On Anger and Letting off Steam
Is anger a finite substance that can be let out or kept in, which “goes off” if it is kept in, and feels good and constructive to let out? Is any kind of emotional energy like that?
I have been wondering for awhile about the idea of catharsis (and it seems, from making brief acquaintance with anger management literature, that I am not alone). Is it really a good idea to just “let it all out” by pummeling whatever soft object might be handy? Does “letting off steam” really let the tension out and prevent an eventual explosion? [Editor's Note: also see “Does Road Rage Make Physical Wounds Heal More Slowly?”.]
Is anger a finite substance that can be let out or kept in, which “goes off” if it is kept in, and feels good and constructive to let out? Is any kind of emotional energy like that, a finite substance which we can get rid of? Even my extremely basic level of scientific knowledge suggests not.
Well, many of us have experienced how good it can feel to let out that blood curdling scream of rage or to smash a fist into the table. It can feel a bit like a simple adrenaline rush. And if it feels good, why not do it again? And if it feels a little bit stale after repetition and not as good as the first time, then maybe you need to do something a bit more forceful — first of all to feel the adrenaline hit, and eventually to feel “normal.” Sound a bit like addiction? That is just what I am worried about. Regular bouts of anger can come to be another one of those ways of losing control that start to control us, and to damage the people around us.
Of course as with everything else, it is an individual matter. For some people who have been taught that being angry is not acceptable and grow up quite certain that they do not feel anger at all (when will saying something like “I just never feel anger at all” sound as strange to most people as “I just never ever feel happy/sad”?) it may be a great thing to be able to let out that scream of rage and once may well be enough because over the years they will have built up a range of completely different ways of feeling good.
Some people who do not think they are angry but are, for example, depressed or passive-aggressive or just very nice to other people all the time without asking what they are feeling themselves might be well served by — well, what exactly? “Getting in touch with your anger” doesn’t seem to fit; if it wasn’t experienced before as such, is it really there under the surface waiting to be contacted? Or is the missing element not anger at all but more assertiveness or more awareness of the whole spectrum of feelings in the moment, and anger just the flash of energy we get when we realise that? A kind of protectiveness towards ourselves when we realise what we have “had done to us” or “done to ourselves”?
Maybe what we carry around with us is resentment, is the knowledge, on a certain level, that things were not fair, that we didn’t stick up for ourselves, that someone didn’t stick up for us…like an inflammable material which is all ready to go up if someone drops a match.
Better than allowing these flare ups to become habits, however good it may feel, is to go for the underlying causes, to be aware of our feelings and thoughts in the moment they arise and be assertive and expressive right then. Maybe this approach, if carried out very attentively, would lead to anger being almost eradicated. There are certainly religions and schools of thought which regard anger as a poison, which we do not have to suffer. People who keep up a serious and regular awareness meditation practice may feel impulses arising, but they do not trigger anger because they are recognised for exactly what they are — information that something in this situation needs to be protected, that something has been violated, that something is not acceptable. And once something is recognised, it can pass right on by.
To come back to the original point, catharsis might be helpful for some people, maybe in a ritual kind of way, to meet the animal strength in us and feel how much we want to protect ourselves. But I believe that very angry people are best off building up other parts of themselves, the parts of themselves which can observe, or the parts which can feel fully happily engaged in something, rather than feeding a spiral of anger that might become an escalating habit.
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This article was last reviewed by on Wednesday, 23rd July 2008. You can leave a reply below.
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24th July 2008
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for a very thought provoking post.
A few thoughts.
The first from Fritz Perls: emotion is too important to waste on a catharsis.
The rest from me.
Anger has certainly does have physical elements. If you are angry try not breathing; the anger goes away as breathing becomes more important. And comes back again perhaps.
I think that emotions are energy but not just a neutral energy. I think the emotions are particular qualities of energy. (Expressing our anger won’t necessarily address our sadness or regret - though it may if they are about the same incident.)
Catharsis I think can be valuable for another reason. It shows people that it is possible for them to express the emotion and survive. The emotion then can gradually be integrated into their repertoire.
I do think it is possible to learn to express anger (and even rage) in ways that don’t damage ourselves, others, or the furniture.
Where the addiction comes in I think is when the focus is narrowed to the individual and neglects the environment. The anger is about something - even if it is long in the past and forgotten. If anger is expressed purposefully I think addiction will be less of a problem.
I’m not sure that the observer and the parts of us that get absorbed are separate from the angry part.
I realise these are a bit random, hope they make sense.
24th July 2008
Hi Evan -
I like the way you remind me that every emotion has its own particular emotional frequency - coming from its own specific place -I think very often anger is the first, bluntest emotional instrument that comes to hand, and it covers up all the subtler energies of shame or sadness or whatever. I think usually it protects us from fear.
I think once you realise this then expressing the emotions “underneath” may well made the anger response redundant.
I think anger itself is always invariably about a narrow focus on the individual. The rest of the context and any kind of empathy goes out of the window when within the energy of anger.
I only got lost at the very last point - “I’m not sure that the observer and the parts of us that get absorbed are separate from the angry part”.
I am not really thinking of this in terms of parts, and I am not entirely sure what you mean…
25th July 2008
Hi Sarah,
Yes, thinking in parts can be a problem (though speaking in other ways can be quite difficult I think).
I was responding to your comment that people are better off building up other parts of themselves (observer, happily engaged etc) in the final paragraph.
It seems to me that anger may help to direct us to what to pay attention to or help us to know what engages us.
Hope this is clearer.
Evan
25th July 2008
Aha - you were referring to my own comment - of course I didn’t actually read my own post before reading your comments, life being too short ;-)
So I used the parts language myself! I think that was a bit lazy and inaccurate on my part (sic!). I meant more just exercising the muscles of our capability to be actively engaged, to observe what is happening etc, rather than using separate parts of us to do those things.
I think indeed that anger can be a very helpful pointer to what engages us or what we need to pay attention to. (And I really enjoyed your recent posts on anger, by the way,which expressed this really well). Particularly for those who don’t feel anger so often, who are not “wired up that way” or who have learnt that feeling anger is not OK. I suppose in my post here I was mainly considering people who feel anger as a knee jerk reaction to almost everything, or people with a short fuse.
26th August 2008
I loved your article… Great!!!
And the ongoing conversation…..
I use to tell my friends I have a problem with anger. I don’t like it and I think its knee jerk action is at best primitive… In my early days when I felt what I used to call anger I would step back and than later ask that energy to be channeled for doing good. When your a mom you have to constantly deal with your childrens emotions. Children often hit, or take anothers possession but usually their also quick to interpret pain caused and run to hug and make up so to speak and they don’t carry it into the next moment. That comes later I think….Mostly they are present in joy and delight and these events are minimal. NANd ther just exploring.
I think you hit the mark on the resentment statement. Regret and unfairness and resentment and how we follow up on these types of experiences with others. Its the holding of these that can develope
triggers to temper outbursts. One of the Buddhists meditations that deals with this directly is taking your mind to the worse case scenario
and all the while noticing everything and then letting go… Kind of like tencing a muscle and then relaxing after that.`You’ll notice big difference! That mindfulness not to be too reactive.
Especially when around a raving angry person you can notice their body and adrenaline push and tell they definately enjoy it in away. I never thought of an addiction though.
27th August 2008
Glad the post resonated with you, Diane!
I think you point to two really important ways of dealing with anger, the spontaneous way that young children do - without those extra layers of interpretation of experience maybe to muddy the waters - it rises up and then finishes.
Then when we have acquired those extra layers,buddhist mediatations or other mindfulness meditations are excellent ways I think to practice noticing the arising and then letting go mentally, so that it can finish naturally.
Thanks for your input!
6th September 2008
Sarah
Too much of any emotion is not good; Anger is really not good to hold onto, but then someone that is on opposite end of scale that has too much happiness is not healthy either. A common ground needs to be found, a balance of the in-between needs found.
With any over abundance of emotion one needs to find root cause of that emotion to understand where it is coming from. Anger is big one for this; catharsis may feel good to do, but each time more will be needed to get same feeling of release. One may break something, or brake one’s own bone in the process, or harm another if becomes out of control. When root cause is found and dealt with maybe anger can evaporate and person can be person again. But then some people such as Antisocial need the anger to feel anything for their system is wired different.