Anger & Aggression in Everyday Life

A young man, who had suffered with trauma following a road traffic accident came for treatment. One of the unusual experiences that his wife described related to his behaviour in sleep. She had noticed that if she was to touch him, even inadvertently when he was sleeping, he would lash out with anger. On waking up he would not remember what happened during sleep. When the relevant anger causing issues from his past were addressed, his wife reported a noticeable change in his behaviour.

Another young man was having a difficult time with his girlfriend. They would have rows on trivial matters. They tried to resolve the matter many times, but it did not work. He was encouraged to address his suppressed anger with his mother by expressing it in a controlled way. The rows then stopped. The relationship with the girlfriend improved subsequently.

If a child shows strange or cruel behaviour to animals or younger children, it warrants concern. It is a sign of repressed anger. If not addressed, the child will grow up to be a problem adult in the community.

A middle aged professional once complained for an excessive sexual drive. His sexual activities and fantasies were alarmingly aggressive. From the world’s viewpoint, he was successful in many ways. He was an unhappy individual on his own. Dealing and addressing his anger issues helped him immensely and his behaviour changed to his own and others’satisfaction.

Anger can manifest itself in many forms. A mild variety of it is called ‘annoyance’. If it is intense and is not expressed, it is termed ‘resentment’ when it is directed towards others. When very intense and projected out it is termed as ‘rage’. People can get carried away in the semantics of how to describe anger. The bottom line is that when the anger is suppressed the person develops a low threshold for tolerating stress and may either continue to hold back or act out suddenly and explosively to cause damage to property, relationships or to own or others' lives.

Someone carrying low threshold of anger will have a ‘short fuse’. This is a learnt behaviour. ‘Short-temper’ or a ‘short fuse’ describe various levels of learnt responses to everyday situations in life. The angry responses are learnt from the environment in which a person was brought up. The more suppressive the environment in which they live, the more anger a person will carry.

On the softer side, bullying and harassment in the work place are signs of repressed anger. The other name given to it is ‘work stress’. When an employee is harassed, both the perpetrator and the victim become angry as a result of the experience. The perpetrator is likely to be controlling and may be a victim of anger themselves.Violence in the marital relationships is due to repressed anger too.

A few years ago, in the Unites States, a young man had killed many students and teachers in school. The academics wondered what had gone wrong with the boy, who seemed to have a normal upbringing. He came from a background in which he did not have any opportunity to release his anger in a constructive manner. The boy also killed himself in the incident. His repressed anger resulted in damage to many families, including his own.

In Dunblane, in the UK, a physical education teacher did the same. He lived alone. No one knew much about him till he killed many students. He had no record of any major problems. The reason was that he continued to carry the anger within himself till he exploded. It caused an immense damage to the community.

Unexpressed anger causes damage to self, family and community. It needs to be expressed in a contolled way.