anger management | davanti counselling

A cognitive ‘cure’ for road rage..?

Not taking everything personally is the first step to challenging rage on the road. (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/Salvatore Vuono)

Not taking everything personally is the first step to tackling feelings of road rage. (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/Salvatore Vuono)

Another day, another road-rage incident – or so it seems. In the news we’re always hearing about the latest road rage episode, where someone is outraged by another person’s driving and takes revenge. Road rage can go beyond daily snarling behind the wheel, and far too frequently leads to dangerous behaviours – from spitting and swearing to angry gestures, physical attacks and even use of weapons.

Psychologists have looked long and hard at road rage and its causes, and have concluded that it is the distortion in drivers’ thinking that causes many crashes, cut-ups and collisions. The latest research into road rage, from the Free University of Brussels seems to suggest that tackling this distorted thinking in drivers – and getting them to challenge their angry and destructive thoughts – can help to reduce the rage that’s provoked by other drivers’ behaviour on the road.

Basically, if a driver thinks the other person has cut him up on purpose, he may feel that it’s a personal attack on him. He may respond aggressively, and believe the other driver needs to be ‘taught a lesson’. This is an all-too-familiar situation in traffic-heavy roads in busy, urban environments where everyone is in a total rush.

In a psychological experiment, 40 male drivers were asked to challenge their distorted thinking when someone else on the road did something that could trigger their own aggressive driving. Some of the participants were asked to devise an ‘antidote’ to the thoughts that would automatically pop into their head when someone cut them up, didn’t indicate, or overtook inappropriately. These antidotes were phrases, in their own words, which countered the belief that the aggressive/bad drivers were out to get them.

In psychological speak, these phrases were “inoculations” against the distorted thinking that could lead drivers to retaliate against people they perceived to be bad drivers who had in in for them.

The ‘control’ group in the psychology experiment (not inoculated) had discussions about hostile driving, but didn’t come up with their own phrases to counter their negative thinking. In subsequent tests, the people who had inoculated themselves had far fewer accidents (in simulated driving tests) than people who hadn’t.

The key learning from this experiment, in my opinion, is not to take every single daily ‘offence’ against you as something personal. Find an alternative way of distancing yourself from the perceived slight. Whether you’re behind the wheel or otherwise.

Seven ways the ‘unsent letter’ can channel your anger

Write down your angry thoughts (but don’t send them) to help process your feelings (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/anankkml)

Full of rage at someone but not sure you can tell them? Feeling hurt and let down by a partner but fearful of telling them straight? Wish you could tell a parent exactly how they made you feel? I frequently recommend the ‘unsent letter’ as a way of expressing your feelings about or towards someone who’s made you mad, bad or sad.

The unsent letter is a form of writing therapy that encourages you to address a letter to someone you don’t feel you can talk directly to – perhaps a former lover, a friend you’ve fallen out with, or perhaps someone who has died. It’s a way of putting into words a deeply held thought or feeling that has somehow been damaging you in some way, or holding you back. The idea is that you write about your feelings openly – so they’re ‘out there’ – but you don’t have to send the letter. The point is to articulate and process your feelings rather then openly hurt someone else by sending the letter.

So you can rage about a vexatious issue connected to a significant person in your life, and it’s you who ends up feeling better. The unsent letter can be written by hand, or typed as an email – whichever you prefer. Just don’t press send!

Here are seven ways the unsent letter can help to channel your anger… (more…)

Can venting your anger online make you feel worse?

Ranting online gives short-lived catharsis but can lead to longer-term anger issues. (istockphoto.com/KyKyPy3HuK)

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Those famous words of Mark Twain have been given a contemporary twist in research carried out to discover the impact of venting anger online. Can the acid of anger come back to harm you?

Psychologists from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay investigated Anger on the internet: the perceived value of rant-sites. They carried out two studies to look at the way people express anger anonymously on blogs, social networks and on rant sites (forums specially created for venting anger), how they feel after ranting, and the emotional impact of reading angry posts. They particularly wanted to find out if venting anger can be cathartic in the short and long term.

All participants in the first study said they felt calm and relaxed immediately after ranting online. But those who vented frequently were found to become angrier rather than calmer. The study found that frequent ranters have higher anger scores and “express their anger in more maladaptive ways than the norm”. They were also found to demonstrate anger ‘offline’ too, averaging one physical fight and two verbal fights per month, and half of them had been told by others that they had an anger problem. As for the emotional impact of reading rants online in study two, people became less happy and sadder after reading the rants.

The researchers concluded: “Reading and writing online rants are likely unhealthy practices as those who do them often are angrier and have more maladaptive expressions styles than others. Likewise, reading and writing online rants are associated with negative shifts in mood for the vast majority of people.”

So, what to make of these results? They are partly in line with catharsis theory, as emotional release can be healing. But, importantly, only if it is directed in an appropriate way. Unlike expressive writing, where you’re encouraged to spill your feelings onto the page as a way of working through emotional problems, venting is “void of any structure” and doesn’t have an end in mind other than letting off steam (which then causes more anger in the long term). But through the process of expressive writing, the person spilling their stresses on the page learns to face and ‘own’ their issues.

But in the online-venting study, there were some revealing responses from participants:

67% appreciated other people commenting on their posts.
42% wanted validation for their feelings.
29% would prefer to talk to someone.

It seems that angry people want to be listened to, acknowledged, and validated. They want their feelings to be seen, heard and understood. Perhaps their reason for venting anger online anonymously is a fear that their anger cannot be tolerated by the person or thing they’re angry about, and they’re afraid of repercussions? And perhaps they’d secretly love to trade the bitterness of their acid for the milk of human kindness?