Anger Management and Counselling in Stittsville, ON.

By loosely following an eight-ten session Anger Management protocol, clients have the opportunity to not only gain effective tools for gaining control over their anger, but also to finally gain an understanding of it. Clients learn of the triggers, emotional/physical reactions, and self-beliefs that maintain unhealthy anger expression. By developing physical, emotional, and cognitive coping strategies, clients complete this program feeling in control, empowered, and grounded.

Anger is just one of the many emotions we all experience. If anger is a problem for you, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can help manage this difficult emotion and the physiological arousal that accompanies it. Anger management can help you recognize and manage triggers and learn to cope more effectively.

Anger issues often run deep within a person's soul. They can be connected to past hurt, injustice, betrayal or even disappointment. First and foremost, I believe it's important to uncover and resolve the core issues that have caused the anger. Doing so will also help you gain internal awareness which will allow you to begin building the necessary skills to respond to life's difficulties, rather than react. Learning to respond is the process of calming your emotions enough to think, pray and choose your behaviour. Reacting is simply being dictated by your unresolved issues, a lack of awareness and the necessary tools. I can help you resolve you anger rather than simply manage it!

Anger is a result of a sequence of events, thoughts, and feelings. You feel it in your body. You experience in your mind and the emotions are ever intense. You CAN feel more in control and at peace. We help you identify why you get angry and we walk you though a sequence of exercises designed to give you back control over your feelings and reactions.

Helping clients understand their anger - what is triggering them, where this anger is stemming from and healthier ways to cope with the pain and hurt often found behind angry behaviours. Explore various strategies to communicate their emotions (whether it be anger, frustration, pain, hurt, suffering, etc) in a healthier way to those around them. Helping clients understand the impact of their anger and their behaviours on those around them (whether it be in the workplace, with family or friends).

Anger management counseling can help to identify stressors and learn the steps to stay calm in the face of anger. The goal is to handle tense situations in more constructive and positive ways by reducing the emotional and physical arousal that anger can cause. It will provide the tools to take back your life and resolve the triggers that result in unplanned anger reactions.

Together, we will gain insight into the root of your anger and the purpose that it serves in your life. We will empower you to learn more about yourself when you experience anger and decide how you choose to respond to this emotion. I employ an integrative approach in my practice working alongside clients within an empathetic and supportive dynamic.

All emotions provide information about how we are experiencing a particular relationship or event. The intensity of our emotions reflects how important this relationship or event is to us. Anger has become associated with aggression and hurtful behaviours, but in reality, anger is an emotion that motivates us to respond. Sessions focus on developing an understanding of where your anger is originating and how it can be expressed and/or resolved.

If anger has a hold on you and your life, therapy can help you feel free again. I can help you learn the necessary skills to manage overwhelming emotions that arise due to anger and help you identify the roots of your anger. Therapy can also help a person address underlying emotions and memories that may be contributing to the distress. With time and patience, anyone can learn to control their anger, and I am here to help you through this journey.

I will work with you to help you understand your triggers. We will talk about the emotions and feelings that are coming up for you in situations. I will teach you coping skills and alternative ways to process these difficult feelings that will allow you to better manage your level of anger. You will find that you are better able to be calmer in situations and your anger will be more manageable once you practice the coping skills more often!

Anger is a friend in that it provides us with valuable information about ourselves and our surroundings. It can be understood as our emotional reaction to believing that either we or another have somehow been mistreated. it is most problematic in its expression rather than it its experience. Problematic expressions of anger present in varied forms, from passive forms to expressions of rage. We can learn to promote understanding of the meaning of our anger and the secondary emotions it triggers as well as how to develop alternative coping strategies.

Anger can be a helpful and adaptive emotion and there is a reason why it is in our emotional repertoire. However, if you find that anger is causing troubles in your life such as with relationships, jobs, or daily functioning in general, you may benefit from counselling. Counselling for anger can help in multiple ways: 1) It can help you understand where the anger is coming from and discover whether other, more primary emotions are underneath it 2) It can help you learn strategies to build your tolerance to internal distress 3) It can help you increase adaptive/helpful responses to anger and decrease maladaptive/unhelpful responses to anger

A response to life's events falls upon a continuum from neutral to highly-reactive. At times anger, Gandhi called it "Righteous Indignation," is necessary to respond to injustices or inappropriate behaviours. However, uncontrolled, inappropriate anger is destructive to one's self and others. Mindfulness and Metta (Loving Kindness) meditations are excellent tools to deal with anger. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also called Tapping, along with skillful use of affirmations can help to cool the fires of anger. The benefits of anger management lead to a regulating of emotions and thus a gaining of peace of mind, positive relationships, career and family security.

Anger, frustration, and rage can make a person feel so powerless; when we have emotional outbursts of any kind they can feel so all-encompassing and make us feel like we are not in control of feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. In working with clients on their emotions I aim to primarily promote an understanding of why our emotional outbursts occur; once this has been established we begin to work on how to manage, mitigate, or change how these outbursts occur, or why we feel the way that we feel in the first place.

We can't change how others drive in heavy traffic or how others can just be plain inconsiderate. Anger is a part of life. Rage however needs attention. If you find yourself feeling anger beyond what you feel is appropriate for a situation or feel rage when hurt or loved ones are hurt there is help available. Let's explore what all this means for you. Your triggers and your reactions and work with evidence-based techniques to make your life better.

My style of anger management may differ from the typical options. I focus on safe emotional release work called Psychodramatic Bodywork where the client and environment are safe and not at risk of injury/damage. Using floor and vertical mats, clients are supported to release feelings to then be able to access the root causes of their rage/fear/sadness/'anger management' struggles. Emotional release work is extremely transformational, and helps people release the adrenaline stored in their bodies that block mindfulness, clarity and authentic emotional expression. I look forward to explaining this process further during the free meet and greet sessions.

Anger is a strong and tough emotion. When used in an unproductive way, anger can harm our inner world and sense of self-esteem (i.e. self-criticism, self-injury), and harm our relationships (i.e. blaming, criticism, aggression, inflexibility). However, when this feeling is used in a healthy way, it can help us by alerting us that boundaries may have been crossed or that we may have some thoughts to challenge. It can also help to motivate us and help us to be assertive. We can work together to get a handle on anger and harness that energy in healthy, helpful ways.

I help clients unlock the negative cycle that anger and its accompanying behaviors may cause. In an empathic and supportive environment I help the client understand where the underlying feelings and thoughts originate and loosen the stranglehold that this cycle previously held. Together with cognitive and behavioral strategies we develop new and healthy coping methods to manage these emotions more productively.

Anger is one of those big emotions that can be tricky to navigate, especially when you are in the heat of the moment. Difficulty managing anger can sometimes lead to reactions that are hurtful to those that we care about the most. It is important to know that anger is not a bad emotion to experience, we just want to be mindful of how we communicate our anger to ourselves and to others. I hold a non-judgemental and safe space for you to explore your relationship with anger and assist you in working towards displaying anger in a way that is more in line with your preferred way of being. Contact me today to book a free consultation.