| Sunday, February 29, 2004 |
ANGER management
Story By Peter Sanders, Daily Breeze | Photo By Scott Varley, Daily Breeze |
Illustration By Tom Sorensen, Daily Breeze
John Elder seems an unlikely person to illustrate examples of workplace anger.
The 43-year-old anger management counselor exudes a calmness projected by his quiet
manner and the small yin-yang earring that peeks from behind his long brown hair.
He sits in a chair and relates the story of a screaming match between an employee and
his boss that became so heated, the nearly 500-person calling center came to a standstill
to watch the argument.
Although the fight didn't end in violence and the valued sales employee kept his job,
the company -- a major Torrance corporation -- sent the man to anger management training.
The training is an increasingly popular tool for companies trying to help employees
cope with workplace anger, according to consultants and company representatives.
George Anderson has witnessed this change, seeing his employee-anger related business
increase. Anderson is a trained psychotherapist and founder and president of Anderson
& Anderson, an anger management firm with an office in Lawndale, where Elder leads his
groups.
"Things really changed after 9-11, and we saw an overwhelming number of
referrals," said Anderson, 65, in a recent interview at his Brentwood-area
headquarters. "Companies and organizations started to recognize there was a need for
this kind of service and that it could be truly beneficial."
Hard data on anger in the workplace is thin, and experts acknowledge the field is still
fairly new when applied to the work setting.
As a concept, anger management training was popularized -- although in a highly
fictionalized way -- in the recent Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson film "Anger
Management."
But Anderson, who served as an adviser for the film, says that criminal and family
courts have been sending people to anger management training for years.
"About 40 percent of my business comes from court-ordered referrals," he
said. "In the last few years people convicted of road rage, simple battery and other
offenses have been sent to counseling as a way to take the burden off the courts."
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roy Paul specializes in family law and has been
sending people to anger management counseling for years. He said the training can be
applied to many different settings.
"A lot of people don't cope with anger properly," Paul said by telephone from
his office. "A well-managed class can teach somebody to recognize their conduct and
alter it into acceptable behavior.
"That training can be brought into any arena where one's behavior is not
constructive or healthy," he said.
Anderson's classes typically teach participants how to recognize their anger and then
use relaxation methods to calm themselves.
Employees referred to Anderson usually attend 10 counseling sessions, often as a
contingent requirement for continued employment.
Depending on the situation, sometimes the company covers the expense and sometimes it
comes out of the employee's pocket, Anderson said.
Another of Anderson's primary functions is training facilitators nationwide who can
either enact programs within their corporations or at consulting services that contract
with companies.
The U.S. Postal Service, frequently the butt of many workplace anger jokes and a few
outbursts of workplace-related violence, recently decided to train its in-house
facilitators and disperse them to facilities nationwide.
An official with the Postal Service's National Center for Employee Development in
Norman, Okla., confirmed that a contract had been signed with Anderson's firm, but would
not comment on the record, saying that the program was in its trial phase.
Once an initial batch of facilitators had been trained, the Postal Service would
evaluate the program's effectiveness, the official said. He noted there was no specific
push for the implementation of the course, saying only that like any large corporation,
the Postal Service has many employees who deal with stressful situations.
Although companies are understandably reluctant to discuss anger in the workplace, many
companies have systems already in place to deal with it.
At Torrance-based Toyota Motor Sales USA, employees have access to assistance and
counseling services paid for by the company.
"Toyota is very concerned with the well-being of its associates," spokeswoman
Diana DiJosephs said. "Our Associate Support and Assistance Program is a confidential
resource for resolving personal and work-related issues."
The employee assistance program Toyota contracts with also can refer employees to a
separate anger management service that will design one-on-one training programs for
employees and managers, DiJosephs said.
In other industries, where anger is a daily issue, workers are trained before the fact.
Tow truck drivers, for instance, tend to get more than the usual share of frustration
and vitriol flung at them.
Jeff Hunter, executive director of the Palm Springs-based California Tow Truck
Association, said members of his group receive customer relations training, which includes
managing angry motorists.
"Things are taken out on tow truck drivers by customers. Customers aren't mad at
them, but are angry at the situation," Hunter said. Drivers are trained how to defuse
the situation and hopefully keep their own stress levels down.
Where anger management falls into the realm of treatment and its proper place in the
workplace remains murky.
The Arlington Va.-based American Psychiatric Association, which represents 35,000
doctors, has not taken an official position on the issue, but anger is not typically
considered a medical condition, so it usually falls out of the scope of medically trained
psychiatrists.
Similarly, the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C. , would not take
an official position for the record. However, in the past it has stated anger management
programs may be beneficial.
Dr. Richard Driscoll, a Knoxville, Tenn., psychologist, believes that anger in the
workplace has increased as society's views about expressing emotions have changed.
"Today's society places a greater emphasis on expressing your feelings, while a
generation ago the emphasis was always on controlling your feelings," he said by
telephone from his Knoxville practice.
"The upside is we are freer to say what's on our minds. The downside is what we
say can often be extremely hurtful and cause a stressful situation," Driscoll said.
The key to managing workplace anger, both Driscoll and Anderson believe, lies in
training executives and managers.
George Anderson offers individual counseling sessions under the euphemism
"Executive Coaching." He routinely coaches movie studio executives, esteemed
university professors and Fortune 500 CEOs.
"Controlling your anger and your emotion is a skill," Anderson says.
"It's amazing to see the change in the entire work environment if someone at the top
is able to do business in a calmer and more controlled manner."
Major companies also have employed stress management, sometimes known as
"Emotional Intelligence," into their corporate training programs and research.
Technology giant Corning, in conjunction with the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health, recently conducted a wide-ranging study using the company's holistic
stress management program, according to a study published by the company.
In the 12-week study, about 3,000 Corning employees nationwide met in group sessions to
discuss personal and workplace stress, and learned techniques to cope with their stress
and anger.
The company also provided discounted health club memberships and yoga and tai chi
classes. An evaluation of the 12-week study revealed that most of the employees' workplace
stress declined significantly, although the study did not include solid numerical data
showing the change.
Driscoll believes this is a first step in the right step. "Management skill level
in America is getting better," he said. "But that doesn't always mean it is a
less angry workplace."
Publish Date:February 29, 2004
Taking Control of Anger
By Martin Miller
Los Angeles Times
On a recent Saturday morning, four people have come to an introductory anger management
class offered by Anderson & Anderson in Los Angeles.
One of them, Renee Moncito, operates a family services agency where tensions can run high.
She says she is looking for ways she and her staff can cope with stress. "You have to
stay in a 'help' mode," she says.
Television producer Carol Trussell says she has witnessed her share of screaming -- and
even fistfights -- on Hollywood sets, and hopes to learn how to improve the workplace
atmosphere. "I've had several employees, good employees, who have come to me and
said, 'Sorry, I'm leaving. I'm not going to take this. I don't care how much you pay
me,'" she says.
Another of the students -- a young husband and new father -- says his wife urged him to
seek help after he erupted in anger at her when she put their toddler to sleep for a nap
without a diaper. "I've been told I'm a mean person," he says, his head bowed.
"I'm very hard on people who don't see things my way," adds the man, who asked
that his name not be used. "I know what the solution is, but I can't seem to do it
[when I'm angry]."
Tens of thousands of people in this country are channeled into similar anger management
classes -- whose aim is to teach people to handle hot emotions without losing control --
every year by long-suffering spouses, the judicial system and workplace officials. And
those figures are expected to rise. Every time a celebrity, from boxer Mike Tyson to
actress Shannen Doherty, has been ordered to attend anger management classes, many
instructors say they have noticed an uptick in clients.
Last year's "Anger Management," a film that co-starred Jack Nicholson -- who in
real life smashed a car windshield with a golf club during a traffic dispute -- heightened
anger management's national profile. In fact, instructors say, the comedy helped remove
some of the shame angry clients had in asking for help.
"It's part of the zeitgeist," says Redford Williams, director of behavioral
medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
In recent years, more business and governmental organizations have enlisted anger
management services not only to treat hotheaded employees but also to stave off problems.
Federal postal workers, state prison guards and business leaders have taken workshops and
seminars. Some medical schools, such as the University of Miami's, put medical students
through training to help them better cope with their own -- and their patients' -- anger.
Judges across the country use the programs as a means to ease overcrowding in prisons and
jails, and unclog courtroom calendars, says Pam Hollenhorst, associate director of the
Institute of Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led one of the
few comprehensive studies of anger management research.
Anger management classes lay out how to deal with anger and can vary quite a bit. But most
share basic principles of psychology -- understanding, identifying and learning to control
angry emotions and employing relaxation techniques to minimize physiological responses to
anger.
Most classes, usually led by instructors with backgrounds in social work or counseling,
help students decide what is worth getting angry over and what isn't. When anger is
appropriate, the classes guide students in how to behave assertively, not aggressively and
destructively -- to get what they want. Programs may last from 10 weeks to almost a year
and cost from $150 to about $1,000. In part because of the rise in popularity of such
classes, no local, state or national standards govern what should be taught or who is
qualified to teach.
There also is scant research about whether anger management programs work. The American
Psychological Association, which is based in Washington, D.C., and represents
psychologists, has said such programs can be beneficial. But the American Psychiatric
Association, an Arlington, Va.-based group of 35,000 physicians, has not taken an official
position.
"We don't really know enough about what type of anger management program is best, or
for whom it works, under what circumstances or for how long," Hollenhorst
says."There are as many ways to approach [anger management] as there are
people," says W. Doyle Gentry, a clinical psychologist and director of the Institute
for Anger Free Living in Lynchburg, Va. "And it's created a lot of confusing, even
bizarre, methods that can't be taken seriously. I mean, if they ask you to beat a mattress
with a tennis racquet [to work out your anger], it's not going to do you any good."
Another factor is that many people who go through anger management training probably have
other conditions, such as bipolar disorder or substance abuse problems, that would
predispose them to aggressive behavior, says Dr. Darrel A. Regier, director of research at
the psychiatric association.
Other critics contend that dozens of hours of anger management cannot miraculously change
years of negative behavior, particularly if the person returns to the same environment.
Advocates agree that one key area of research must be resolved: Does anger management help
those who are placed in such programs involuntarily? Although no figures are available,
anecdotal evidence indicates a majority go to classes grudgingly or unwillingly, as a
means to avoid fines, jail time or loss of employment.
"If you get a guy who is saying, 'I don't have a problem, the world just needs to get
off my back,' he's probably not going to change," says Jerry Deffenbacher, a
professor of psychology at Colorado State University who studies anger and anger
management. He is working with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta to study what types of programs might be effective for drivers who have road rage.
Denial of anger isn't the only indication people might be having trouble. In addition to
obvious clues -- excessive drinking, physical fights, hair-trigger tempers --
psychologists say high levels of anger over time can cause physical illness, including
headaches and upset stomachs.
Psychologists quickly add that feeling or showing anger doesn't necessarily mean it's time
to enroll. Anger is a natural, even healthy, response to certain situations.
Although there's no consensus on when someone should seek anger management treatment,
experts say people whose tempers erupt daily or alienate family, friends or co-workers
usually are good candidates. Constant, silent stewing also is widely regarded as a sign it
is time to seek help.
The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.
|
| Cool it Outbursts of rage land plenty of people
in prison, and daily life behind bars provides many more opportunities to lose your
temper. Whch makes it the ideal place to get to grips with the often scoffed-at anger
management course. Does it work? Zoe Williams follows the progress of five Pentonville
inmates to find out.
Zoe Williams
Saturday November 15, 2003
The Guardian
Anger management is the least celebrated
branch of the cognitive therapy tree; its main reputation is as a quasi-scientific means
of controlling stroppy supermodels who've shouted at the stylist once too often. Naomi
Campbell, I mean - not all supermodels are like this. Unlike cognitive training for
anxiety and depression, with which it shares all the same principles and most of the same
techniques, this tends to be the kind of therapy to which you are referred by an
institution, rather than deciding upon yourself. I can't with complete certainty say why,
but ultimately anger, unless it manifests itself in violence, is not thought of as a
mental disorder that adversely affects the quality of your life. It's just put down as a
filthy temper. And if it does express itself as violence, then, sooner or later, you're
going to end up in prison.
Consequently, the best place to see an anger management course is in prison, and
probably the best prison is Pentonville, the first British establishment to adopt the
Canadian-devised Calm course (Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it). The governor,
Gareth Davies, is a kind of patrician liberal (he is patrician in the sense that he keeps
Churchill speeches about prisons on his wall; liberal in the sense that Churchill was
pretty liberal, prison-wise). His central interests are in making prison less agreeable
for the so-called "career" offender, the lifelong criminal who sees occasional
custody as an unavoidable hazard; and in making prison more productive for the spontaneous
criminal, the offender who's wound up incarcerated for an offence (usually a violent one)
that was unplanned and could have been avoided with the application of simple techniques
for self-control.
Now, as I've said, anger-management principles are simply those of cognitive therapy.
These are probably terribly familiar to anyone who's ever taken up regular therapy and got
bored with slagging off their parents, but to recap: feelings come from thoughts, they do
not arrive by themselves. Once this has been accepted, the thoughts can be identified -
the distorted thoughts can be righted, and the feelings will cease to arrive. The tenets
of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) are given the shorthand: thoughts-feelings,
impact-action. There are three core mistakes at the root of all distorted thinking (these
were identified by Albert Ellis, the 1950s "grandfather" of cognitive therapy
and a major influence on Aaron Beck, the "father") - "I must do well";
"You must treat me well"; "The world must be easy." Once these
assumptions have been excised, the aberrant thoughts and behaviour can be quelled.
The methodology and theory behind CBT are essentially practical - this is not about
delving into anyone's childhood, or laying old events to rest, or anything else typically
associated with talking cures. It is not, in short, the kind of therapy a brigadier (say)
would call "stuff and nonsense" - the only real controversy there's been around
the issue was that voiced by Noam Chomsky, in 1977: "Behaviourist therapy is pretty
empty as an intellectual pursuit ... [but] in schools and prisons ... it provides a
palatable ideology for the application of techniques of coercion." In other words,
this therapy teaches people how to operate in society without causing trouble and, in the
interests of so doing, teaches them not to strive for fairness, or justice, not to assume
that "the world must be easy".
This is not necessarily the right way to proceed, from a political or philosophical
point of view. Take as an example one statement on a psychometric test that prisoners have
to fill in: "If I had had a better education, I would have a good job, and wouldn't
need to commit crime" (prisoners who "agree strongly" have distorted
thinking). Sure, it's kind of nonsense, since plenty of people don't commit crime,
regardless of A-levels. But, on the other hand, it is the case that you don't find many
people with degrees in prisons, and it's not because they have better morals (not as far
as I know). Essentially, you have to train people not to think like this, since it will
prevent them from addressing their offending behaviour. But from a wider perspective,
someone has to think like this, otherwise there is no impetus for social change.
Anyway, I followed five offenders through a Calm course in Pentonville. On balance, I'd
say that Chomsky's view of "coercion" is right, but that the benefit to
prisoners is so extraordinary that it scuppers these reservations. One prisoner, in
particular, who might as well have had reoffender tattooed on his forehead at the start of
his sentence, admitted later on that he'd been spending all his spare time planning crimes
to recoup the "earnings" he'd lost in prison and, after 10 weeks of Calm, was a
different person. Maybe he was making that up for the parole hearing, but, if so, he's
such a fine and perceptive actor that he's plain wasted in drug-dealing. Besides him, I'd
say that one of them was never fully persuaded of his need to change; one was never going
to change as much as he needed to, for all the courses in the world; and two weren't all
that communicative with me, but the psychologists liked them.
Mark was an attempted arsonist in his late 40s. He'd served most of a four-year term
for an offence that slightly changed texture every time you spoke to him. In each version,
he was in a pub and had an argument with the landlord, who kicked him out. As he was being
ejected, he threatened to burn the place down. Sometimes, he claims to have changed his
mind on the way to the petrol station; other times, he's bought the petrol, abandoned it
and been arrested on his way home; the truth is (and he will sometimes agree with this)
that he was arrested with a can of petrol on his way back to the pub.
When I first meet him, Mark has missed one week of the course, having wounded his hand
spectacularly by punching a wall. So far, he's the perfect subject for anger management -
prone to spontaneous, manifestly self-destructive bursts of rage, and full of delusional
notions about where they come from. He has some cockeyed theories, among them that he has
a psychic ability not to feel pain down one side of his body, so long as he decides not
to. Sometimes, he tells you complete nonsense - he was in the Foreign Legion, only they
kicked him out because his skin was too fair and he kept getting sunburnt; his parents
were blown up by the IRA, and his mother's head landed in his lap. Other times, he comes
out with this very clear, unmelodramatic, melancholy picture of himself, and of how other
people see him. "Whenever I read anything in the paper about a guy who's done
something or other, and his neighbours are calling him a loner, and nobody in his job
really knew him, and nobody could tell you what he did with his time - I think, I'm like
that. I think I'll always end up in some sort of trouble. I don't think I'll ever get
along with people."
Rodney is in his mid-30s, and is also coming to the end of his sentence. He's in for
GBH - as far as he's concerned, it was a one-off event, and he's never had a problem with
aggression before or since. He is self-assured, fastidious about his words and his clothes
(harder than it sounds when your uniform is a tracksuit of the old school), articulate,
persuasive - he reiterates his relatively non-aggressive nature every time I see him. It
really gets on Simon Vallance's nerves (Simon is the course leader and a prison officer).
"You say that," Simon eventually intercedes, "but you're in here, aren't
you? You wouldn't be in here if you had no problem with anger." "I made one
mistake. Everyone can make one mistake."
In fact, a lot of prison officers agree with this line, just in passing - that it's an
accident of the stars, who happens to be outside a pub, on what particular night, when
which particular fight breaks out. They're very "there but for the grace of God
..." Like the police, a lot of prison officers are ex-army - the police like to make
out that they had to go into prisons because they weren't good enough for law enforcement.
I think they're just not judgmental enough.
Rodney's back story is that he spent 20 years as a karaoke guy, who went round pubs
with the machine. "I had every single bit of racist abuse you can get; I have been
called everything under the sun that you can call a black man. And then it was just this
one guy, following me around, saying this thing, over and over again ..." He never
wavered from the line that, otherwise, he was a fairly placid individual. On the one hand,
this is a classic example of the distorted thinking that anger management exists to
overturn; on the other hand, as I say, he was very convincing - maybe there are some
stresses that would drive anyone to violence. (Having said that, I never found out the
full extent of the offence - the victim said Rodney had glassed him, and that's what he
was sentenced on. Rodney said he'd just punched him.)
Adrian was in for a drugs offence, which wasn't an anger-management issue. But over the
course of his term, he had notched up 68 extra days for outbursts of fury. This,
technically, made him an inappropriate referral - "Calm is not intended for offenders
who have a poor institutional history of anger and aggressive behaviour alone. The
programme is aimed at those whose anger or poor emotional control lead to a criminal
offence" (my italics). That said, he was the gold-star of the group. By about the
third session, he'd noticed a change of behaviour in himself that he says he didn't really
plan, it just happened. "Before," he said, "I used to go everywhere with a
sharpened pencil. If people called me 'teaboy', or anything, I'd have a sharpened pencil.
Now I only ever take a pencil if I'm going to a lesson. Sometimes, I take a pen."
Teaboy is what people get called when they're on tea duty for the officers - it's a good
job, allowing prisoners great freedom of movement, and unlimited access to the phone.
However, communicating with officers, which you have to if you're going to find out how
they want their tea, is the third worst thing you can do in prison, above grassing and
having committed a sex offence with a child. So it's a bit of a mixed bag, and other
prisoners, er, call them teaboy.
Sean was the only lifer in the group - he was in for murder, and had mainly taken the
Calm course because he'd already done Enhanced Thinking Skills and found it very helpful.
(ETS is the standard cognitive training all prisoners get - it's mostly about problem
solving, attitudes to criminality and basic cognitive skills.) He didn't want to be
interviewed for this piece, but agreed to have his picture taken. And Leon dropped out of
Calm after two sessions, since his main problems were with addiction, and addicts have to
be referred to drug programmes before anything else. Prison is not by any stretch the best
place to go to come off drugs. In the words of John Hardwick, "Don't do drugs,
because if you do drugs you'll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in
prison."
Apart from the fact that Adrian's aggression seemed to have surfaced inside prison,
rather than outside, all the prisoners represented the ideal profile for an
anger-management course. None of them was really a serious, constantly reoffending career
criminal - anger-driven offenders tend not to be, since it's spontaneous, not a career
decision. None of them was serving time for using violence instrumentally (that is,
bouncers and gangsters, people who use aggression as a means to an end, rather than as an
expression of anger). None of them was psychotic. The problems with trying to teach
cognitive skills to psychotics are many, but sometimes the outcome is comically bad, as
vividly illustrated in a story Simon remembered from a previous ETS course. "The
worst one was when they sorted out a grass - basically, this guy was a grass, so they'd
knocked him out and poured boiling water on his face and all over his neck. And then, when
he'd woken up, he'd started screaming, but there was nobody around him to get in trouble
for it. And the guy who did it later said he was actually really pleased he'd done ETS,
because otherwise he'd have tried to do him in front of everybody, and he'd never have
been able to do so much damage."
I spoke to the group before and after each session - I didn't sit in. Debbie Marsh and
Ian Whitaker, forensic psychologist and prison officer tutor respectively, described the
shape of the course. The first section is aimed at alerting the angry to the ways in which
they could recognise their feelings of rage before losing control. The angry prisoner, in
the interminable psychometric testing done at the start of the course, will agree strongly
with statements such as "My anger is caused by what other people do"; "Once
I get angry it's impossible for me to control myself"; "I have a fiery
temper"; "I fly off the handle"; "I feel like I'm about to
explode." His firm belief will be there was nothing he could have done to prevent his
outburst.
Once the therapist points out the physiological changes that occur at the outset of
rage (sweaty palms, faster heartbeat), these function as proof that the uncontrollable
fury didn't just possess him, it built up from more wieldy emotions. When he's identified
these, he can be called upon to locate the thoughts that triggered them; he can now
address the thoughts, and see whether or not they're reasonable - mostly, they won't be,
or there will be some way of rationalising them that prevents an escalation to blind rage.
Debbie Marsh says this is the most dramatic bit of the course. "Most groups are
turned as soon as we start doing the arousal stuff. They're sitting there going, 'Oh my
God, that's how I can tell I'm getting angry, because my heartbeat's going and my hands
are sweating', and as soon as they see the physical cues kicking in, that's it for them -
they're on board, they're active, they're completely gobsmacked by the idea that they can
control it themselves." Results from the Focus On Violence course at Foston Hall
women's prison shows that female prisoners tend towards depression at this point, as they
revise all the aggressive behaviour of their past and realise that they could have
controlled it, that it was all their own fault. Sure, male prisoners don't like it,
either, but depression doesn't seem to follow on so much. "Obviously, it's
hard," Debbie says, "because they've spent their lives blaming situations, other
people, and all of a sudden they've got irrefutable proof - 'It's me. All my life I've
wound myself up.' When they get to that point, you've got to be really quick to come in
behind them and say, 'Well, if you created it, you can control it.' You have to give them
a sense of their own power."
This is where some standard techniques, some of them recognisable from anti-panic
attack systems, are introduced. It's no great surprise that anger and panic share
approaches, according to Ian Crane, Simon's co-teacher of this group. "With anger,
jealousy, anxiety, elation, whatever, it's very hard to differentiate between them,
because the physical cues are exactly the same," he says. "When you're anxious,
you're sweating, you're clenching your fists, you've got a knot in your stomach. When
you're angry, it's exactly the same. So how can we tell the difference? Through our
thoughts. What thoughts brought us there, and what were the distortions?"
Isn't elation good? Once in a while? "No, as daft as it seems, intense happiness
can lead these guys into exactly the same situations that anger can. It can lead all of us
like that. You get carried away by euphoria, you think you're superhuman." Debbie
illustrates with some thoughts on love: "It's like the saying, 'Love is blind' - it
stops you thinking rationally. We want them always to be thinking. If you're thinking,
you're in control of yourself." It's when emotions are too intense, for too long and
too often, that there's a problem, Ian concludes sagely. It's not the stuff high drama is
made of but, as everyone keeps coming back to, where did high drama get you? It got you in
here.
The basics are as follows: thought-stopping - which does exactly that, puts a halt on
negative thoughts that are getting out of control and directs them elsewhere - fogging
(learning to hear criticism without absorbing it), broken-record, negative assertion and
negative inquiry (all assertiveness techniques). Most of them work best in conjunction
with one or more of the others, and all of them will only work with constant practice, in
real situations, not just in role-plays with psychologists who are only pretending to be
annoying. Luckily, if you're looking for situations of heart-stopping frustration and rage
on a day-to-day basis, prison is just the place.
So they're all given these work sheets, split into columns such as Situation/Physical
Cues/Thoughts Experienced/Action Taken, and they spend as much of their week as keenness
and bad situations allow reporting these incidences of rage. Minute but constant
annoyances abound - being told to do two opposite things by two people of equal authority
(not on purpose; it just seems to happen quite a lot), waiting an hour for the phone,
having to go on a tea break when you're not thirsty. Mark describes an argument between
two officers, neither of whom wanted to do some unspecified task - they kept sending him
to tell the other one to do it. "I was piggy in the middle. And I want to say, 'When
you two kids have sorted yourselves out, come back and let me know,' but I felt as if I
was being used. It was a confrontation between two officers - it shouldn't have been
anything to do with me." Now, this sounds like anger management, but the way Mark is
talking, it's actually the opposite - the more he's remembering it, the more pissed off
he's getting and the more ways he can think of in which they wronged him. In his parole
hearing, he's told that he still has a problem with brooding - he replays situations in
his mind, which makes him liable to hit out at someone who just happens to walk past and
look at him funny. In fact, he's still thinking about those officers by the time of his
parole hearing, and about the time he punched the wall; but he never stops trying to find
a way to deal rationally with these events.
Rodney, being so placid, uses up very few worksheets. Adrian uses up loads - he was
educated in Jamaica and has the incredibly neat, copperplate handwriting that the famously
strict schooling there bestows. "I want to stab him in the eye," he writes, in
flawless italics. "I want to kill him." Action taken? A mixture of fogging and
thought-stopping. About four sessions in, Adrian's situation has changed markedly -
crucially, he has stopped arguing with his girlfriend. He used to fight with her every
time they spoke, and he used to beat her up before he got sent to prison. Their argument
was always the same - he'd call the house, she wouldn't be there; he'd think, I have only
one chance to phone, now I'm going to have to call her mobile, she knows I can't afford to
call her mobile, she's doing it on purpose; then he'd call her mobile and she wouldn't be
there, either; he'd think, she's left it at home because she's having an affair (he
describes this with such mournful frustration that I'm getting angry with the woman
myself, even though he's the one who's in prison and she's looking after three kids and
can go where she likes); then he'd call the house again and she'd pick up, having missed
it the first time because, whatever, she was upstairs. All it takes is for him to think,
"Maybe she's upstairs", before he has all the other thoughts, and that's a
screaming row they haven't had. But you need a lot of worksheets to get to "Maybe
she's upstairs".
Giving up aggression is, at the final count, a lot like giving up smoking - you can
accept that your life would be better without it and you can train yourself to a point
where it's not a knee-jerk reaction, but you can't deny that it did have something going
for it while it lasted. Aggressive people, when they're not in prison, do get their own
way a lot of the time - relinquishing violence means accepting that you can't control
other people. Clearly, everything's easier before you accept this. Ian Whitaker gives this
example: "The classic case was a prisoner who felt that his partner was going to
leave him. So, he knew he was responsible for his own anger, and he'd accepted that, but
he also had to deal with the fact that where's it written that she can't leave you? She
can. He can try as hard as he likes to change his behaviour completely, and she's still
got every right to go. He'd always controlled her with his anger; even from prison, the
pure threat of violence was enough to keep her at home. Whereas now, he'd got past his
anger, but it left him with nothing to control her with. You can't control someone with
assertiveness. And we don't have any miracle cures. We can't change any of their
circumstances. And we certainly can't change the fact that they're in prison, and that's a
good time for their partners to have affairs."
So, given that anger has things in common with addiction, a fair amount of the course
is given over to relapse prevention. In the final session, everyone obviously thinks they
won't relapse, but the prevention module is as much about not getting demoralised by one
relapse as it is about not relapsing at all. Mark and Adrian are explaining why they'll
never get into a fight again. "I hate to say it," Mark starts, "but in this
day and age, nobody fights on a one-to-one basis. It's all gangs of eight. You think it's
just one, and then you come out of the toilet, or whatever, and he's got six of his mates
with him." Adrian agrees, "That's true, it's all gang-related. It's a system.
You can't have a one-to-one fight with someone, he'll always get his mates, and they'll
find the best place and the best time to attack. So it gets that there's no justification
to fight." Even a guaranteed one-to-one Mark's dubious about: "OK, you might
have just hit him once or just pushed him out of the way, but say he falls and bangs his
head on the edge of the table, or on the edge of a kerb, or ... whatever, and that person
dies, then the long-term consequence is you coming back to prison for a life
sentence."
It's not a very moral business, managing anger - there's a section on the course about
victim issues and envisaging the full reach of the life you may have ruined, but mostly
it's about very pragmatic strategies for not ending up back in prison. The best way not to
come back to prison is to make sure that everything you do is something you've consciously
decided to do. If this has consequences for the greater social good, then that's good,
too.
I undervalued Mark's achievements all the way through, it turns out, since his parole
officer is astonished by the progress he's made: "He really worried me when I first
met him. I thought this was a Broadmoor case, I never thought I'd be finding him somewhere
to live so soon." Debbie said she thought he'd need fairly close watching and the
parole officer replied, "Yes, I'm pleased we've found a hostel above the main parole
office. I don't know how happy they'll be about having an arsonist, but there we go."
Adrian is the psychologists' favourite, though. "You were excellent, you really
were," Debbie started. "We couldn't fault you, and we try to fault
everybody," Simon continued. Adrian looked sheepish. I don't know, maybe I'm mad,
maybe I imagined this, but I thought his landing officer had tears in his eyes. Adrian no
longer smokes dope, and says, "I can look at myself in the mirror easier now."
He doesn't get into any fights, and he doesn't fight with his girlfriend on the phone.
He's been quietly supportive to the others in the group. Debbie says after he leaves,
"He really is excellent. I'd trust him to do my bathroom." (He's a decorator,
besides being a drug-dealer.) Until about two-thirds of the way through the course, he
confesses that he'd been planning how best to retrieve the goods and time stolen from him
by society - when he was arrested, the police fashioned some absurd scale (he says) to
calculate his earnings, and then seized this amount in goods and money after he was
convicted. He'd figured out how much society owed him by applying the police's
earnings-scale to the time he'd spent in prison, and was intending to thieve or drug-deal
exactly that amount in revenge, before he went back to his regular business of, erm,
drug-dealing. "I'm not going to do that now. I'm very calm. I've got no plans like
that."
Calm may have no moral agenda, it certainly has no interest in stopping people smoking
dope (as far as I could make out), but anger is a defining interest - your future is
defined by revenge strategies; your social life and addictions are determined by the need
for a respite from all the strategising. Just like anxiety, it governs your life.
Rodney wasn't up for parole yet, but on the last day, just before the relapse session,
he was having an argument with some other guy who wasn't doing Calm but was doing a course
next door. Rodney was in a definite state of non-agreement, but wasn't going to burst any
blood vessels over it, like the other guy was. The issue, as I found out from a third
person, by no means a reliable one, was this: the blood-vessel guy was on kitchen duty
with Rodney (another attractive job, better in some ways than teaboy, because nobody calls
you teaboy). Blood-vessels and his associate had got caught cooking crack in the
microwave, and now the whole detail (including Rodney) had been kicked off kitchen duty.
Anyone would be annoyed by that - most people would be more annoyed than Rodney. Maybe he
was, as he said, a placid person who got pushed too far one time. Maybe the whole crack
story was cooked up for my amusement. I never got to the bottom of that (he clammed up a
bit towards the end of the course). But Mark and Adrian were not the same when they left
Pentonville as they were when they came in. It may be full of a thousand daily
frustrations but, if you feel like it, you can get a lot more out of incarceration than
GCSEs
· Some names have been changed.
|
Managing your
ANGER
Saturday, June 8, 2002
By Alex Rocha
Angry teen-agers oftentimes
become angry adults.
And the 10-member team at
Total Self Insight, a new Merced business, knows Merced County doesn't need more angry
adults.
So Total Self Insight is
dedicated to helping young people, and adults, manage their anger and make better choices
in their lives.
The business, which opened
on May 1, is headed by Valerie and Shannon Anthony, mother and daughter who are committed
to helping teen-agers and adults in need of anger management.
Valerie says, "Our
goal is to have individuals develop an understanding of self and to make better life
choices by successful completion of our program."
The idea of running a
private business has always been in the back of Valerie's mind. She currently works as a
mental health social worker, running a dual-diagnosis program at an outpatient clinic in
Modesto. But that will end Aug. 1.
She now works one day per
week at Total Self Insight, and Shannon works the rest of the week.
Shannon, 24, is studying
for her associate of arts degree in addiction studies at Merced College, and she will be
facilitating the anger management group sessions for teen-agers.
When business is in full
swing, the Anthonys will offer workshop-style sessions with 10 people each. There will be
groups of teen-agers and groups of adults. Workshops will also be offered in domestic
violence issues. Male- and female-only sessions will also be offered.
Valerie said there is a
lack of anger management programs in Merced, and the idea of starting one came when she
stumbled across Anderson and Anderson, a Southern California-based program, on the
Internet.
Valerie and Tony Slaton, a
Total Self Insight co-worker, attended an Anderson and Anderson seminar about one year ago
and learned a nationally recognized anger management model.
The model, established by
George Anderson, now a close friend of Valerie's, uses a series of workbooks that puts
participants in control of their progress.
The workbook that Total
Self Insight will use is titled "Gaining Control of Ourselves." It focuses on
understanding why anger can control people's lives and explains how to reduce and redirect
the stress that causes the anger.
The workbook, as well as
the group sessions, will be offered in Hmong, Laotian and Spanish.
Shannon Anthony says,
"Anger is usually just a mask to hide other emotions, such as disrespect and
frustration."
The model also provides
alternatives to violent outbursts and abusive behavior through lessons that challenge old
and inappropriate ways of expressing anger.
Valerie says that anger is
a learned emotion that can be "unlearned."
The groups Shannon will
facilitate will also help teen-agers understand the different types of relationships they
form with adults, including parents, teachers and police.
She says, "Those are
the really vital relationships that help establish who they are going to be as
adults."
The workbook is written in
contemporary teen-aged lingo, and Shannon says it's easy for teen-agers to understand.
After a little more than 30
days in business, Total Self Insight has two teen-agers who are receiving individual help
until more clients sign-up and one adult who was referred from Merced County Mental Health
Services.
A 13-year-old client is
already making progress.
Valerie started his
sessions by telling him a "newborn baby" theory. She said that as a baby, he
learned to cry and become angry to get what he wants, and he became a teen-ager who does
the same thing. She told him, "We're going to learn how to switch that off."
And she says, "That
hooked him 100 percent."
The courses are 16 weeks
long and strive to put most of the work in the clients' hands. Shannon says, "We
focus on personal responsibility... . Kids lose sight of that."
CONTACT THE SUN-STAR NEWS TEAM
Steve Staloch-Publisher
Joseph W. Kieta-Editor
George W. Moore-Managing
Editor
Phone: 385-2451 or 385-2485
Fax: 385-2226 or 385-2460
Email story ideas or press
releases to editor@mercedsun-star.com.
Treating Anger for Profit - Los Angeles Times
Courts: Many judges order offenders to take courses to control
their tempers. But there are no standards for such classes and teachers may have no
training in the field.
By ANNA GORMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Sandra Whatley threw a soda at a police officer who stopped her for jaywalking.
Kazutoshi Yakota brawled with a fellow college student over a woman. Moheb Helmy got into
a shouting match with his mother and yelled at the cop who came to break it up.
The explosions landed all three in Los Angeles courtrooms--and as a result, in anger
management classes. At the weekly sessions that are part of their sentences, they discuss
their outbursts and describe their feelings in their anger control workbooks. The aim is
to learn how to reduce rage by taking timeouts, breathing deeply and using such phrases as
"I did wrong" rather than "When will you ever learn?"
Criminal and traffic court judges in California are increasingly using such programs to
punish--and treat--defendants convicted of battery, road rage and disturbing the peace.
Anger management classes, however, are not certified or monitored by state or local
agencies. With the exception of Orange County, there are no court-approved lists of
programs or guidelines on class length, curriculum or teacher qualifications. In fact,
some teachers have no training at all.
"Anybody can set up a program, call it anger management and hope to get court
referrals," said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Meeka. "You keep
your fingers crossed and hope they are doing a good job."
Anger management classes are an offshoot of domestic violence programs, which are subject
to legislative standards, including required levels of training and experience for
teachers. Meeka, who spent five years presiding over a domestic violence court, said he
would support statewide legislation to apply the same standards to anger management
classes.
An advisory committee of the Judicial Council of California is reviewing the use of
court-mandated anger management classes statewide.
Aside from the lack of standards, there are virtually no data on whether the classes
actually help reduce recidivism. Because statistics are unavailable on how many people are
being sentenced to anger management, authorities cannot gauge whether the programs work.
Skeptics say it's nearly impossible to change people who are angry by nature. Supporters
maintain that willing participants learn useful techniques to calm themselves.
"These people are still in the terrible twos, even if they are 45 years old,"
said Sandra Cox, an anger management teacher and executive director of the Coalition of
Mental Health Professionals in South-Central Los Angeles. "The classes give them
positive ways to channel their anger rather than acting out violently."
University of Wisconsin researcher Pamela Hollenhorst, who has reviewed studies of anger
management programs throughout the country, said classes help some minor offenders but do
not work for most violent criminals or as the sole treatment for spousal abusers.
"Anger management is sort of a Band-Aid approach," said Hollenhorst, assistant
director of the university's Institute for Legal Studies. "It doesn't address the
underlying problems."
Critics cite Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as extreme examples of anger management
failures. Before the teens opened fire on fellow students at Columbine High School in
Colorado, they had been ordered by a court to attend anger management classes for breaking
into a van and stealing electronic equipment.
Some Judges Like the Idea
Though road, air and workplace rage are hardly new behaviors, psychologists and judges
finally started identifying them as common problems in the late 1990s.
Some judges see the classes as an ideal sentence for first-time offenders convicted in bar
brawls or fistfights with fellow motorists. Those judges say classes can help teach
defendants how to keep their emotions in check, as well as ease crowded jails and clogged
court calendars.
Defendants are typically sentenced to from 10 to 52 weekly classes as a condition of
probation or as an alternative to time behind bars.
Because there are no approved lists, defendants must find their own classes, often by
surfing the Internet. Probation officers keep a list of agencies that offer approved
batterers' programs and might also provide anger classes.
In recent years, several celebrities who pleaded no contest to criminal charges in
connection with temper flare-ups have been ordered by judges to attend anger management
classes. Actress Shannen Doherty hurled a beer bottle at a car window outside a West
Hollywood bar; rapper Tone Loc smashed a woman's car with a baseball bat in Los Angeles;
boxer Mike Tyson struck two drivers after a traffic accident in Maryland.
"It's sort of this self-feeding frenzy," Hollenhorst said. "It gets a lot
more publicity every time an athlete or a movie star gets sent to anger management."
The number of referrals further increased with a road rage law that took effect in
January. The state law, written by Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), gives judges
the authority to order defendants to complete a "court-approved anger management or
'road rage' course" in addition to suspending their driving privileges. Wesson,
however, admitted recently that he was not aware that court-approved programs don't exist
in most counties.
Wesson said he will talk to members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee about setting
statewide standards. "If you don't have these things in place, it could lead to
abuses," he said.
Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Roberta Kyman estimates she has sentenced more
than 200 defendants to anger management classes over the last four years. She advised them
to choose a class from the approved list and report back after finishing. Until late
August, she didn't realize there was no such list.
No Standards, Many Differences
With no standards, classes differ widely in length, format and curricula. Some programs
resemble therapy groups, while others teach specific skills in a classroom setting.
Teachers' qualifications also vary. Some have doctorates in psychology and others do not
even have a college degree.
Sharon Hartwig studied music and theater for two years at a community college and spent 1
1/2 years as a social services counselor before starting an anger management class
recently at Joint Efforts Inc., a San Pedro nonprofit agency that serves low-income
families.
In preparation, she attended a one-day seminar taught by a fellow teacher and wrote a
manual of policies and procedures.
Some say any standards are unnecessary because many anger management teachers already lead
domestic violence courses and have met the state requirements to do so.
Cox, the South-Central Los Angeles anger management teacher, insists that her clients
benefit, even if it takes them a while to get the message. She said the courses also help
participants lower their blood pressure or stop the progression of diabetes or heart
disease.
"We know it works," said Cox, who has a doctorate in social psychology.
"They block us for three to four months. Once they let that guard down, they start
hearing us. And they start telling us, 'I heard your voice telling me to check my anger.'
"
David Davies, a bureau chief with Los Angeles County Probation, said all his department
can do is keep tabs on whether defendants attend class. They give the Probation Department
certificates of completion, which the department passes along to the court.
In Orange County, probation officials took the initiative four years ago by preparing
guidelines for courses and identifying teachers qualified to deal with volatile clients.
The Probation Department conducts annual reviews.
The 10-week Orange County courses cost up to $50 a week and last 90 minutes each.
Instructors focus on the telltale signs of potentially violent anger: upset stomach,
clenched fists, dry mouth. Then they provide tips on how students can tame their tempers.
Colorado State University psychology professor Jerry Deffenbacher, who has studied anger
management, said programs work only if the participants want help. Even then, he said, the
classes may help lower their anger but won't turn them into pacifists.
Each Week, a New Skill
On a recent Tuesday night in Brentwood, Whatley the jaywalker, Yakota the college
student and Helmy the shouter sat in a circle holding their workbooks, "Gaining
Control of Ourselves." Each week, George Anderson or one of his fellow teachers
covers a new skill: Active listening. Identifying high-risk situations. Controlling
negative emotions.
This week: Communicating effectively.
The participants took turns introducing themselves, telling why they got referred to
the class and what they could have done differently to prevent getting arrested. Then they
watched a video about communication styles and practiced ways to express anger and
frustration without provoking a fight.
Anderson described the pretend situation: You've cooked a nice meal and your partner comes
home two hours late and the food is ruined. His students' responses--though a bit
formal--hit the mark: I feel hurt when you come home late for dinner because it makes me
feel like you don't value our time together.
Moheb Helmy, 22, said his rage consumes him and he is constantly slamming doors, cursing
and fighting with his family. "I have so much anger," he said. "I would
love to change because it hurts everybody around me."
Helmy, who has been ordered by a judge to attend 12 weeks of classes, said the skills he
is learning seem logical. "But when it comes time to do it, I forget it all," he
said.
Anderson, a clinical social worker and former UCLA lecturer, has been teaching anger
management for three years and currently has about 200 students at four Los Angeles
locations. "I don't know if it works or not," he said. "But anger
management teaches practical skills. I think if they come for a long period of time,
they'll benefit."
Some clients come voluntarily, but most are required to attend and aren't happy about it.
Inevitably, a few bring along an attitude: I don't have a problem. I don't need to be
here.
Sandra Whatley, a native Texan with a self-described temper problem, had those exact
feelings when she first started the class. She thought the police officer needed anger
management more than she did.
But during a year of classes, Whatley said, she has realized that she has to take take
some responsibility for getting arrested. Now, she leaves her workbook open on her dresser
to remind her to take a deep breath when she is about to explode.
"I've had an aggressive personality my whole life," said Whatley, 40. "It's
in my blood. I need this. But I cannot even begin to tell you I have toned myself
down."
Letting the
Anger Seep Out
The unprecedented nature of the Sept. 11 attacks fuels hostility, experts say. Rather than
being a state of reckless confusion,
rage fuels the will to fight for survival.
By BENEDICT CAREY, Times Health Writer
The wide eyes and swollen features,
the twitching around the mouth: Anger may be the most frightening of our elemental
emotions. Yet many Americans have felt it deeply since Sept. 11 and say the sensation has
intruded on their thoughts, affected their relationships and remained surprisingly strong,
even months after the events.
"The feeling goes so deep inside, I don't know if the word 'anger' even covers
it," said Joyce Glenn, 50, a Roman Catholic lay minister and peace activist in Omaha.
Marian Gaston, 30, a public defender in San Diego, recognizes the feeling. While talking
with her husband about U.S. goals in Afghanistan, she heard herself say: "I don't
care what the goals are, I'm ready to go slit (Osama bin Laden's) throat myself." She
shuddered at the recollection. "I don't think I have ever said anything like
that."
In interviews during the last several weeks, dozens of counselors, psychiatrists and
clergy across the country said they were seeing evidence of increased anger among clients,
friends and neighbors.
"We have seen enormous anger response throughout our whole system," said James
Pruett, executive director of Methodist Counseling and Consultation Services, which runs
18 clinics in the Charlotte, N.C., area. "People are angry that their lives are
disrupted, they're angry when they have to travel, angry at their bosses." The vast
majority connect their anger to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, and the aftermath.
Public displays of anger have been numerous: hate crimes against Arab Americans, the
spectacle of New York firefighters cursing terrorists on TV, the tremor in the voices of
President Bush and other leaders after the attacks. But therapists say most of this
passion is playing out in private, in conversations about military strategy and ethics, in
arguments among friends, in outbursts after the evening news--eruptions directed at anyone
from the Taliban to the U.S. military command to the anchorman.
"I've had couples come in, and the woman says, 'He's been pounding around the house,
talking about bombing things, and I'm scared,' " said Dr. William Callahan, an Irvine
psychiatrist who was an Air Force flight surgeon and specializes in anger issues.
Callahan's office has fielded dozens of calls in recent weeks from people whose anxiety
and grief are mingled with rising levels of fury. "It's amazing how many people are
terrified by their own anger because they feel they'll lose control and act on it. But
it's important to know that anger is a normal response. It's protective, and feeling it
deeply does not mean you are going to lose control."
Contrary to some common depictions, anger is not a state of reckless confusion. In its raw
form, it is a sensation of power and clarity that gives us the will and energy to fight
for our lives. The body goes on full alert: Levels of "fight-or-flight" hormones
such as adrenaline spike, the heart rate quickens, blood rushes to the muscles.
"All senses are heightened,
vision is clearer, colors are sharper," Callahan said. "It has none of the
fuzziness that anxiety or stress cause. Anger is a motivator. It wants us to act."
Scant Research on the Emotion
How we will act as a result of the anger triggered by Sept. 11 is difficult for mental
health researchers to predict, because there's little scientific research to draw on.
Anger can be fleeting, and it often is accompanied by a welter of emotions that are nearly
impossible to measure: anxiety, fear, grief.
What experts do know is that hostility often is associated with drug use, binge drinking
and some mood disorders, including anxiety.
Fits of anger also can knock recovering alcoholics, drug users and smokers off the wagon,
according to health professionals. "People tend to make use of such substances as
mood regulators, trying to regulate negative moods, and anger is certainly one of
those," said June Tangney, a psychologist who studies anger response at George Mason
University in Fairfax, Va.
In the months after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, a survey found that 44% of residents there reported feeling angry "very often,
fairly often or some of the time," compared with 35% of those surveyed in
Indianapolis, a city of similar size and population distant from the crime.
Compared with the people in Indiana, smokers and drinkers in Oklahoma City were twice as
likely to drink and smoke more after the bombing. The rate at which people took up smoking
for the first time was four times higher in Oklahoma City.
Already, substance abuse clinics in the New York metropolitan area are reporting increased
demand for services and heightened irritability among clients, said Dr. H. Westley Clark,
director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, a federal agency that funds U.S.
treatment clinics.
"We expect to see this increased demand across the country," he said. "The
fact of the matter is that terrorism can strike anywhere now. This is not like an
earthquake or a tornado, which lasts a few seconds or minutes and then it's over."
The unprecedented nature of the attacks is what makes thoughts of lashing out so urgent,
trauma experts say. The attacks in New York and near Washington, and the anthrax scare
that has followed, were not an act of war by one state against another, as was the case at
Pearl Harbor. Nor were they an attack on U.S. military forces, such as the bombing of the
Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 or the attack on the destroyer Cole last year in the
Yemeni port city of Aden. And unlike the Oklahoma City bombing, the attacks were not an
isolated crime after which the perpetrators were quickly caught.
Rather, they seemed to come from nowhere--from the sky, in the mail--creating the sense of
vulnerability that often drives people to frustration and fury.
"This is an entirely new phenomenon, as far as I can tell, and my worry is that, if
it goes on and on, people will just say 'Enough!' and act out," said Dr. Fred Gusman,
director of the education division of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder in Palo Alto. "I don't think we'll be able to know what the effects are for
a couple of years."
Meanwhile, millions of Americans are changing their lives to accommodate a sensation far
more powerful than they are accustomed to.
"The sight of those people jumping from the towers because they'd rather fall than be
burned . . . I just can't get it out of my head," said Jack Copas, 47, a Methodist
minister and lifelong pacifist in Totowa, N.J. He said that since Sept. 11 he has been
more furious than ever before in his life. "I keep asking: Why didn't they attack at
night--when the buildings weren't full?"
Copas' anger has prompted him to reassess friendships. One longtime friend, a Christian
fundamentalist, recently remarked that the attacks were a great wake-up call from God.
"He said, 'We need to get right with Jesus.' When he said that to me, I became
incensed. I said: 'This is God? God did this?' "
Copas broke off the relationship. His differences with his friend probably were there all
along, he suspects, but the response to the attack brought them to the surface.
Gaston, the public defender, has put her anger to practical use. She has been exploring
the CIA's Internet site to see if there is some way she can help in the war on terrorism.
"It makes me laugh," she said. "I don't speak any foreign languages; I
certainly wouldn't blend in, and all along I'm thinking, 'What on Earth am I doing looking
at a (Web) site of people I've been opposed to all my life?' "
For Glenn, the Catholic peace activist in Nebraska, the turmoil of recent months has
prompted a rethinking of the principles that have defined her life.
"When it's a matter of self-preservation, I think we need to ask ourselves when it's
OK to harm others," she said. While Glenn has not abandoned her commitment to peace,
she says she won't march in local demonstrations against the operation in Afghanistan.
"If I'm going to stand somewhere with a sign that says, 'peace now,' I want it to
say: 'stop using planes as weapons; stop using anthrax--peace now.' If there's a madman
shooting people in McDonald's, do we have a rally outside saying, 'peace now'?"
A Counterbalance of Shame
Struggling with the emotion in these ways is far better than trying to ignore it,
psychologists say. What often prevents us from acknowledging the depth of our anger, they
say, is an equally powerful counterbalance: shame. Revenge fantasies evoke feelings of
shame; they seem to reveal an underlying depravity, even mental instability.
"People feel much more comfortable grieving deeply than expressing anger," said
Robert W. Cromey, a former therapist who is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in San
Francisco. "I think the grief that people are pouring out now is deeply related to
anger. It's much more acceptable in our society to be sad than to be really mad."
Yet having Rambo-like visions after Sept. 11 does not imply anything about a person's
moral character, mental health researchers say.
"There's part of me that wants to go over (to Afghanistan) and pick up a gun and
start killing people," Gaston said. "But I think it's important that we not let
this attack turn us into something we don't want to be. On a personal level, I don't want
to be the person wearing a T-shirt showing Osama bin Laden with a target. . . . It seems
to trivialize the whole thing." |