Anger Management Class: The 3 Anger Responses

The primary goal of an anger management class is to help you reduce and manage your anger before it becomes destructive and out of control. Although everyone feels angry at times, when it's not managed properly anger can become destructive and uncontrollable.

There are physiological changes that happen in our bodies when we get angry. An anger class will teach participants specific techniques help manage these responses and avoid feeling out of control.

An anger management class may teach students three main ways people have of responding to anger: expressing, suppressing and calming.

Learning how to assertively -not aggressively-express one's feelings in the heat of the moment is the key to the expressing approach. Being assertive requires knowing yourself and clearing stating your needs and desires without judging or attacking the other person. Expressing your feelings in an assertive manner is the healthiest, most productive response to anger.

Another typical response to anger is to suppress it. You may learn that this approach may help in the short run, or in certain situations when the cause of the anger is not systemic but if the underlying root of the problem is not addressed it could backfire, building up feelings of anger and resentment and causing even more problems in the future.

Finally, calming is learning how to calm ourselves down by learning how to control the physiological responses happening in our bodies. Calming techniques that address the physiological responses to anger include removing ourselves from the situation, going for a walk or getting some kind of physical exercise and doing breathing exercises.

It's impossible to avoid feeling angry but we can learn better techniques for responding to the feeling when it happens. A good anger management class will help you learn ways to respond to anger that are constructive rather than destructive and lead to healthier, happier relationships.