What Is Anger Disorder?

Affressive anger disorder is a psychological problem of people who exhibit sporadic and unmanageable episodes of aggression, violent and destructive behaviour.

Those who have explosive outbursts of anger cannot control their anger, nor can you reason with a person during an episode.

I have witnessed this type of anger while I was working with clients with Mental Illness. It is often one of the symptoms of those suffering from Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia and is known as Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).

Excessive angry outbursts may also be caused by neurological impairment and substance abuse, which can inhibit one's ability to resist aggressive, angry or violent impulses.

An anger disorder cannot be blamed on bad neurology, DNA or biochemistry. If we fail to recognize and deal with anger as it arises, it becomes pathological and dangerous in an adult.

Anyone with anger disorder can suddenly explode with a rage which is out of proportion to minute and insignificant events or situations. I have even witnessed this type of aggressive behaviour in my family and it is very traumatic for the observer.

After an anger episode, the person who exhibits this type of behaviour feels confused, disoriented and fatigued often not realizing where they are or what happened. Once they become aware of what they have done, they often feel tremendous guilt.

Those with anger disorder need a psychological assessment and treatment by a psychological professional as quickly as possible. But, the person exhibiting this behaviour has to accept that he/she has a problem so they can be treated. Other familiy members who witnes this behavior should also seek counseling. Read online counseling.

Here are 3 key symptoms of this disorder:

1. There is major property damage or harm done to another
2. Their behaviour is out of proportion to situations
3. There is no explanation for their behaviour which is a symptom of chronically repressed anger or rage

Those with anger disorder need treatment as quickly as possible before they do do excessive harm to self or others during an explosive rage. It can be very frightening for those who live or work with individuals with this behaviour and they too should consider psychological counselling.

You may wonder, "How does this happen?"

This behavior starts in childhood. Parents need to understand and consequently learn how to handle anger in their children.

Anger disorder usually results from a long-term mismanagement of anger, and is a process where the anger grows gradually over time into resentment, bitterness, hatred and destructive rage.

Since our society condemns and despises the affect of anger as negative, worthless or evil, we are partly responsible for the subsequent destruction.

And when mental health professionals continue to avoid confronting anger head on in their patients, by using drugs to behaviorally modify or cognitively rationalize anger away, they too are compounding the problem.

How To Deal With Anger Disorder

Our habitual irrational or unrealistic beliefs and expectations about life (learned through our parents, teachers, mentors and media) can cause us to feel unnecessarily frustrated and angry at times.

While studying psychology in university back in the 60’s, I was impressed with Albert Ellis’ approach to psychotherapy. He used rational therapy which he developed into Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). The principle being that a person is rarely affected emotionally by outside things, but rather 'affected by his perceptions, attitudes, or internalized sentences about outside things and events'.

I firmly believe in Ellis’ approach and use it today in my online counseling sessions while helping clients learn how to deal with anger and other negative emotions.

One way or another, we will always have to learn how to control anger as it is an archetypal human emotion.

Chronic repressed anger or suppression of anger is counterproductive, and ultimately futile and dangerous which leads to many behavioral problems in adult life. We need to accept anger as a natural phenomenon, and teach children, adolescents and young adults how to manage and express it more constructively.

This is the same for people suffering (and inflicting suffering on those around them) from mental disorders stemming directly or indirectly from repressed resentment, anger or rage.

In my beliefs, their underlying anger must be consciously acknowledged, accepted, understood and then released. Read letting go of anger If not, the anger may be driven deeper within making it dangerous for others and one’s health.

An anger disorder won't just disappear or go away, no matter how much medication we take, meditation we do or how we intellectualize it. Anger disorder is here to stay until we learn how we deal with it.

Furthermore, most mental disorders stem either directly from - or secondarily generate - anger, rage, resentment, hostility or bitterness.

If our anger, rage and resentment caused by trauma (child abuse) is left to fester unconsciously, it can turn to bitterness and hostility.

Moreover, if we do not recognize the danger of internalizing our anger later on it can affect not only our health, but lead to self-defeating, destructive, vengeful, aggressive and even violent behavior.

Return to what are emotions from this anger disorder page