Anger is a powerful emotion used to hurt or push someone away. It is highly destructive to relationships; injuring the person expressing the anger; the person receiving the anger; and even those individuals that are not directly involved such as children watching their parents argue. Anger is responsible for loss of self-esteem, self-control, and overall life success. On rare occasions anger can also have a positive use. For example: Protecting oneself or a loved one from a perceived threat. Strong anger in many ways is like being drunk. When a person is enraged (strong anger), his or her reasoning ability is impaired. This is why angry people can become violent, destructive, and unreasonable. You can’t reason or talk to an angry person.

A person expresses anger with various combinations of the following:

• Raising of the voice
• Name calling, insulting
• Threatening
• Bullying
• Wanting to hurt another person or oneself
• Sarcasm
• Shaming, embarrassing
• Not talking, relationship cut-offs, ignoring.

There are many personal and gender variations with regards to how anger is expressed. For example: Women tend to degrade with their comments, whereas men tend to be intimidating.

Accurate statistics are difficult to come by, since there is no agreed upon way to quantify (measure) anger across many different and changing circumstances. However, anger is believed to be the most common cause of relationship failure and personal stress.

Relationship Anger

Helen fought back tears. Her husband Bob had hurled another criticism her way . . . it hit its mark. Helen’s survival instincts kicked-in . . . without restraint . . . she counter-attacked. Her verbal-jabs hit with impact. Bob exploded in rage . . . sending insult after insult Helen’s way. When Bob left for work he regretted all that had happened. After each fight he promised himself, “never again” while Helen pondered divorce.

Road Rage Anger

Unexpectedly . . . a large truck crossed the lane forcing Jonathan to jam on his brakes. He became enraged with anger and recklessly perused the careless truck driver. When the truck pulled off the highway to get gas . . . Jonathan followed. Confronting the truck driver . . . Jonathan provoked an angry argument. The truck driver threatened to call the police. Jonathan realized “enough was enough,” and quickly got in his car and drove-off. He fumed for hours.

Heart-attack Anger

Tom stressed easily. At work he often got angry with clients and colleagues. His doctor was not surprised when he suffered a dangerous heart attack. His doctor told him: “Learn to avoid anger and relax or be at ‘high risk’ for another heart attack.”

Work Anger

Mary was a senior manager for a large accounting firm. She snaped at fellow employees having no patience for what she considered “dumb” questions and incompetence. Mary was a loyal and hardworking employee, but she was told by her boss: “Control your anger or find another job.”

Parent Anger

Tina loved her kids, but when they got under her skin she yelled and threatened. Her middle child Eric seemed to push all her anger buttons. Tina felt terrible; she wanted to raise emotionally healthy kids, but was unintentionally injuring them with her unrestrained anger.

Anger management treatment can successfully reduce or even eliminate destructive expressions of anger. Anger management provides the learner with knowledge, skills, and attitudes that push away anger thereby protecting personal health and valued relationships. Sometimes, after years of anger expressions, extra efforts need to be made to heal those individuals injured by anger. In cases like this, relationship counseling may be helpful or even essential.

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When anger is given free expression—regardless of the reason or justification—over time it will ruin your relationship and damage your health. Victims of anger become fearful of an angry person. Eventually, the victims seek protection by reducing contact with the person expressing anger. If the anger perpetrator does not learn anger management techniques and practice them, his or her relationship will become damaged, perhaps beyond repair. The stress caused by anger can lead to irreversible health problems such as heart disease, stroke and cause stress that contributes to many types of diseases.