When a client erupts in anger, what’s really going on?
While anger is a normal and sometimes necessary emotion, it can escalate all too quickly once triggered.
And that can lead to devastating choices and consequences.
In the video below, ten experts share their perspectives on what drives anger, and how they approach it.
Take a look – it’s under 5 minutes.
What are some strategies you’ve used when working with a client’s anger? Please tell us about it in the comment section below.
Exactly sometimes not even to do with the service as it is money. And or they just need to vent about
something completely different than their actual interrelation with the company representative that they
are acquiring service. Generally when a client is angry with the service they are receiving they are under
pressure and or frustrated that they are not getting their needs met and in so doing identified then
is the opportunity to communicate to satisfaction.
I honor the expression of anger in my client with respect and belief. I believe the anger is telling us about important parts of the client’s narrative which have gotten lost. The loss of self with those missing parts of the original story are vital for this person to feel whole. We look at when and how the anger is being used. I will ask, What could it be trying to get us to remember about you that’s been forgotten? The answer is always interesting.
This was immensely interesting…on a personal level..thank you
Anger is an expression of energy which is often fueled by more vulnerable primary feelings which may not be safe to express and may not be even be known because of dissociation or lack of awareness. I have found It’s useful to welcome the expression of anger and give it permission to breathe and then at the right time provide the opportunity to explore what is underneath….much like an archaeologist might do in excavating a site. Bringing understanding, acceptance and compassion to all of the primary and secondary feelings can help all of these parts feel unconditionally accepted.
In my experience that usually helps individuals feel more regulated and differentiated.
Sometimes re-orienting someone cognitively can quickly help the individual to dial down also because it moves them from the limbic system to the pre-frontal cortex. For example, ” you are angry about your husband not coming to therapy and sharing himself right now because he’s not in the mood to share.” “Do you remember last week when you had a part of you that didn’t want to share?” Do you remember how your husband didn’t press you? he accepted that you had a part that wasn’t open and available at that moment?” How was that for you that he was able to respect that boundary? How do you feel as you reflect on that experience? Could you imagine how offering him this consideration might be helpful to both of you right now?
I always empathize first with someone who is angry knowing that underneath the anger on the surface us a deeper often hidden pain.
I ‘m sorry,” I tell him, my son, 9. He is an impresario of enthusiasm and friendliness. He has lots of great ideas. Everything ! Now! He’s afraid he’ll forget. Afraid he doesn’t belong and afraid of his anxieties that have a seed from somewhere. He is exhausting. I often don’t see the upset coming. I walk on eggshells. Some days I can dance on them. We both can. Our whole family can. We have sitt and s and therapists up the wazooo!
It’s often too much. It’s exhausting to be him. He has a lot of labels that we keep to ourselves. (I have a few of my own)…His: Dx: ASD, FASD, low cognitive, peers/parents he can’t figure…he is the 3rd child by a diff dad & was adopted at birth. I sometimes say, “Let’s go outside, You don’t have to love me, play, eat… Thank you for saying something. Can I sit here? Would it be okay to hold hands? That had to feel bad… I made a mistake too. You tell me..That wasn’t ok. That makes sense. What if I/we decide ahead…Can we try again? “Hitting/kicking’s not ok. What would be better for both of us? Or, let’s go find Dad…
All these comments are so amazing. Thank you.
I find another dimension of anger is its relationship to a sense of justice. So many expressions (all?) of anger seems intimately connected with a sense that someone else/the world has unjustly treated them, and, therefore, their anger (no matter how extreme it looks to others is justified). Often when we are angry and find out that our assumption about what X did was wrong), we can calm down instantly (micro seconds) though, of course, it may be hard to let in that information.
The old testament God often gets angry when his peoples did not live up to their contract and/or expectations. So much of justice is (failing to) complying with an explicit or implicit contract or expectations. I am not sure about the therapeutic implications of all of this – perhaps, to explore with people the expectations which they have of others/situations (or even themselves – as one can have self-anger also). Not sure how its related but Paul Riceour’s Phenomenology of Evil (an extraordinary book) beautifully outlined (if I recall 40 years later) how evil is chaos/no order, a threat to meaning, how meaning for most of us is about social connection, and how shaming and shame is about being disconnected, no longer belonging. When one feels there is no justice and one feels disempowered to right things – there is a sense of victimization, of chaos, of evil – and righteous anger is a way of asserting meaning and belonging (to a shared set of values whose violation must be protested to preserve one’s sense of identity and meaning. Unfortunately, anger and being on a war footing can inhibit deeper searches for truth and meaning. I wonder if there are not concurrent paths to dealing with anger, both in the moment, but also to help people develop world views that have a broader sense of justice and empowerment so when things don’t go their way, they can process it by broader/different filters of meaning, better taking in how the world works and most importantly strengthening their own sense of agency and ability to influence.
In my work with anger, I like to use the metaphor of the iceberg that the Titanic hit, and ask the client, if the iceberg stood 100 feet above sea level when struck, how much of the iceberg was below sea level? Usually, we say 400 or 500 feet. I then say, anger is very much like this iceberg. The upper part is out there, but below it are very significant and important feelings that absolutely trigger the strong response. So, like Dan Siegel said, it is very important to work to identify the powerful feelings underlying the anger, and then decide what to do with those feelings.
I always acknowledge that anger is a legitimate emotion. I need to be able to self regulate to make it effective. With patients, I use an anger style quiz to see if I can get clearer about their underlying beliefs and then move towards providing them with alternatives and techniques.
A simple strategy to calm down an angry client? I silently pray to comfort him and me. . . and tell the client we need to have peace within first – to have peace in mind and body! We must always believed in spirituality for God’s healing as there are no arguments in humility but LOVE. . . I share with my clients that our purpose in life is to LOVE ONE ANOTHER. This is what the Lord wants us to be!
One thing I always do is trace anger issues back to FOA in order to identify unmet needs and desires which become areas where forgiveness is necessary: forgiving God, others, and self.
Where did the injury occur, with whom?
Discover the benefits of letting go of that anger verses reserving the right to remain angry and bitter. If my clients can understand that forgiveness is for them and not the perpetrator/s, it allows them the space to take back their personal power.
Very interesting. Thanks for your perspective. So just to confirm you are taking a third person perspective and simply summarising their perspective back to them?
Thank you for sharing.
Normalisation and validation, which gives room for healthy expression of what makes them feel angry creating the space for further exploration across the holistic spectrum of physical, psycho-emotional, spiritual, social being and contexts
Sometimes I retell their story in a different way back to them and ask them what reaction they have to the story and what reaction they think the person in the story had. It generally works.
Interesting. So in a third person perspective but how is the story read back to them just in a summarised way?
One of the things I’ve done to find “the tenderness” beneath the anger is to point out to the client how anger in the room might be making me feel and to ask if that is how they intend to make others feel. Most often it is not.
There was / is a saying “Some cookies jars can be harder to reach” !
I agree that anger can be a source of motivation towards the achievements and the sense of self-worth . It reflects and reveals an inner source of energy that one has to be sure about the instructions before using it in a beneficial way.
Thanks for sharing.
For me, the most important thing is to welcome, as much as I can the anger that is being expressed. It is my job as a therapist not to react defensively but stay in the painful onslaught and feel how it is to be attacked by my client, after all, I am asking my client to work at using their anger as a way to understand their inner needs and vulnerabilities. I need to keep in my mind that the anger is a compass point and a useful indicator of what the hurt may be that is underneath.
It is important to recognise the vulnerability that underlies the anger, to share awareness of it and explore the underlying emotions generally fear, terror or rage at unmet earlier developmental needs.
Thank you. I think our response to a client’s anger is so important. I view it positively as a resource that is not yet appropriately directed.
When angry couples listen to each other they can “get it out”. This allows clinician to question where does the anger come from in childhood. Then often one or sometimes both decide to get individual therapy.
I sat with very angry patients until the soft side emerged. I think about anger as a hermit crab…. anger is the armor and underneath is a very soft squiggly person…. creature….. most improve in time. It a long slow process… process that cannot be hurried. There is a hurt and vulnerable person underneath. The anger was a defense that is/was empowering.
It looks a bit nerves-racking but nice … strategy to try. Thx.
Hi,
I will try to listen and let the angry person talk to see why the person is angry.
If the person talk loud. I will start to take about the same one of voice as the angry person but soon after I will lower my tone and sometimes the angry person will lower her voice but not always.
If It is a patient in bed and I can have music on a radio or TV, I will put up the music louder to tell this person, it is something normal to feel different emotions and after I will lower the music to help the person to lower her tone and feel more in control.
I found it difficult to be in a room where both the therapist and the client are dealing with their own anger. M. Linaham and P. Levine understanding of anger speaks pretty well about it, among all the others. I think when anger can be identified in a specific way, such as irritability, or strength after all, then it really helps to find a way to approach it and help it fade away…So thank you so much again for this great practice video.
Lots of great ideas for how to work with angry folk! Thank you!
Anger is generated by our brainstem when one become aware of one’s Unmet Need, or Boundary violation covering Sadness/Grief.
If healthy Aggression fails to protect one ,then Shame covers it ,and vacillation between guilt/ shame and rage cycle begins.
Anger like fear needs to be experienced in the body.Ms. Tara Bach’s technique of RAIN can be quite helpful.
srisht: Spot on. The sentence about the distortion of healthy aggression is profound and illuminating. Wish a therapist had worked with me on this; would’ve saved me years. How can I contact you?
Indeed, your entire paragraph is accurate and helpful. Thank you.
Wonderful video and beautiful discussion! Very helpful to me personally and professionally.
i don’t know where my “reply” is, so will redo….a wise teacher once gave me a formula…..UNDER ANGER IS DESPAIR (GRIEF) AND UNDER DESPAIR IS AN UNMET NEED. so when it’s appropriate, i share the formula and ask “what are you really needing”. it’s very effective in getting to the “bottom line” and when it works with BPD, it’s a real win ;-)!
I like that I’ll use it too thanks
Yes I like this, works well I think. Great article and responses, very helpful.
a wise teacher once gave me a little formula which i use a lot to drop below the anger to the real issue…..
“UNDER ANGER IS DESPAIR (GRIEF) AND UNDER DESPAIR IS AN UNMET NEED”….when it’s appropriate, i share that and then, ask “what are you really needing”. occasionally, it works with BPD and that’s a real win ;-)!
Completely validate it. Help client see it as a strength (like maintaining dignity, etc. or protecting self/others from harm, etc.) Whatever resonates with that client. Then explore what drives that anger, what lies beneath it, what triggers it, how they express it most often, what is successful and what isn’t successful in expressing their anger. Help them befriend and listen to their anger.
Thank you for sharing this video. I always try to validate the person’s feelings and help them understand that anger is a natural emotion like any other emotion we experience as human beings. Feeling angry is not good or bad, it’s what one does with the anger or how it is expressed that can be either productive or counterproductive. I have learned that sometimes when people act angry, they’re really afraid. Uncovering what may be hiding behind the anger can tap into vulnerabilities that a client may not be allowing themselves to feel.
Very good comments. My first experience of anger was watching my sibling as a baby being angry and then for years getting needs met that way. I saw it as a manipulation strategy. I let my clients know that I don’t reward manipulation strategies. Yesterday I was tested again, and just explained I was here doing my job, let the two clients know that I was there for them if they wished to communicate in any other way. Righteous anger is a healthy thing I feel/know as it makes for action, change and sometimes I advocate for others because I can, and it works.
Instead of giving advice about whatever ‘seems’ to be the reason someone is angry, or telling someone they need to learn to control their anger and channel it differently (while they are IN the anger moment) – I have found using empathy and mirroring back what I think someone’s anger feels like to them has can move us to either discovering what the issue of the rage is really about or will help the person get more in touch with the underlying emotions — because they realize someone is REALLY listening.
If someone has been pissed off about an issue that they cannot seem to solve, feel helpless about, or if someone had done something to anger the individual — and says: “Can you believe this! That idiot did __________________ again. I want to punch the asshole!”
I may say something like: “You sound REALLY upset” by that making sure my response is not monotone, but reflects that you’ve heard the intensity of their feelings – (making sure I do not use a specific feeling word like angry or frustrated). The one common response is “YES!! I am so angry….”
Once they have said that I allow silence in case they have more to say – again responding in a way that shows I am listening and care.
If nothing is said I may say something to mirror I am listening like, “That amount of anger sounds hard to deal with”, and follow up with asking if they’ve been feeling like this much lately. . (I do not say “Does that person upset you a lot” because it is getting away from the person who is feeling angry and focusing on the thing they are focusing anger on).
Basically your client is trusting you with strong feelings. I have found by using empathy of their difficulty and how hard it must be for them to deal with this issue causing these high stress emotions with careful listening (not putting your words or your assumptions in their month) – but mirroring back in such a way that they can hear you ARE listening to their feelings and care about their difficulty with the issue – the client, once heard, tends to be able to continue with less misdirected anger. — Certainly the person or issue they are directing their anger toward may be an important issue to deal with, but until they recognize something needs to change, so you can brainstorm together with them giving the majority of what may help, the anger isn’t going anywhere.
Asking for ideas that may resolve said issue may help with life feeling out of their control, or being all alone with it.
Also, the magnitude of their anger may be realized by asking “Who does that person remind you of?” or “Have you ever felt this upset before?”
I like your post. I have sometimes used humour, and I will tone that down because upset is upset, and humour can lighten yet not empathise at the level of upset.
i love what you wrote and agree that’s is an effective approach
I begin with a premise that anger is a protection against underlying feelings. If possible, I first validate the feeling of anger and accept it as purposeful. So often it emanates from a devastating feeling of helplessness in the presenting and pest situations. If possible I recognize that underlying feeling,validate it and the fear that usually accompanies it. I have rarely encountered anger that threatened my safety. When that has been the case I have slowed my breathing, lowered my eyes and my head and tried to remain as quiet as possible. Usually this non reactive posture has worked well. Once it did not, when I was with a usually passive patient, who was actively hallucinating, who very suddenly acted out..
Wow, TY ALL,
J.C., GRACE, GIVING UP THOSE VOWS SO HIS ALL SPIRIT SHOWS SEEMS TO BE KEY.
I agree this is a great topic for clinicians to be discussing. I can see validity in every perspective offered here by the panel of experts. My way of seeing a client’s hostility is that of an altered ego state where if the person is no longer rational/reasonable and or processing the incoming data in an adaptive manner, then I think it is important to help the client first self-regulate so that she/he can return to the adult ego state. By looking “at” one’s anger instead of through it, a degree of control and agency becomes possible. It is in strengthening the adult and it’s capacity to name, feel, understand and process their anger and hostility that a healthy relationship with one’s anger can be formed. I find a blend of the transactional analysis’s approach of naming the parent, child and adult states in a client along with strengthening their mindful/adult way of dealing with their anger has been the best approach.
Just had an experience with a a male youth who turned the Health Unit on its head after a psychiatric assessment. The good part about it was he was not directing it at anyone in particular. The unsettling part was witnessing the internal pain he was exhibiting of hopelessness and helplessness. I am just starting to have some one-on-one with him and am at the early stages of building a trusting rapport. My gut feeling is he is seeking to be accepted by his family and community co-horts. He has PTSD from being bullied in his childhood that continued into his senior years of school. Talking about the events caused him to have an extreme stress response that lead him to externalize his internal rage. Up to this point he has been experiencing SI and attempts. These have become more and more lethal recently. When I consider his issues, these issues are also family and community problems that also need to be explored. We have begun CBT which makes sense to him. However, currently he had to be hospitalized for these suicidal attempts and impulsivity.
I have a client whose daughter, in a session at their home, really leveled extreme anger at her mother. I found it very difficult to observe and deal with. In hindsight, I realized that she seemed to be angry at her mother for a number of reasons, among which was, the relationship the mother has with her husband. He is very controlling and passive aggressive and the daughter sides with him because he is 1. in control of a great deal of money and 2. her mother has never grown in her ability to deal with him in an effective manner, instead becoming his victim and complaining bitterly about how she distrusts him due to infidelity. the daughter kept asking, “why didn’t you leave?” This brought on tears and attempts to explain that mom was dependent financially and with 7 children to raise, couldn’t envision any way out. I am only working with the mother on developing coping skills to deal with the suicide of one of her sons and a mental breakdown. Can anyone address this? I did make a referral for family counseling but am not
I believe that emotions work in pairs. Anger goes hand in hand with sadness and vise versa. It sounds like the mother touched on the sadness when the daughter angrily and repeatedly asked “why didn’t you leave”. It can take sometimes days, weeks, or months to move through one emotion and shift to the other. Individual counseling is a good place, a safe place, for sorting out emotions on a personal level, especially with the loss of her son.
Clients need help to understand how to interpret their anger. Anger is a signal that indicates something about what they believe. It indicates that they believe that they need something that some person or some circumstance is keeping them from getting or keeping. They must confront their own beliefs about what they need. What is the true source of what they most deeply need? If they see others or circumstances as having the power to keep them from getting their needs met, they will be angry and will act out of that anger in a way that is designed to get control. They must find their deepest needs met in a source that cannot be denied or blocked in order to relinquish their anger and find contentment and peace.
I guess you would call me a “newbie” in terms of clinical experience. I am still in need of quite a few hours to obtain full licensure so when I’ve been in situations with angry clients, it is EXTREMELY uncomfortable, especially in couples or family situations where multiple people are involved. I suppose I’ve always thought of anger as a defense mechanism/survival instinct and never really delved deeper. In tense moments like that I’m usually trying to regulate my own anxiety (*insert anxious giggle here*). I appreciate you putting it in terms of one being blocked from getting THEIR needs met. Seeing it as “meeting ones own needs” is such a simple and nonthreatening way to help clients and significant others understand where the anger originates. As opposed to the commonly associated: the angry person is simply seeking to control another (“well, yes, now that you’ve prevented my needs from being met I am going to control what I can to find equilibrium”). I am currently not working but this topic takes me back to one of my last few sessions with a very angry family dynamic. I wish I had thought to explain it this way. Thank you!
Abused wives have a problem with expressing anger, the daughter is expressing anger for both of them.
Really helpful set of excellent comments. Recently (in the past few days) had an experience where I had a cx suddenly turn angry and hostile towards me, they were very personal it was shaming and humiliating and I am still processing the shock to my system – I could feel my heart beating so hard while it was happening (harder than it’s ever beaten before). The physical sensations were awful, somehow I managed to remain present and listen to their need for validation and acceptance beneath the rage. The video was helpful for me to reset and consider better ways to work with anger. Great timing, I needed this thank you.
When someone is in overwhelm, it can be very important to allow them the space to talk about their anger and to express what is happening for them. I certainly would not want to stem that flow. And neither can be it be good to be in denial about what one is feeling, –so acknowledgement, and deeply going into the feeling can be very important, as can be its letting go, following that, if one is to feel free to turn one’s attention to other things after the event.
I know myself how much the energy of anger can motivate and certainly the ‘I can show you’ position can be very productive of achievement in the world.
Anger is connected with pride and yes can be an indication that someone feels that is hurt, their sense of self has been wounded, and assertiveness is often seen as a healthy way to both channel the anger and affirm one’s self –this can feel like a very important action when a person feels they have in some way been ‘abused’. And it can serve to give a sense of protection, or in very obvious ways, real protection. Also, often anger is seen to be healthy when challenging injustices on wider levels of society when seeking to defend human rights of different kinds.
My view is however that whilst it is often seen as very productive to use the anger of energy to achieve things –often very worthwhile things, it may be valuable to recognize how that energy motivates a person, and that it may at times be a filter that removes one from the clarity, the immediacy of one’s experience so that a person can end up with a bit of a tunnelled vision wherein other points of view will seem secondary to one’s own sense of mission.
Ultimately I think, anger is best held to lightly as a tool for achievement so that the wider context of life is always in awareness. This is not to say that ‘great’ things are often achieved using this energy but to make the more valid point, in my opinion, that to acknowledge, deeply feel, and surrender anger is a more healthy trajectory – allowing for great achievements nevertheless accomplished via greater clarity and broader vision of the whole….
Anger is the.response we see after ordinary words have ceasedo be effective for that individual.
Wise words, indeed.
Dianne’s comment brings me to a book by Mike George called Don’t Get Mad Get Wise. A wonderful spiritual book teaching us that anger is a learned pattern or habit with some help can be unlearned.
Anger is about survival. Deny it, attempt to get someone to deny or shift it too rapidly it, and you block their survival instinct and ability to grow. Anger in its highest forms of expression should trigger YOU to understand the survival brain is highly activated. As Bessel so helpfully educates, when the survival brain (amygdala) is fired up, the rest of the brain starts to go off line. Be their EMT, help them to breathe, and start to settle into full mindedness. Only with this type of presence and acceptance of THEIR reality, can you carefully help to transport them to more sophisticated – and helpful – insight.
Keep in mind that anger is a motivator for many. ‘Piss me off and I’ll show you what I can do!’
I am a survivor of 17 years (3 to 20) of horrific abuse [hate that term, it is so soft sounding]. Anger and its evolution to self understanding and compassion led me to be a trailblazer in crisis intervention services and executive coaching. Anger and its evolution led me to raising two amazing children, as a single sole support parent. Anger compelled me to have a voice here.
Yay! For anger.
Love this!
Yes! I understand. And it’s useful I think to understand that anger is along a continuum like other emotions. Anger helps us understand that our boundaries are being crossed and our needs are not being met. Rage is something else entirely and I have yet to really feel safe enough to work with another’s rage.
Thanks. Two sound responses.
My experience tells me now that if I feel like reciprocating I am not centred, meaning my awareness is probably flirting with flight and fight or freeze.
I guess many shrinks freeze, but one will observe that to be centred relays a feeling of stability to client.
Breathing in pranayama is the method.
Sustaining that determines the success of the session.
The other side of anger is hurt. Listen to the hurt behind the anger. Affirm anger is understandable and there is a way to deal with it without hurting yourself or anyone else. I love the comments of those who shared.
What I do is name it as I own it. Then I breath with is as I let the pot boil and simmer as I breath out with some sound like a tea pot boiling over for a while and then I take myself for walk and say everything I am angry about until I begin to notice that I am getting less and less angry and if not I continue walking and inward talking until I am less angry and then find something beautiful to smile at and breath with.
Anger is often triggered by FEAR, and FEAR is about feeling SEPARATED. The closest these therapists got to this was when one of them mentioned ‘the desire to belong’. But it is more than that: it is about the FALL; it is about the frustrated longing for unity, for the return to EDEN.
We have to take it all back, back to the original rift from that unity which came in each case, at the moment of birth, of incarnancy. At that moment when we had a body, we equally had an ego. The ego is the symbol of separation, and the quest of each human being is return to Source which comes with the dissolution of the ego. it is this ego that gives us the sense of separation – it is what stops us from feeling truly connected to life and to our so called ‘environment’ which really is part of us, not separate from us.
Anger is an unconscious quality that in its best form can be simply creative energy. Otherwise it is best not to suppress, not to repress, not to project, or deny, or displace………but to simply SURRENDER Through the latter process, connection can be reestablished, –and this then deals with the FEAR, the sense of separation, the psyche torn asunder, is sutured, and healed.
R.D. Laing’s work eventually showed that actually, whilst allowing madness to exhaust itself through acting out, may bring about great progress for an individual, this can be really costly to all involved in the treatment, and will not in the end significantly transmute. What will result in true return to homeostasis, is simply the letting go of that which does not serve us.
So beautifully expressed, with all due respect to the therapists, if they had the level of consiousness you have expressed here, with your comment……wow…. The true Healing would begin, and it would be fast, and it would be compleate…….maybe as you have written it so well, we will see “A Hundredth Monkey” effect… Wouldn’t that be great…..
yes, the wise teacher also taught me that “anger is the action emotion”…i liken it to the motor on a boat…ist supplies the energy to go forward and the “person” needs to steer. john bradshaw says, “anger is a demand for dignity”…..that’s good, too.
Yes, all that you’ve said. Anger is a boundary setter, a way to stand for and in oneself by blasting other energies and others’ energies away. It’s also a catalyst for action. As well as a defense for underlying needs and unmet needs; and for emotions that need tending and recognition, such as sadness (grief), fear. And ‘s srisht’s comment, above, is quite helpful, as well.
“srisht says:
Anger is generated by our brainstem when one become aware of one’s Unmet Need, or Boundary violation covering Sadness/Grief.
If healthy Aggression fails to protect one ,then Shame covers it ,and vacillation between guilt/ shame and rage cycle begins.
Anger like fear needs to be experienced in the body.Ms. Tara Bach’s technique of RAIN can be quite helpful.”
When caretaking others are determined to break, quash, annihilate the newly forming, necessary ego…results in later life/therapy must notice & grow up that with client, not be too quick to surrender it…or can the 2 be done alternatively/simultaneously? Good psycho spiritual question.
Excellent. Thank you