Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
One clear explanation is rarely enough. Say the important part again later in different words, and expect to say it again after that.
The thing you most want someone to have in a hot moment is the first thing that goes missing. Reactivity arriving ahead of thought is worth stating plainly, then again as a story, then again as a question about their own week. Repeating it is not a sign you explained it badly the first time.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Repel evil with good (Quran 23:96). Short enough to carry about, which is what a line has to be if you want it in your mouth when everything is loud.
ٱدۡفَعۡ بِٱلَّتِي هِيَ أَحۡسَنُ ٱلسَّيِّئَةَۚ نَحۡنُ أَعۡلَمُ بِمَا يَصِفُونَ
Repel evil with good- We are well aware of what they attribute to Us
Qur’an 23:96read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analytic mapping of common regulation strategies found that acceptance, distress tolerance and non-judgement cluster together and sit apart from avoidance-based strategies, suggesting these are distinguishable skills rather than one general knack. Separate skills need separate practice, so one quick pass over all of them is unlikely to leave much behind. The mapping describes how strategies relate to each other and does not test any way of teaching them.
Naragon-Gainey K, McMahon TP, Chacko TP. (2017). The structure of common emotion regulation strategies: A meta-analytic examination.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Something heard once stays a fact, and something met several times in different shapes is more likely to be there when it is needed.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Anger turned inwards covers two very different things. One is turning on yourself, the other is suffering where somebody can see it so that they feel the weight of it.
In long-running anger the alarm is not broken. It is set too sensitive and too loud, which is two things to adjust rather than a character to fix.
Most outbursts are a last try at getting something across. Underneath the noise there is usually a need that has gone unmet for a long time.