The Forgotten Part of Anger Management
Not that long ago, I sat across from someone who had been working hard on their anger management.
When we first began working together, their anger was getting in the way of both personal and professional relationships. So we worked on the things we typically think of when we talk about anger management: recognizing anger earlier, slowing down our reactions, taking the perspective of others, and learning how to communicate needs assertively without communicating them through anger.
And they did a great job.
People in their life began to notice the change. Their relationships were improving. They were using the skills we had practiced.
Then, during one of our sessions, they told me about a recent situation.
Their boundaries had been crossed, and at one point they feared what might happen to their physical safety. They described how carefully they had managed their response. They had stayed calm. They had used the skills they had learned. People in their life had even praised them for how well they handled the situation.
But as I listened, I heard something different underneath the story.
I heard dissociation.
I heard numbing.
I heard a delayed response in seeking safety.
And I heard a situation that could have gone much worse.
That was when I realized there was something important I had failed to reinforce.
Anger Isn’t Always the Problem
I apologized.
Because somewhere in all of our conversations about slowing down, managing reactions, and responding thoughtfully, I had glossed over something incredibly important:
We are always allowed to protect ourselves when our physical safety is at risk.
In those moments, it is not our responsibility to stay calm enough to make everyone else comfortable. It is not our responsibility to pause long enough to consider every perspective. And it is not necessarily our job to carefully communicate a boundary before leaving.
Sometimes the appropriate response is simply to get safe.
Immediately.
That does not mean that every situation that feels dangerous actually is dangerous. For people who experience anxiety, trauma responses, or heightened nervous-system activation, learning to distinguish between discomfort and genuine danger can be an important part of the work.
So we went back to those skills too.
We talked about the difference between situations that are truly unsafe and situations that activate the same internal alarm system. We rehearsed assertive communication. We talked about boundaries and what to do when someone ignores them.
But in that particular moment, our work wasn’t really about anger management.
It was about helping a nervous system recover from an experience that had disrupted it.
Anger Has a Purpose
Anger, like every emotion, has a purpose.
It can tell us that something matters.
It can tell us that a boundary has been crossed.
It can tell us that something is unjust.
And sometimes it can give us the energy necessary to protect ourselves.
The goal of anger management should never be to eliminate anger or teach someone that anger itself is dangerous.
The goal is to learn how to recognize it, understand what it is communicating, and choose what to do with it.
Sometimes anger needs to be slowed down.
Sometimes it needs to be translated into assertive communication.
Sometimes it needs to help us recognize that a boundary needs to change.
And sometimes it needs to help us get out of the room.
That distinction matters.
Because effective emotional regulation isn’t about becoming less emotional. It is about becoming more skillful at understanding what our emotions are telling us and deciding when—and how—to listen to them.
So when you’re working with someone on anger management, don’t only teach them how to turn the volume down.
Make sure you teach them when their anger may be telling them something they need to hear.
Make sure you cover the forgotten parts, too.