Anger Management and Counseling in Berwyn Heights, MD.

Have you been told how to deal with your anger with little or no help? Do you find most anger management strategies relatively easy to understand but quite difficult to put into practice? If so, you are not alone. There is a reason for this and it is not because you are not trying hard enough. Anger is a very important and powerful emotion that must be addressed in a deeply emotional way and not just through our heads, knowledge or understanding. This requires the expertise of a therapist who is comfortable and skilled in working with anger.

How do you know if your anger is serious enough to need help? A quick answer is if you find that anger is your go-to, knee-jerk reaction to everyday irritants and disappointments, or if your anger is compromising your quality of life, it may be time to talk to someone. My way of working with angry clients is to both search for the causes of the anger as well as figure out concrete, common-sense ways for anger to be managed on a daily basis. Anger itself is not the problem; often it's the management (or mismanagement) of it that brings on a host of other problems. Maybe you have a right to be angry! But wouldn't it be better to be able to express that anger in a way others can really hear it?

While anger has a proper place in our lives, it is easy to get stuck in a cycle of escalating anger. This often happens because of things going on inside of us that we don't know how to work through on our own (and so we compensate, or cope, by getting angry). The good news is that regardless of what is fueling our anger, we are capable of building the necessary emotional muscles to work through those underlying issues, thus enabling us to control our anger healthily (instead of it controlling us). If you are struggling with anger I would be honored to help you make sense of, and work through, what is underneath it so that you can move towards more wholeness and peace in your life.

We treat anger with compassion, as it is our experience that anger is usually a symptom of an underlying issue or feeling that is harder to feel or cope with in life. Issues with anger can also present themselves as a part of someone versus all of them. We treat all mental health issues from a trauma-informed, strengths-based, systems model of care.

I help clients develop strategies and techniques for managing intense anger or aggressive episodes. These techniques involve learning ways to “cool off” and validate underlying feelings so that they may be communicated more effectively. Generally speaking, difficulty with anger is typically the result of a person having difficulty regulating their emotions.Emotional Regulation is achieving a balanced emotional life where you are neither numbed out from your emotional experiences nor emotionally overwhelmed by them. Achieving emotional balance is done through both talk therapy as well as learning specific concrete strategies for managing your emotional experiences.

Life can present you with difficult situations which are hard to process and move past. These challenges are not on your timeline and affect everything. Having worked in many healthcare settings, I am familiar navigating life-changing events and grief. I understand the territory of encountering loss, coping with trauma, the complexity of the medical system and living with illness. These issues can have ripple effects on your relationships, sense of self and perceptions of the world. I know how complex things can get, and I will support you during this process.

Anger is a natural emotional response and it emerges as a combination of thoughts, statements, physical reactions, and overall physical arousal. One goal of therapy is to use anger as a helpful and constructive tool in recognizing and establishing boundaries or advocating for your needs. Another goal is to reduce agitation, aggression, argumentativeness, and tension, by learning and practicing skills that help you improve interactions with others and develop healthy ways to communicate your emotions.

I do not help clients to "manage" anger. I help them to understand its source and to use it productively rather than destructively. Sometimes it covers up some other feelings that need to be dealt with, and sometimes it is simply directed at the wrong person. By coming to understand your anger better you keep it from making problems and use it to find solutions.