Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Not all harm is done in a temper. Some is hot and explosive, some is cool and worked out beforehand, and the two need different things.
Calming skills help the hot kind, because there is arousal to bring down. The cool kind is aimed at getting something, and it shifts through consequences and an honest conversation about what it is for. If breathing exercises seem to be missing the point with someone, it is worth asking which of the two you are looking at.
Qur’an and Sunnah
A kind word and forgiveness is better than a charitable deed followed by hurtful words (Quran 2:263). Harm done coolly, wrapped up in something generous, is still counted as harm.
۞قَوۡلࣱ مَّعۡرُوفࣱ وَمَغۡفِرَةٌ خَيۡرࣱ مِّن صَدَقَةࣲ يَتۡبَعُهَآ أَذࣰ ىۗ وَٱللَّهُ غَنِيٌّ حَلِيمࣱ
A kind word and forgiveness is better than a charitable deed followed by hurtful [words]: God is self-sufficient, forbearing
Qur’an 2:263read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of youth aggression found that empathy had only a small inverse relationship with aggressive behaviour, while callous and unemotional traits predicted it more strongly. Aggression is not one thing with one cause, and assuming a simple shortage of feeling misses a good deal. It pooled studies of young people, so the picture in adults may differ.
Ritchie MB, Neufeld RWJ, Yoon M, Li A, Mitchell DGV. (2022). Predicting youth aggression with empathy and callous unemotional traits: A Meta-analytic review.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Something done to get a result changes when the result changes, not when the heat comes down.
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
You can be patient all day at work and lose it inside ten minutes at home. That is not hypocrisy, it is different situations pulling different reactions out of you.
There is movement inside the word emotion, which turns out to be a fair description. Something starts moving in you before you have named anything.
This is just how I am ends more attempts at change than anything else. It is also less true than it feels.