Anger Management: A Holistic Approach
The groups generally run eight weeks and each session runs for 1 1/2 hours. Crucial to the success of every group is the establishment of a safe environment. Toward this end we emphasize the importance of coming to all the sessions. This is crucial since a major aspect of the experience is about learning from one another. We also underscore that what’s talked about in the group must be absolutely confidential, and that it’s important not to be judgmental.
Considerable emphasis is placed on learning what one’s triggers are. Each group member is encouraged to keep a weekly log of incidents that caused them to become angry. These incidents are shared in the group sessions. Participants almost always come up with helpful insights about one another’s triggers.
Once each member develops a good understanding of what triggers them, the group as a whole is encouraged to come up with strategies to prevent anger, once triggered, from developing into destructive behavior. Here we always offer Dr. Albert Ellis’s ABC model of emotion: Stated simply, this model points out that when you get angry it feels as though the event/person is doing something to you and the only natural response is anger. But what really happens, Dr Ellis points out, is that the event starts you thinking and it is here that one can exercise choice. We underscore that this is not easy. Usually a person has only about three seconds to come up with a thought that can supersede the angry thought that participants are so accustomed to going to.
At this point — usually the fifth session — each group member receives a folder with right and left side pockets. We explain that scientific experimentation has shown that two different sides, or hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for different manners of thinking. While the left hemisphere tends to be more logical, rational and objective the right hemisphere is known to be more intuitive, holistic and subjective.
As already stated, we first encourage participants to place emphasis on coming up with quick responses that may be used to deflect angry thoughts. These ideas are shared and typed up and given to each member. These suggestions, along with any other material we hand out related to quick intervention strategies, are placed in the left side of the folder.
Each person is encouraged to think about the concept of holistic living. Stated simply, living holistically, amongst many things, implies that one is taking time to pay attention to one’s inner life. This may mean exploring ways to nurture one’s self, spiritually and/or artistically. We suggest that if one chooses to make room in one’s life to grow holistically one will almost always find that, overall, life can be less frustrating. At this point considerable sharing almost always takes place about artistic endeavors or spiritual routines that were part of the member’s lives at one time, but were eventually crowded out by pressures of modem-day living.
We encourage members to bring in poetry, CD’s, videos, or any information about holistic living that may peak their own interest. All this information is shared and what can be typed up is placed in the right side of the folder.
At the end most group members exchange phone numbers
This, broadly speaking, is the general format that the groups on anger management follow. One last thing! We always close each session with the serenity prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
This program is conducted at our Wayne location:
Packanack Community Church
120 Lake Drive East
Wayne, New Jersy 07470
Phone: (973) 696-3232, Dan Shenk, Leader of the Men’s Anger Management Group also for Penny Gadzini, Leader of the Women’s Anger Management Group.
