Anger Management and Counseling in Santa Rosa, CA.

Anger is an emotion that always has another feeling underlying and fueling it. Even though you may feel helpless controlling it, I can help you develop skills to help resolve the issues "fueling the fire." By exploring the root cause of your anger and learning skills to manage it you will be able to live the life that you have wanted. Don't wait! Anger does not have to control your life!

Anger is a basic or primal emotion that is closley linked to the fight or flight response. So at its best, anger is there to protect you or a loved one. However, when anger is triggerred to easily, erupts inapropriatley, affects important personal or occupational relationships, then it is time to learn a new way of addressing your anger. I can help you learn better ways of communicating when you are angry that do not lead to destructive outbursts. I can also help you look underneath the anger to other issues and feelings that may be present. Some people get angry because it is a familiar feeling when really they are feelilng scared or sad. I can help you identify underling issues.

Clients from various backgrounds take many different approaches to think about, feel and express anger. However, when anger negatively impacts one’s relationships, it is important to explore what is contributing to an unhealthy experience of anger. In my collaboration with clients, we venture out to explore the conscious and unconscious factors that may need to be brought to light, in the context of perhaps other biopsychosocial (biological, psychological or social) factors that may need attention. Clients who learn to understand, better identify and manage their impulses, cultivate insight and explore opportunities to practice developing skills to have an improved sense of self-mastery.

Volatile, out-of-control anger can destroy so much of what you love. The necessary first step with destructive anger is to become sensitive to when and how it arises which allows you to employ well-practiced self-regulation strategies to divert the destructive explosion. My therapeutic domain is to help you with the equally necessary second step of anger work. The only way that you can ultimately resolve the anger problem in your life is to go to the hurt underneath the anger, which is the root cause. I provide a safe container and steady, empathic guidance as we move together to experience the depth and the texture of rich emotional energy that has been mis-directed through angry explosion.

Anger is one of our fundamental emotions, part of the basic machinery of our mind and personality. In some ways it is a useful tool that helps to motivate and energize us in seeking fairness and justice in the world around us. But this powerful hold-over from our primal history can also be enormously destructive if we lose control of it. If your anger is slipping out of your control and you find yourself saying or doing things that damage your reputation or your relationships, hurt those around you, or otherwise consistently put you on the outside of society's expectations for behavior, you need help to find tools or strategies to change this and I would be happy to help.

I help people struggling with anger management by working with them to develop awareness of their anger experience in their body and mind and how it is impacting their body. I help you learn and practice strategies for regulating your body and mind so you do not lose control of the anger. I help you to learn healthy communication of anger, and the development of conflict resolution skills. I support you in exploring issues of transference from past relationships and experiences that may be contributing to your strong feelings of anger in present circumstances and relationships. We create safety, increase positive expression of anger, and reduce or eliminate sources of anger when possible!