Areas › Anger › The fear underneath anger
The person roaring at you is very often the most frightened one in the room. Holding that in mind steadies you, and your steadiness is a good half of what settles them.
Most of us find it easy to be kind to somebody who is visibly afraid and much harder when the fear arrives as shouting. Your own alarm is the thing to watch, because a guarded, clipped response feeds straight back into theirs. Slow your speech, keep your hands visible, and give the fear underneath something to land on.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Speak to him gently so that he may take heed (Quran 20:44). Gentleness was the instruction for approaching the most frightening figure of all.
فَقُولَا لَهُۥ قَوۡلࣰ ا لَّيِّنࣰ ا لَّعَلَّهُۥ يَتَذَكَّرُ أَوۡ يَخۡشَىٰ
Speak to him gently so that he may take heed, or show respect.’
Qur’an 20:44read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A trial with 65 patients found that higher shame and guilt at the start predicted more severe post-traumatic symptoms, and that weekly reductions in shame were followed by reductions in symptoms. What sits under the anger is worth taking seriously in its own right. An early review of compassion-focused therapy found it promising for people driven by shame and self-criticism, while noting the evidence base was small at that point.
Øktedalen T, Hoffart A, Langkaas TF. (2015). Trauma-related shame and guilt as time-varying predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms during imagery exposure and imagery rescripting--A randomized controlled trial.. Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research doi
Leaviss J, Uttley L. (2015). Psychotherapeutic benefits of compassion-focused therapy: an early systematic review.. Psychological medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Two nervous systems in a room read each other, so the one that settles first tends to set the direction.
When not to
Some people are genuinely dangerous rather than frightened, so keep your own safety, your exits and your supervision in place regardless of how you understand them.
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
Two questions worth carrying about with you. Can you take an insult and leave it unanswered? Can you stay frightened without turning it into a row?
Anger is often a bluff, a show of size put on by something that feels small. Knowing that is not an insult to you, it is probably the most useful thing you can know about it.
A fear pointed at a category rather than at a person is the dangerous kind, because it never has to check who is actually standing in front of it.