Anger can lead to offending, child abuse and family break-up, so can people be trained to control it? Anita Pati examines an increasingly popular training method that deals with angry young people and parents.
Anger management training is very popular in the United States and has now hit the UK with a vengeance. As well as providing the theme for the Hollywood film Anger Management, with Jack Nicholson as a therapist, rapper Eminem’s latest UK tour was named Anger Management.
Previously confined mainly to stressed-out business executives, anger management training has now been adopted much more widely, with programmes being offered by youth offending teams, schools and the NHS. And, while there is money being made by those offering the programmes, there is also evidence that the training courses can offer real benefits to those taking part - and the people most affected by their behaviour.
There is growing awareness of the impact of anger on the way people behave towards others. Being able to harness and control it is now being recognised as a valuable social skill.
"Anger management is the new yoga," says Mike Fisher, director of the British Association of Anger Management. The association runs courses for parents, teachers, counsellors and mental health professionals, among others. Schools will either identify individuals who need help or invite facilitators to deliver a class talk.
Fisher is clear about how the problem manifests itself: "It’s when the young person gets disruptive in class and starts bullying other students and teachers, or gets involved in minor crime or drug-related offences. Or they start playing truant."
But he is careful to point out that they are not a counselling or psychotherapy service: "If they are too far gone, we can’t work with them as all we would be doing is crisis management. That’s not our gig, we’re into anger management."
Baam is keen to promote the benefits of training, stressing that organisations like Mind, Relate, the courts and social services departments as well as private companies all regularly refer clients. For Fisher, the attack on the World Trade Centre was a key event: "After 11 September, Americans became extremely angry. But they had nowhere to put their rage. A lot of my colleagues in the US found they had quadrupled their business. They noticed a changing trend."
There is, as yet, no formal register of practitioners and anyone can set himself or herself up as an anger management trainer in the UK, but the British Association of Anger Management does train and accredit its own facilitators, of which there are 46 nationwide.
One of these is Jo Killick. She is an anger management worker at St John’s, a family assessment unit in Bristol. The centre is one of six in the country providing dysfunctional families with care and rehabilitation programmes, and takes schedule one offenders. Most clients are referred by either social services or the courts as a last attempt to avoid foster or care placements. Parents often have a history of violence and have been in the prison or care system. Issues experienced range from domestic violence through physical and sexual abuse to neglect but clients know that expressing unacceptable levels of anger in the unit may result in the removal of their child.
"We do deal with some very extreme, angry people but we have a no violence policy which they’re very, very clear about," says Killick.
She thinks that attitudes to anger have changed: "People are more aware that anger is acceptable but that violence isn’t. They are now being told ‘It’s OK to be angry’ and are confused because they’ve never been taught how to be angry."
Her anger management programme runs between six and eight weeks beginning with one-to-one sessions with one parent and then later introducing the partner. The programme concentrates on identifying the source of anger and the triggers that spark it. Acceptance of the need to change must follow. A five-stage model of anger escalation, based on cognitive behavioural theory, helps the client note rising levels of anger and be aware of the causes. A safety action plan is drawn up detailing various coping strategies.
She says: "A lot of people say ‘I just blew, it just happened, I can’t remember anything.’ So what I do is unpick it and deconstruct an angry incident, try to work out how they were feeling, what warning signs they got. We also look at the legal consequences of anger - if you punched someone, what would you face afterwards?"
St John’s takes a holistic approach to its training and explores connected themes while dealing with anger in its clients. Both the anger management and domestic abuse programmes run closely together and are designed to complement one another. If there is domestic abuse within the family, they will run the anger management programme first as rage needs to be identified and worked with before other problems can be explored.
Much of her clients’ anger stems from an inability to change things: "A lot of it is because of their own history and the patterns of abuse that have existed there," says Killick. "Frustrations about money can be big. Extended families can be a difficulty. Local authorities can be a problem. There’s lots of frustration with the police. Often it’s because they don’t want to be here. Sometimes they feel like they’re being restricted in the unit because we do have to observe them almost constantly."
Anger management courses are increasingly being used out in the field, too. One London social worker working with children and families reports a high success rate. She refers children and parents to family centres, youth offending teams, child and family psychiatry agencies as well as private outside agencies for anger management training.
She finds herself referring an increasing number of young people where once they would only concentrate on the parents’ issues: "It’s a new direction that we’re taking. We know we’re not going to be able to solve many young people’s problems but we can ultimately maybe equip them with the skills to handle those problems."
Her personal experience is that the young people who have taken anger management courses have had positive outcomes but parents must be involved. "I saw a parent the other day - one whom I’d have never expected this from - saying ‘We’ve tried playing relaxing music to him and burning candles’ which, coming from them, was revelatory," she says.
The anger she sees in many of the young people she works with forms a cycle: "Many have difficult home circumstances such as financial and housing issues. What happens is that parents with poor parenting skills often go on to have abusive relationships because of the way they themselves were parented. This means the children can grow up experiencing conflict as well as the stigma this causes. This stress at home affects their schoolwork so they may attend school less. The more their education suffers the less confidence they will have. The less their self-esteem the more anger there is because they feel out of control. That’s generally the pattern we are seeing."
Whether fad or fixture, it is clear that anger management is not a panacea. But as part of a balanced, structured and monitored programme, the consensus is that managing potentially destructive emotions can only be a plus.