Anger Management and Counselling in Waterloo, ON.

In 30 years of helping people, I have found that how we handle our feelings is a major contributor to our joy, pleasure and success in life, not just in relationships but pursuing our work and our goals as well. Anger can be a powerful motivator or an obstacle in getting what we want. I have an approach for understanding the healthy purpose of anger, and becoming aware of and in control of your natural physiological arousal process so that your angry behavior can stop getting in the way of what you really want. You can obtain the tools and resources to work with this arousal process, giving you more choices and chances to succeed, rather than letting anger take away those choices.

Whether we are quick to anger, or slow to rage, anger is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s an emotion, and like all emotions, what we do with them is what matters. Anger is one of the best teachers we have if we can pay attention to what it is trying to tell us. If anger is a challenge in your life, counseling can help you to discover what your anger is trying to teach you. Therapy provides a safe place to look beneath your anger to some of the difficult emotions that you may not want to encounter on your own. In counseling you can learn tools to manage your anger so that you can learn from your anger while not risking your relationships.

Some approaches may try and eliminate all conflict but research shows healthy relationships may indeed have conflict. Anger may feel as if you are living on the edge of a volcano. It is not the absence of conflict we want but a way to express our feelings in a way that does not hurt others or ourselves. Take a step off the volcano on to firmer ground and gain a handle on your feelings.

Anger is a completely normal, often healthy human emotion. But if it gets beyond your control, it can be very destructive in your work and interpersonal relationships and can drastically devastate the quality of your life. Fortunately, anger can be 'managed' which is very different than 'suppressing' it. Unexpressed anger leads to a host of other problems including high blood pressure. However, when we learn how to 'manage' our anger, we can learn to diminish both the emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes. We can learn to avoid triggers and develop strategies. We can learn how to problem solve, change our thinking and relax our bodies.

Anger is like an iceberg. It is only the tip. The other nine-tenths remains hidden and unknown. We need to connect with the nine-tenths, or the primary feelings such as hurt, pain, guilt, shame and fear. I will work with you to unearth your primary feelings and to devise alternative ways to manage your feelings. A good book for you to read is Hold Me Tight by Susan Johnson, especially the chapter "Recognizing the Demon Dialogues."

Grey Matters International and the work of Kevin J. Fleming, Ph.D approaches issues of anger management in a very humane yet fresh perspective. You see, anger is a normal emotion but it is the valence (intensity) as well as the coupling choice of what one does with this that is the problem. Telling someone to "not" do it or modifying behavior with a trite psychological plan that only breeds a compliant response is not the way to change anger. Brainwave optimization is a new cutting edge technology that allows one to rewire circuitry responsible for reactivity driving the anger. Contact Grey Matters International, Inc now at kevin@kevinflemingphd.com or 877-606-6161.

Anger "regulation" rather than anger management or control is the key concept here! Rhonda uses emotion focused and cognitive techniques to help her clients to gain insight into their subconscious motivations and to identify, accept and use a broader range of emotion in honouring ways. Clients examine how they feel about their feelings and learn new skills to process and regulate emotions in healthy ways.

Whether you struggle with explosive anger; tend to be reactive and defensive or take things too personally; find yourself feeling resentful, bitter or irritable; tend to collapse or give up in the face of conflict; or bottle things up only to have them resurface later in inappropriate ways, our team can help. Accepting your feelings and body sensations as valuable information; identifying the underlying causes, triggers, and cues of your anger; learning emotion and impulse regulation skills; expressing your feelings and needs more effectively; and setting healthy boundaries assertively are important skills to help you understand, embody and channel your anger in healthy ways.

Anger can be such a frustrating emotion sometimes leaving us feeling shameful for even feeling that way. Men and women are often taught different messages about anger as they are growing up, impacting our experience and delivery of anger as an adult. Anger is a real and valid emotion, but how we express it can sometimes lead to problems. The benefit of working with me is that the emotion of anger does not intimidate me and I am willing to go to those heights with you so that you can learn new ways to express your anger. Heights such as using a kickboxing bag if it will bring you the breakthrough that you have been searching for. Your success matters to me and I know we can figure this out!