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Anger gets a bad reputation. In life, it is treated as a problem — something to get rid of, something that means something is wrong with you. People are told to calm down, to let it go, to not be so angry.
I see it differently. Anger is a normal feeling. It is useful. It is powerful. And in my experience, the problem is usually not the anger. The problem is the suppression of anger. That is what worries me.
Feeling It versus Acting on It
This is true for all emotions, not just anger: there is a difference between feeling something and acting on it. In therapy we focus on talking things out, not on acting things out. The goal is not to stop feeling. The goal is to find words.
Feeling angry is not the problem. The problem is when we act on it — when we lash out, when we hurt the people around us, when we use it to control. When anger becomes destructive, that is an action problem, not a feeling problem. The work is to feel the anger and to find words for it instead of acting it out in ways that can be destructive.
What Was the Feeling Just Before the Anger
Anger is often a secondary emotion. Something came before it — and that something is usually more vulnerable. Hurt. Sadness. Shame. A feeling of being unseen or dismissed.
I ask people this all the time: What was the feeling you had just before the anger? That feeling — the one that came and went so fast you barely noticed it — is often the one that matters most.
When we can put that feeling to words, something shifts. In our own minds, we start to understand ourselves differently. With more compassion. And when we can speak it to the people we love — "I am hurt," "I feel dismissed," "I am ashamed" — we become understandable. We can be seen. We can get the help we actually need.
Anger Is Made for the Other
Anger is not for ourselves. We are not supposed to be angry at ourselves, to attack ourselves. Self-attack is harmful. It is not useful. It is not what anger is for.
Anger is made for the other. For other people. It is for protection — for setting boundaries, for pushing back, for creating distance when distance is needed. We need skills to move away from others at times. To push others away when that is what is called for. Just as we need skills to move closer, and to ask others to come closer to us, when we want intimacy. Anger lives on the protection side of that.
Healthy Aggression
There is a version of aggression that is not destructive. It is necessary. Healthy aggression is what gets us out of bed in the morning. It is what helps us go to work. To love. To marry. To partner. To compete. To be successful. Without it, we are stuck.
We do not talk about this enough. The benefits of healthy aggression are often not held in mind — not in the individual consciousness and not in the social consciousness either. We hear a lot about the dangers of anger. We hear almost nothing about the cost of not having enough fire.
What Happens When Anger Has Nowhere to Go
When anger is held inside too much and for too long, it does not sit there quietly. It shows up. Migraines. Body pain. Physical illness. Addiction. Relationship problems. Disconnection. Depression. All of these things can also lead to premature death.
Many people who come in to our practice in Bountiful describing depression or anxiety are sitting on a significant amount of anger that has never had a place to go. They suppressed it — maybe because expressing anger was not safe in their family, or because they learned that being angry made them a bad person, or because the people around them could not handle it. The anger did not disappear. It went underground. And the weight of holding it down is part of what makes everything feel so heavy and flat.
This is especially true for people who have experienced physical violence or other forms of abuse. The anger and rage that belong to those experiences need somewhere to go. Keeping them locked inside is not healing. It is another form of harm.
Anger Needs to Be Held, Not Rushed Past
Even though anger is thought of as a secondary emotion — even though there is usually something vulnerable underneath — that does not mean we should always skip over it to get to the softer feelings. Sometimes the anger needs to come first. It needs to be held. Spoken. Respected. Heard.
I love working with anger. It is powerful. Therapeutic work that can hold anger — that does not flinch, does not rush past it, does not treat it as something to manage — is really important. This especially includes anger that has been suppressed by people who have lived through violence and pain. That anger deserves a place.
The problem, in my experience, is not that someone is too angry. It is that their anger has had nowhere to go. When it finally gets a place — when someone can feel it, name it, and be heard — that is when things start to move.
When Anger Comes from Being Oppressed
One more thing worth noting. Sometimes when people have been oppressed, or subjugated, rage can be the result. This can come from being subjugated, or not having a voice, in a family growing up, or perhaps later in life. It can also come from being harmed due to one or more social identities — such as race, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religious identity, or other aspects of who someone is.
Just as those in the privileged or oppressing position have certain tasks that are necessary to work through difficult conversations and relationship tensions, there are also tasks for those who have been subjugated, or harmed. These include learning to breathe. To regulate rage enough to be able to speak. To not give up on important relationships, to mattering, to belonging. And to not give in to voicelessness.
For more on the roles of the privileged and the subjugated in promoting healing, connection, and unity — in our personal lives and in our pluralistic society — see Hardy, K. V. (2016). Anti-racist approaches for shaping theoretical and practice paradigms. In M. Pender-Greene & A. Siskin (Eds.), Anti-racist strategies for the health and human services. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Getting Help in Utah
If your anger has been confusing to you — or if you have been told you are too angry, or if you suspect the real problem is that your anger has had nowhere to go — therapy can be a place to explore that. You can learn more about individual therapy, couples counseling, or group therapy, or reach out through our contact page to schedule a free consultation.