The basic premise of Anger Work is that many people carry around psychic wounds that they express in a variety of ways, such as rage or depression. In order to heal the wounds, the person needs to specifically focus on the anger within. By focusing on the trauma over and over, the pain will gradually go away, never to affect you again. This process is known as Anger Work.

Three kinds of people need anger work:

1. Those who know they are angry.

2. Those who are struggling with past events and perhaps don’t know they have repressed anger.

3.Those who wish to lead happier, more fulfilling lives.

This article will deal strictly with the people in the first category—Anger Work for people who know they are angry.

A comparison can be made between our physical health and our emotional health. Whenever the body experiences a severe laceration or other injury, and the wound is left unattended, it will get infected. Eventually, it will fester and may even turn into gangrene, a life threatening condition. If, however, the wound is cleansed thoroughly and allowed to heal completely, all that is left is a scar to remind the victim of the event.

Likewise, when an emotional wound is sustained by the psyche, it will start to affect other areas of the person’s life, just as infection spreads to other parts of the body. Since abusive people and emotional pain are part of everyday life, the person who does not learn to deal appropriately with them will start to experience a cumulative negative effect.

Eventually the individual’s overall emotional and psychological health will be at risk.

But if the emotional wound is cleansed well, and allowed to heal completely, all that is left is a memory. Like an old scar, this memory does not hurt. It becomes no more than a record of your personal memory, an experience that you have learned from. Anger Work is the cleansing process that can bring this healing about.

Since abusive people and emotional pain are part of everyday life, the person who does not learn to deal appropriately with them will start to experience a cumulative negative effect. Eventually the individual’s overall emotional and psychological health will be at risk.

Okay, so you know you are angry. You have been mistreated or abused and you’ve had enough of that. You may be in touch with the feelings of your anger, but have not yet started expressing them, or you may be a seasoned veteran at “giving people a piece of your mind.” You may even have a “temper problem” so serious that you experience episodes in which your anger seems to have control of you, rather than your being in control of your anger. People have been getting angry since the beginning of time, and that is nothing new. You may be thinking, “I don’t need a book to tell me to get mad when somebody does something that ticks me off!”

But Anger Work is not simply “getting mad” at someone, nor does it deal exclusively with the present. People who describe themselves as having a “temper problem” are generally people who have had some very negative experiences in the past. Because they have not yet successfully worked through all their feelings about these events, they walk around with “leftovers,” that is, leftover anger from situations that happened a long time ago. They bring these “leftovers” with them into every new situation. The result is that they are already somewhat angry before anything happens. So when someone does something that might normally be a minor source of irritation, the person with “leftovers” finds him or herself inordinately angry. They feel the anger of the current situation plus the “leftovers” they had in store. In situations that would normally make them feel genuinely angry, and for good reason, they go beyond that and become explosive. Instead of assertively asking someone to stop the offending behavior, they may haul off and slug the person or berate him or her verbally. You may be experiencing problems because of angry outbursts. Or maybe you haven’t done anything regrettable yet, but you feel like a volcano about to explode and burn everything in your path. If either of these descriptions fits you, you can learn how to channel your anger and aggressive feelings in positive ways. Over time, through Anger Work, you can work out all your residual feelings of anger so that you have no “leftovers.” You will break out of the negative cycle of

Anger → Outburst → Guilt → Regret → Shame → Anger, without becoming a doormat.