my best results with him."

"Dr. Fibus got us through a hard and unpleasant segment of our marriage. Despite the unpleasant aspects of the affair, we’ve learned how to address the issue and our marriage is now much stronger and healthier than before the incident."

What Sets Us Apart

Gain Powerful Strategies and Treatments for Your Mind, Your Body & Your Spirit

We use traditional Anger Management remedies and evidenced-based practices to give you a personal look at your anger and the elements that contribute to the negative impact it might be in your life. We utilize Cognitive-Behavioral techniques and systemic strategies to provide perspective on how you affect your immediate world with your anger and offer relaxation tools to get you to a place where you feel better prepared for whatever lay ahead.

We are uniquely trained in getting to the core of issues to help you transform your understanding of, not only anger, but emotions as a whole. Along with traditional approaches, we use neurofeedback.

Neurofeedback Works

How Does Neurofeedback Work to Decrease My Anger?

A responding Yes!!!

Neurofeedback is a powerful and effective tool that facilitates an inherent management of negative symptoms associated with anger.

Neurofeedback, or brain training, helps an individual regulate poorly-managed reactions, such as anger. Out-of-control anger is one of the emotions that is particularly responsive to this easy treatment.

With the help of neurofeedback, we strive to put the individual in charge of his or her anger instead of the anger being in charge of the individual. Using neurofeedback helps the therapist connect to you in a way that is present, helping you to see how your own brain functions and connecting to you on a level that is within your awareness and subtly changing the function of how you control your own emotions. In doing so, neurofeedback, along with traditional methods of reframing your perceptions of self and the world can limit the consequences of emotions being out of control.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned”

What It Means to Change

To bring neurofeedback and anger management into focus, it is similar to the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Caterpillars move unassumingly and are seen as the often unattractive counterpart to the more beautiful butterfly. With that said, caterpillars inevitably cocoon themselves for some time in order to transform into something they never knew possible. Going into therapy for anger management is quite similar and neurofeedback facilitates change on an inherent and subtle level. We go into therapy hoping for some change, but ultimately uncertain of the outcome, and faith in our capacity for growth becomes its own motivation. Perhaps, we are all caterpillars slowly making our way through a life of relative uncertainty. However, for those willing to take a leap of faith whilst making strides toward a better self, the potential for us to become that much more can provide a great foundation for a renewed self and might even yield something for us more than what we imagined possible.

Think About It

What we have found in our many years of experience, and consistent with supporting research, is that helping people with anger management issues is correlated to better management of other symptoms associated with depression, anxiety, trauma, sleep issues, self esteem, and attention deficits.

As mentioned above, and likely in your own experience, anger brings about quick reactions. In scientific terms, our anger, which comes from the least evolved part of the brain, shuts down our executive functioning (decision-making processes) in the pre-frontal cortex. In other words, the brain goes into a tailspin and we don’t think rationally when anger comes into play. We think most rationally and clearly when we are calm and present.

So, helping the brain to relax and increase the brain’s ability to self-regulate with neurofeedback and utilizing cognitive tools to help you understand how you see the world in order to change negative perceptions is a recipe for living healthier lives that affect your mind, body, and spirit!