I'm having an How To Handle Agression course day to-morrow.

Ear plugs. If there's any role-playing, it's bound to involve some serious shouting.

We only later found out that he was a crew member for the film Anger Management, being filmed only a short way from the Bethpage golf course.

I am imagining a movie based on your life and I am imaging that movie will bear a certain resemblence to "Amelie".

I sense suprise in you.

but yes, i'm lightly employed. but i haven't seen Amelie yet.

And I'm abt to go now to the Anger Management course, ha!

*rattles hurriedly away in his knight costume*

But: You work as a receptionist, you make charming drawings, you wear splendid outfits, and every picture I've seen of you has you in some incredibly well-thought-through pose. You are the stuff that artsy romantic comedies are made of!

I was looking for a thread about Anger Management, if it works, or if it's a waste of time, or what. But this will do.

It's really interesting that I made the comments that I did on this thread.

I stopped being in a band for a year, and even though I had my drinking and all that pretty much under control for a change, my anger management skills went to hell in a handbasket. Wonder if that is related or not.

I'm actually seriously considering doing some kind of anger management course, but I might just download the info off the internet and work through it myself.

Has anyone taken an anger management course? Have any experience? Opinions? Etc?

I don't want to share the urge, or express the urge. I just want solutions with what to do with it!

I've found some advice on the web. I'm gonna print it out, or rather, have a friend print it out. (I'm very tempted to ask Joe to do it, in the hopes that maybe he would read it, too, but that would be passive aggressive, wouldn't it?) Just do what it suggests (nothing too weird) for a couple of weeks, and see what happens.

http://www.ad.rhul.ac.uk/counselling/anger.html
http://www.counselling.cam.ac.uk/anger.html

Rob, yeah, I remember that thread, too. I think it was the "gritting your teeth" thread or something like that. I'll search for it.

Was it that it didn't teach you anything you didn't know already, was it that the techniques were useless, or something else?

Much of the stuff I've read sounds very helpful and useful, but it really will be a case of me having the strength and resolution to actually put it into implementation.

here is the score, i think that anger works alot like how laing thot pyschosis worked, ie a legitmate way to handle a situtuion that you have no power or control over.

so, you get angry, and the whole instinct of the 3 anger management programs i have been in is that you cannot be angry, and we need to redirect it.

it says nothing about why you are angry, and if yr anger is legitmate or not, or if its contextual. i get pissed off really easily at cops, b/c i have had a history of cops that have been pretty abusive or not functional...none of this was addressed, for example. (ie there is a reason why you are angry, that reason is legitimate, what is that reason and how are you going to process it out...most anger management classes do not really say that anger is legit.)

also i think alot of anger that comes from women and other visible minorites is related to how they are treated, they are constantly on edge b/c of the inherent misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc in our society, and so any anger management seminar is about the womans sins and not about societies.

that and role playing makes me giggle like a motherfucker--its like assuming dungeons and dragons will add to yr social skills.

But... well, that's not what I've gathered from the stuff that I've been reading. It's more like, "yeah, you have a right to feel your emotions, but you can find better ways of expressing those emotions."

I guess that's what you mean by redirecting it, but it's kind of like... yeah, you have a right to be angry. But you do *not* have a right to take that anger out on those around you, or those who are not responsible for the roots of that anger. (Or even if you are dealing with a person who is causing your anger, are there better ways of getting the results that you would like that don't cause you to lose your shit.)

Though it would be good to distinguish between rational anger and irrational anger.

But I'm thinking more of anger in my personal life and my personal relationships, where it really does wreck havock.

I need to get better at expressing that anger in a way which is constructive, which solves the problem that is usually making us both angry, rather than escalating into a big massive fight which accomplishes nothing except making me and the other person hate each other.

When arguments turn into anger you have to wonder is it the substance or form of the argument which is causing the anger. A lot of the times it is just their lousy arguing style that will get your hackles up.

We've been angry with each other, but that doesn't mean that we hate each other. But unexpressed (in his case) or overexpressed (in my case) has lead to resentment on both sides, LOTS of resentment, and that resentment killed our relationship. Crikey, thanks for that, Pete, you've just put something into total perspective there.

And over the past week and a half, that baseline stress level has strangely dropped down to very low, and as a result, less irrational random anger, less panic attacks, etc.

Has your baseline stress dropped recently in any major way, Colette? Cause the slimey guys are just as slimey as ever! You're just finding them funny and/or cute now.