Anger Management and Counselling in Qualicum Beach, BC.

If you have ADHD, you may notice that anger or frustration arises more quickly or intensely than you expect. This is common for adults with ADHD because the brain’s executive functioning and emotional regulation systems can make it harder to manage strong emotions, respond to stress, or pause before reacting. In therapy, I take a strength-based, affirming approach to help you understand these patterns and develop strategies, coping tools, and practical systems that work with your brain. Together, we’ll help you manage anger more effectively, respond to challenges with greater calm and clarity, and build emotional resilience while honoring your experience.

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” Ambrose Bierce Anger is often an intense emotional response that can negatively affect people’s lives. Many people struggle to manage and express their anger effectively due to often intense and overwhelming feelings. Families, work, friendships and one’s personal well-being can be destroyed unintentionally along the way. Although we cannot control anger provoking situations, we can learn step by step techniques for successfully and efficiently managing them. Through counselling we will work to access the issues provoking anger and outbursts, and develop tools to identify and effectively manage emotional triggers. When needed, we will also work with families and...(view profile to read more)

Anger is called a secondary emotion, brought on by a triggering event and or thought. What I'm interested in was a therapist, is what is behind the trigger. What are the fears, the needs that aren't being met. By identifying different triggers, and the the triggering thoughts behind them, we can depersonalize a situation so that it simply becomes a problem to be solved, without fault or blame, and discover alternative thoughts and behaviours that lead a path to better choices, without shame or guilt.

As I work with clients struggling to navigate anger management, I like to gather information about how anger presented itself in the home while they were children. I view anger as a symptom for a problem (or problems) that are deeper rooted and anger has become the default reaction. I like to find ways to address the underlying emotions that are being displayed through the anger.

Anger often surfaces to mask another emotion such as fear, rejection, jealousy, or sadness. I work with you to uncover your deeper feelings and explore how they are expressed through anger. Together, we explore healthy outlets and communication strategies which you can apply to your life immediately. Treatment is tailored to your individual circumstance and needs, with a focus on emotional regulation and self compassion.

Individuals struggling to manage anger can be exhausting and overwhelming; often there is a significant negative effect on others in their life. We will work to uncover where the intense anger is originating from and heal. We will also wok to develop new skills and tools to manage emotional situations in a more positive an effective way. It is also important to work to heal the damage to loved ones whom have been affected.

When anger gets the best of us, we can say and/or do things that we later wish we could change or take back. Anger is an instinctive universal emotion, one in which we all have, but not all expressions of anger have to be hurt. In fact, anger works as a great informant and can motivate us to take action to improve our own lives and the lives of people that we care about.

Anger is an emotion that we all have experienced – it is natural, normal and healthy. However if it gets to be too much it can become destructive and damaging to those around us and ourselves. It can lead to problems in our personal lives as well as at work and play. How we express our anger can be the key to learning to better manage our angry emotions. Anger is a biological reaction and yet we can learn to manage it better. We can learn to express what we are feeling and to use various calming strategies that help us to identify our triggers and learn to control our reactions. The benefits to learning manage our anger are endless and often life transforming.

Through groups and individual counselling, we use cognitive behaviour therapy to help clients learn about the cues and triggers connected to anger outbursts. Awareness of one's experience of anger is the first step to making change. After this, we work on new responses that are more effective than uncontrollable anger. If this is something you would like to work on then Island Clinical Counselling has solutions to your difficulties.

Anger, although a completely healthy human emotion, can also turn destructive and become a powerful unpredictable emotion. Expressing anger in an assertive non aggressive way, making clear what your needs are and to get them met respectful of both self and others is imperative. Working together to determine the underlying cause of the anger. earning how to calmly and respectfuly have these needs met, learning relaxation, problem solving and better communication skills are what is needed to be learned. Unexpressed anger can cause hypertension, high blood pressure and depression as well as highly explosive behaviour. With committment these new skills can be learned.

Anger is often a bid for connection arising from unmet expectations of self and others. Anger confuses the recipient of the behavior as well as the deliverer of it. While it can push you away from others, its intent deep down is a desire to pull someone close to you because we all need a connection with others. James will work with you to understand not only what anger does to you and what you do with it but what it does for you in order to regulate the emotion and behavior.

Anger is a normal healthy human emotion. When people allow it to get out of control it can turn destructive, it can lead to problems at work, personal relationships, and the overall quality of life. I like to think of anger using the metaphore of a hammer. You can do a lot of things with a hammer. You can build things and you can tear things apart. The hammer is just a tool just like anger can be a tool. Anger isn't the problem, it's what you do with it. I help people learn the skills they need to use their anger and the underlying hurt and feelings of injustice to make positive choices that lead to positive relationships and experiences.

Anger often signals something important trying to be expressed. Rather than focusing only on triggers or control, therapy can help you understand what the anger is protecting or responding to, and to slow the movement from impulse to action. I work with anger in a way that supports awareness, regulation, and responsibility, helping you respond rather than react. I offer a grounded, nonjudgmental space to explore anger safely, and I bring extensive experience working with anger in both individual and relationship contexts, including previous leadership of a relationship violence program.

Have you found that anger has started to ruin relationships, interfere with your job, and negatively impact your life? Anger has a way of spreading and infecting day-to-day interactions. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. I work with many people who are controlled by their anger. Typically, anger is influenced by other underlying causes. In counselling, we will work together to learn new coping mechanisms to limit anger while also looking at what is causing anger. If you want to take the next step, reach out to me, and we can begin to change how you react to anger.

Anger often stems from feeling so many emotions all at once. You lose a sense of control. You go from 0 to 100 in a blink of an eye. By getting angry you’re attempting to regain control that’s presumed lost. But instead, you’re full of guilt and shame. Feeling angry and reacting in anger, is simply exhausting. I’ll help you learn how to regain control, in a healthy way.

We all experience difficulties from time to time in managing our emotions. We feel anger, frustration, anxiety and irritation. When not properly managed we may experience stress, burnout, and feel unsatisfied with life. Our relationships and parenting skills may suffer. Sometimes this is due to us having too many issues to deal with at once, lack of supports in our lives; and when not taught to us, a lack of skills or resources to cope. Seeking the support of a counsellor can help. I have facilitated anger management workshops, and provided one on one counselling to teach coping and management skills. As a former Forensic Therapist, I am qualified to provide court ordered treatment.

Therapy with me offers a safe, supportive space to understand and manage anger. We'll explore your triggers, build healthy coping tools, and uncover what's beneath the surface. You'll learn to express yourself clearly without losing control, strengthen relationships, and feel more grounded and in control of your emotions.