Areas of Focus/Anger
Anger management can help you control your irritability and avoid disproportionate outbursts affecting the people you love. I offer anger management and counseling at my practice in Burbank, California, and by telehealth.
ON THE SURFACE · WHAT YOU MIGHT NOTICE
BENEATH · WHAT MAY BE AT WORK
Anger itself is not the problem. It is a normal emotion, and often an informative one: it tells us that a boundary has been crossed or a need is going unmet. The problem is what happens when anger arrives too fast, too big, or in the wrong place, and when it begins to cost you the relationships and the self-respect you care about.
Many of the people I see for anger are not angry people. They are people who have been carrying something for a long time, and anger is the form it takes when it finally comes out.
From a psychodynamic point of view, anger is often a secondary emotion. Underneath it there is usually something more vulnerable: hurt, fear, humiliation, grief. Anger is faster and feels stronger, and for many people, especially those who grew up in homes where vulnerability was unsafe, it became the default.
Anger also tends to be triggered by the present resembling the past. A partner’s tone, a colleague’s dismissal, or a child’s defiance can land on an old wound and set off a reaction sized for the original injury rather than the current moment. Part of our work is learning to tell the two apart.
We start with the practical: noticing the early signs, finding a pause before the reaction, and developing ways to express what you feel without damage. That matters, and it helps. But I am also interested in where the anger comes from, because when the underlying hurt is understood and felt, the anger has less fuel.
Over time, people tend to find that they are not just controlling their anger better but experiencing less of it. Sessions are 50 minutes, usually weekly, in my Burbank office or by telehealth.