Anger Management and Counseling in Van Nuys, CA.

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.

Anger is a common issue when you were raised by someone who was angry or you have trauma that causes your fear and anger to be easily triggered. I help you determine the root causes of your anger and treat both the symptom of anger and the root cause to maximize your success at overcoming anger! I also use proven anger management techniques in addition to holistic treatments for trauma, relationship problems, parenting, etc. I offer an individualized, holistic and creative approach to working with your anger issues. Call me! I can help!

Consider anger a socially acceptable mask that we wear to protect ourselves from more vulnerable feelings. It’s easier to show anger than hurt feelings. The way I work with anger is to explore what’s fueling the anger, what’s underneath it. Once the underlying feelings are identified and acknowledged, the anger becomes less intense and more manageable. I also use a somatic approach to anger, using physiological cues to recognize it before it grows out of control.

Do you find that you are prone to angry outbursts in your relationships? Do you have a hard time with frustration tolerance? Through an empathic and collaborative approach, you will learn how to identify and understand your feelings and triggers, develop the capacity for frustration tolerance, and strengthen your coping skills so that your anger is no longer a destructive force in your life.

Most of us have some relationship to anger. In a world that is capable of sudden cruelty and profound injustice, anger can be a powerful ally, helping us to take action that leads to real change. But anger can also try to take over our lives by tricking us into doing things we would rather not do, or getting ourselves into trouble. When anger arrives, we will face it together. Might we flip the script? Is it possible to take control of the relationship with anger, to interrogate it and unmask its motivations, its support, and its insidious methods of taking over?

Anger is a feeling that carries information. Anger alerts us to the awareness that we feel threatened in some way. People often get angry because they are in emotional pain. However, showing someone that you are in pain is a more effective way to help others feel remorse for what they did than raging at them. Emotionally intense young adults do not have to destroy any more relationships with "over the top" reactions! There are more effective ways of responding. I can teach these young people simple relaxation and awareness exercises that allow them to tame their anger.

Is your anger getting the best of you? Perhaps its ruining your relationship or compromising your ability to move up in your career. Maybe its just a feeling--you're always tense, stressed, worked up, you feel "on edge." Whatever your experience is, there is health to be had and hope to be found. Something in you knows there's got to be another way to live. Together, we'll explore what your anger is really about and develop strategies to get you feeling more healthy and whole so you can have the relationship with others you want to, the internal peace that people talk about, and the ability to move well through stressful situations.

I believe anger is a secondary emotion, covering other feelings such as grief, depression, anxiety, and/or hurt. Often times anger management is a signal for a need for trauma work, which can include explore prior experiences that felt stuck or emotionally taxing. Often times when others are angry, it's the only way they can feel heard-- having anger is not the problem, it's, what we do with the anger is what needs to be explored as appropriate or not.

Frustration can often lead to aggression. Cognitive-behavior therapy, as practiced by Dr. Levine, is a valuable tool in reducing the impact of frustration and reducing the resulting degree of anger. He will work with you to help you alter your reaction to frustration and develop alternative mechanisms to react to these events. Once your anger response is reduced your relationships with your family and friends are also likely to change in a much more positive direction.

Anger can be a difficult beast to manage that can fracture or relationships and create guilt and shame, but it is possible to treat it. With the aid of tools like EMDR CBT and guided visualizations I can help you overcome this issue and heal from the issues that drive it. Additionally, I can provide tools, coping skills, and other resources to help you manage this particular issue.

As a culture, we do not do well with healthy expressions of anger. Often we are raised to suppress it and then we have limited practice at dealing with big emotion. There is a spectrum of healthy aggression- to keep us safe and to maintain boundaries- and rage- our body's strategy for safety. Anger management is about applying the right "dosing" to maintain boundaries yet not fracture relationships or suffer other losses. I am able to help you learn to regulate your body to be able to apply the appropriate "dose" to be effective and not destructive.

We all get angry sometimes. The issue is what you do with your anger. If you act it out in ways that hurt yourself or other people, that’s where the problems lie. You may express you anger physically by hitting people, hurting yourself, or breaking things. You may also express your anger by saying things that get you in trouble or damage your relationships. Sometimes it’s what you say, and sometimes it’s how you say it. Together, we can sort it out. We’ll see what triggers the anger and how you express it. We’ll work to undo the triggers and find other ways of dealing with the anger when it arises.

Anger management can be helpful when emotions feel so strong that they are are to control. Learning Impulse control and mindfulness skills can be helpful to manage Anger. I offer Dialectical Behavior Therapy to focus on the ways to improve Distress Tolerance and improve your ability to think before you act. Working through the skills and increasing your emotional regulation can be very helpful for Anger Management.