Anger Management and Counseling in Wayne, NJ.

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.

"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.

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!

One of the main tools I use with people to help them control anger, is mindfulness. Anger is a normal emotion; we all know what it feels like. No one can help how they feel, but they can certainly control what they do with these feelings. Mindfulness is a way to help people understand what is happening for them in the moment. Teaching people to stop and pause, as they become more aware of what is happening for them, is a way to help them make different choices, rather than jumping into the same patterns which have not been useful in their lives. There are other behavioral skills clients can use as well, but it all starts with slowing the process down and awareness of what is happening.

The Mars & Venus Counseling Center offers help with moderate anger issues and those affected by these issues. Anger is a natural human emotion. It is a healthy response to disappointment, attack, or loss. Explosive anger, though, can create serious psychological and physical problems. By reducing and controlling anger, an individual can reduce their stress and the stress of others being affected by the anger. Our dedicated counselors will teach the struggling individual to examine their anger triggers and their skewed perceptions of situations and learn constructive ways to express their feelings. Various techniques of renowned leaders in field of anger management will be utilized throughout counseling, including but not limited to self-awareness,...(view profile to read more)

Clients can explore and resolve past experiences which may be contributing to an amplification of negative feelings in trigger situations causing tension and distressing emotions and body sensations. Resolving underlying emotional issues related to present anger can help to be able to safely express anger that a client may not have been able to get in touch with before.

Anger isn't the problem. It's what's underneath it that we need to look at. Most people who struggle with anger aren't out of control, they're overwhelmed, and often carrying a lot more than they realize. Using CBT, EMDR, and emotional regulation techniques, I help clients identify what's actually triggering their reactions, shift the thought patterns fueling them, and develop healthier ways to express what they're feeling. We'll also look at how anger is showing up in your relationships, because that's usually where it does the most damage. The goal isn't to stop feeling angry. It's to stop letting it run the show.