Anger Management and Counselling in Waterdown, ON.

Anger is a completely normal, often healthy human emotion. But if it gets beyond your control, it can be very destructive in your work and interpersonal relationships and can drastically devastate the quality of your life. Fortunately, anger can be 'managed' which is very different than 'suppressing' it. Unexpressed anger leads to a host of other problems including high blood pressure. However, when we learn how to 'manage' our anger, we can learn to diminish both the emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes. We can learn to avoid triggers and develop strategies. We can learn how to problem solve, change our thinking and relax our bodies.

Anger, frustration, rage, and reactivity overall, can make a person feel frustrated and powerless; when we have emotional outbursts of any kind they can feel so all-encompassing and make us feel like we are not in control of feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. In working with clients on their emotions I aim to primarily promote an understanding of why our emotional outbursts occur; once this has been established we begin to work on how to manage, mitigate, or change how these outbursts occur, or why we feel the way that we feel in the first place.

Many of us grew up in families where we were told to rate our emotions as positive or negative. Positive emotions were love, joy, and compassion. Negative emotions were sadness, fear, anger, and rage. Unfortunately, anger got placed in the harmful emotion category for many of us, which is not where it belongs. Anger is a helpful emotion that strengthens our resolve to set healthy limits in our relationships. Anger helps us communicate what we need from others. Psychotherapy is a space where you can learn the positive attributes of anger and how to express it positively and safely. Let's get together and explore some of these healthier options for this vital emotion!

Anger presents in various forms and can range in intensity within and between individuals. When working with clients who see anger as a barrier in their lives, I strive to work together to gain an understanding of where the anger comes from, determine its different features and triggers, and explore the possible ways that you can feel more in control over this experience. Please contact me for a free consultation to learn more about my approach and to determine if we would be a good fit.

Anger is an important emotion, as well as can be impactful on our relationships and surrounding environment if not able to be expressed helpfully. When accessing therapy for anger management, you can expect to reflect on what your anger is trying to tell you, how that information can be understood and noticed in the moment, as well as problem solve more helpful ways of expressing your needs and thoughts.

When we experience recurrent anger that feels overwhelming and overpowering, we can find ourselves feeling out of control and ashamed. Through self-exploration, we can start to uncover the underlying emotions that are fueling the anger as anger tends to show up when something deeper within us needs attention and processing, often emotions that stem from past experiences, unmet needs, or ignored boundaries. By working to identify the root causes of our anger, we can begin to understand them in a more meaningful and productive way, since processing buried emotions, or unexpressed needs can be incredibly healing. Over time, this awareness can also help to transform how we relate or react to ang