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New Harbinger Publications - Ronald Potter-Efron

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98 pages

English

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Sociologie, société et politique

Popular psychology

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Publié par	New Harbinger Publications
Date de parution	01 janvier 0001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781608823628
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0708€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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This volume provides essential information for people who experience rage and the mental health professionals who work with them. Potter-Efron’s comprehensive and detailed descriptions of the nature and determinants of four different kinds of rage will also be of great interest to the general reader. The interpersonal and behavioral factors that trigger these overwhelming experiences of the extreme expression of anger are clarified, with excellent examples of the manifestation of rage. These recommendations for dealing with intense emotional experiences will help the reader to both understand and cope more effectively with rage-related problems.
—Charles D. Spielberger, Ph.D., ABPP, distinguished research professor and director, of the Center for Research in Behavioral Medicine and Health Psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL
Finally a book that specifically deals with the many facets and complexities experienced in rage! Readers will be able to assess their own specific type of rage easily while also learning useful techniques for intervening and stopping such uncontrollable eruptions. This book is an excellent tool for individuals who are trying to gain more control over their emotions and counter the feelings of helplessness that often accompany experiences of rage. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to make significant changes in his or her life.
—Kimberly Flemke, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Graduate Programs of Couples and Family Therapy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA
A step-by-step guide to overcoming explosive anger
Ronald Potter-Efron
New Harbinger Publications, Inc. -->
Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2007 by Ronald Potter-Efron
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA
www.newharbinger.com
All Rights Reserved
Acquired by Catharine Sutker; Cover design by Amy Shoup;
Edited by Brady Kahn; Text design by Tracy Carlson
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Potter-Efron, Ronald T.
Rage : a step-by-step guide to overcoming explosive anger / Ronald T. Potter-Efron.
p. cm.
Epub ISBN: 9781608823628
ISBN-13: 978-1-57224-462-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-57224-462-3 (pak.)
1. Anger. I. Title.
BF575.A5P857
152.4’7--dc22

09 08
This book is dedicated to my wife, Patricia Potter-Efron, in deepest appreciation for her continuing support, help, and encouragement.
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. What Is Rage?
2. What Causes Rage?
3. Sudden Rage
4. Seething Rage, Personal Vendettas, and Rampage
5. Survival Rage
6. Impotent Rage
7. Shame-Based Rage
8. Abandonment Rage
9. The Bottom Line: A Life Free from Rage
References
Acknowledgments
I first want to express my thanks to Brady Kahn, the editor of this book on rage, for her thoughtful and careful work. Also, my thanks to Matt McKay, Catharine Sutker, and the many professionals at New Harbinger Publications for continuing to support my writings in the area of anger.
Next, I thank several residents of a nearby boot camp who allowed me to interview them as they described their rages, near rages, and partial rages. Their openness helped me better understand the raging phenomenon.
Finally, I thank those people who read early versions of this book. Their comments helped me write more clearly and meaningfully. Readers included Charles Spielberger, Richard Pfeiffer, Pat Potter-Efron, Dave McQuarrie, Marie McDade, Rich Dowling, Linda Klitzke, and Alex Roseborough. Many of these people are connected with the National Anger Management Association in New York City or with First Things First Counseling in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
1. What Is Rage?
Are You a Rager?
Something strange and scary happens to some people. On occasion, they lose control over their bodies, their brains, and their behavior. They say and do things that they later deeply regret. To illustrate, let me introduce you to four people who rage.
Lyle: A Victim of Child Abuse Still Fighting for His Life
Lyle almost died when he was only eight years old. His dad just about killed him. All he’d done was to forget to stack firewood for the woodstove. Dad came home, saw it wasn’t done, and beat Lyle unconscious. His ma took him to the hospital. She lied, of course, about what happened. Told the doctors Lyle had fallen and smacked his head. Maybe they believed her. Maybe not. They patched him up. After that, Lyle never was the same. He got mean. He hated his dad. Finally, at age sixteen, Lyle was big enough to turn the tables. One night he went crazy. He doesn’t remember what happened. His kid sister told him he started screaming at their father and then charged right at him. He knocked his dad down and kicked him. He beat the crap out of his father.
Here’s the problem. Lyle’s a thirty-year-old man now. But he can’t control his emotions. He gets angry a lot. Really angry. And then he blacks out, just like that first time at age sixteen. Lyle’s afraid he’ll kill somebody one day. And he might—unless he gets some help soon.
Brenda: The Woman Whom Everybody Ignores
Brenda has always been the kind of person who blends into the background. Not very noticeable. Nice, but nothing special about her. Quiet. There she is now, smiling at her boss as he jokingly ignores all her good ideas. And, at the party, Brenda seems not to mind that her husband openly flirts with other women. Ah, but if people could only read her mind, they’d discover that Brenda’s fuming inside. Maybe then they wouldn’t be so surprised when she snaps, something she does about once a month. Man, you wouldn’t believe the words that come out of that woman’s mouth! It’s like she isn’t herself. Afterwards, Brenda always says she’s sorry. She feels horrible about what she’s said. But Brenda also says she can’t control herself. It’s like those words just roll off her tongue without her having any say in the matter. It’s almost as if someone else, not Brenda, were speaking.
Ricardo: A Proud Man Too Easily Humiliated
Ricardo is a hard worker and a good provider. Unfortunately, though, he has very fragile self-esteem. He wants to believe he’s a winner, but he’s secretly afraid he’s really a loser in life. That makes him very sensitive to criticism. So, the other day, when his boss told him that he had to redo some paperwork, Ricardo blew a fuse. “Who are you to tell me what to do, you fat old pig?” he yelled at his boss. He got so angry that two security men had to escort him out of the office. He lost his job that day, just as he’d lost several previous jobs. “I just can’t take it when they put me down,” he sobbed to his wife later that day. “I tell myself to stay calm, but I just can’t. Something happens to me, and I go crazy.”
Sharelle: A Woman Who Cannot Handle Abandonment
Here’s Sharelle’s story: “My boyfriend said he needed a little more space. He said we were getting too close. I went nuts. I threw a vase at his head.” Sharelle gets so preoccupied with the men she falls in love with that she loses herself. She becomes really jealous, too. She better not catch her man so much as peeking at another woman, or all hell will break loose. But mostly, Sharelle is terrified of being abandoned. That probably goes back to when her mother died when Sharelle was only five years old. Her father disappeared from her life a couple years later. So when her boyfriend backs off even a little bit, Sharelle has an immediate meltdown. She cries uncontrollably. She shakes. Once she got so angry that she aimed a shotgun right at her boyfriend’s heart. At least she thinks she did that. Her memory of events like this is pretty vague.
Lyle, Brenda, Ricardo, and Sharelle—and perhaps you, the reader, as well—all suffer from rage . This mysterious event can be defined as an experience of excessive anger accompanied by partial or complete loss of conscious awareness, a normal sense of self, and/or behavioral control. Each of these people becomes, for a little while, someone different from themselves. As one of my clients told me of how he’d jumped out of a car to pummel a man who had just insulted him, “Someone else got out of that car. It wasn’t really me.”
How Common Is Raging?
If you are a rager, you may believe you are the only person on this planet with that particular problem. Actually, you have plenty of company. In fact, author and psychiatrist John Ratey (Ratey and Johnson 1998), in reviewing the literature on rage, writes that “one in five normal, everyday people experiences violent attacks of rage that he or she cannot control” (149). Now this doesn’t mean that 20 percent of the population gets homicidally mad on a regular basis. But, what it does mean is that many people do become so irate, from time to time, that they say and do things they later regret. Furthermore, these individuals often say that they don’t like losing control that way but that, when it happens, they truly cannot stop themselves.
I am a clinical psychotherapist in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Eau Claire is a rather sleepy city of only 60,000 people. It is family oriented, religious, and quiet. There are no real gangs in Eau Claire, Wisconsin—just a few wannabes. In other words, you would probably expect there to be precious few ragers in my humble burg. You would be wrong. My caseload is full of people who display both sudden and seething rages—short-fused screamers and long-term resenters. Abandonment rages are routine, since Eau Claire suffers from the same problem with failing relationships that is so common everywh