Anger Management and Counseling in South Hackensack, NJ.

Children and adolescents don’t usually say, “I’m having trouble with my anger right now and I need help coping”. They show us they’re experiencing overwhelming feelings with their actions and behaviors. Whether your child or teen is experiencing frequent tantrums or meltdowns or just difficulty regulating their emotions, I can help. I have extensive experience working with children and adolescents in both outpatient and school settings. Using play therapy, creative modalities, and cognitive behavioral therapy, I can help children and teens to communicate, make sense of their feelings, and begin to gain control over them so that they can overcome what’s standing in their way of happiness.

Does you lose his or her temper? Are you frequently angry and resentful and become argumentative with others? Are you concerned that you behaviors are affecting your occupational performance or social connections? If you identified with any of the above questions, you are probably experiencing a high level of stress. Visit my website to learn more or call me to discuss how I might be able to help you.

I help clients become more conscious and less reactive in their interactions. I teach clients specific strategies to break destructive patterns of relating and give them tools to communicate effectively. I also teach clients how to self-soothe. Within the safety of the therapeutic relationship, clients will explore the root of their anger and underlying emotions that are being expressed as anger or rage.

The benefit of my approach is that instead of getting angry you will learn how to think and react creatively so you are better able to find a way to prevail in the long run. People and life will sometimes do you in and obstruct you. However, you are rarely at your best when angry. It is your beliefs that lead to your self-defeating feelings of anger. I show how an angry response leads you to have far less leverage than if you felt healthy negative feelings like great annoyance, frustration, displeasure and disappointment. I teach you how to think about injustice, interference, and insult so that you stay in control of your reactions in order to creatively respond and ultimately prevail!

I provide individual psychotherapy for anger management. Anger is normal emotion that everyone experiences. It becomes a problem when one expresses anger inappropriately or one lacks the proficiency to express any emotions but anger. I use Humanistic and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) to help my clients understand their anger, improve their emotional experience, and express their emotions in healthy ways. A healthy emotional life is the cornerstone of living a full and successful life.

Anger is an emotion that is strong. Its an emotion expressing that something is not ok. Anger presents its face to necessarily express that you are not ok and/or something is not ok, and change needs to happen. This emotion is valuable. However, there are effective ways of expressing anger; ways which empowers one to make positive change and there are less-than-helpful ways of expressing anger; bringing one farther and farther away from our goal. It is my mission to help you work on your anger to strengthen you in effectively creating a more wholesome, healthy way of interacting with the universe, improving your relationship skills and allowing life to unfold in a safer,smoother fashion.

Anger Management Therapy will include learning new ways of communication and self-expression. Using DBT and Internal Family Systems approach will allow for a balance in learning more about triggers to anger and that will result in more effective ways to manage these intense feelings. Results will be increased confidence in difficult conversations, being able to cope with any triggers that come up and using natural ways to self soothe and relieve any tension.

I believe children must first want to learn and perfect anger management. I have developed techniques to motivate the child or teen to develop a value system of respectful behavior toward others. Once this is achieved anger management skills can easily be obtained. Without a change in attitude and values, anger management training will fail because the child lacks the motivation to practice such techniques.

Anger tends to get labelled negatively in our culture, often being described as a "negative emotion", or seen as something dangerous or to be denied. Yet the truth is, like all emotions, anger plays a vital role in our psychological system. It serves as a warning that something important to us feels threatened. It can motivate us to take action to correct something negative that is happening. Prevalent negative attitudes about anger contribute to many people getting insufficient practice in identifying and communicating about anger effectively. At my Pleasantville office I provide individual, family and couples counseling for issues related to anger management in adults and children.

Anger is a natural reaction to a hurtful or threatening situation. When it becomes uncontrollable, constant, and extreme, unhealthy anger can wreak havoc on our lives. Some people can manage anger with self-taught techniques, reading materials, and other resources. Yet, anger management therapy is considered the most effective treatment option to address these anger issues and adopt healthy coping strategies to handle them when they arise.

Sometimes anger is a response to feeling misunderstood: you cannot believe that the other person does not see what is evident to you. At other times, anger is an expression of frustration because you cannot attain a goal or you are prevented (by others or by life situations) from reaching a desired landmark in your life. As a therapist, I will help you understand what is fueling your anger, and once you get a better sense of this, you will be able use emotional energy to deal with the underlying personal frustration instead of wasting it in staying angry.

"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but your words will break my heart." Anger Management is a powerful source of self-knowledge that develops skills that are useful throughout life. Anger Management does not eliminate anger; it empowers us to recognize surges of anger quickly enough to make a behavioral ‘U turn’ rather than saying or doing something we will regret. Instead of automatically reacting we redirect our attention inward to identify what has aroused the feelings of anger and how to deal with them appropriately. Over time the people close to us come to recall our previous anger as a dim and distant memory.

By helping individuals connect their irrational beliefs to their ineffectual and sometimes violent consequence, you will learn to take control of your anger and not allow it to control you. Using the ABC's of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy we will explore how activating events in your life and your belief systems or your schema trigger your emotional and behavioral consequences. Additionally, using a pulse oximeter we will explore the effects of anger on your body and learn how to de-flood your system while learning self soothing techniques.