Areas › Anger › When anger turns to harm
Harm that comes out of feeling threatened and harm that is done coldly, to get something, are not one problem wearing two faces. Before deciding what would help, work out which one you are looking at.
The first kind runs hot. A person feels cornered, the body goes off, and the damage is done inside a few seconds. The second is quiet and aimed, with very little feeling in it at all. Everything built for fear and arousal, slowing down, catching the early signs, is made for the first and does almost nothing for the second. Offering it to the wrong one can waste months and leave people less safe than when you started.
If anger in your home has become frightening for anyone, self help is not the right tool. Please reach for real help.
Qur’an and Sunnah
There is cause to act against those who oppress people and transgress in the land against all justice (Quran 42:42). Deliberate domination is named as its own wrong, kept separate from a person losing hold of themselves.
إِنَّمَا ٱلسَّبِيلُ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ يَظۡلِمُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ وَيَبۡغُونَ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ بِغَيۡرِ ٱلۡحَقِّۚ أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ لَهُمۡ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمࣱ
but there is cause to act against those who oppress people and transgress in the land against all justice- they will have an agonizing torment
Qur’an 42:42read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A comparison study of 113 men convicted of domestic violence found that impulsive and premeditated perpetrators differed across a range of measures, which suggests a single intervention model will not fit both. It was a cross-sectional comparison, so it maps the difference rather than telling you what to do about it. Even so, it is reason enough to ask which pattern is in front of you before choosing an approach.
Stanford MS, Houston RJ, Baldridge RM. (2008). Comparison of impulsive and premeditated perpetrators of intimate partner violence.. Behavioral sciences & the law doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A remedy only works if it is pointed at whatever is actually driving the behaviour.
When not to
If anyone is currently in danger, safety comes first and the question of motive can wait.
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
Whatever is driving it, behaviour that frightens someone is frightening. The reason behind it does not soften what it was like to stand on the other side of it.
Ask it plainly. Do you think you are a threat to anyone you love? A vague anger problem turns into something workable the moment it has a name attached to it.
The person you love and the person who frightened you are one person, and you are not obliged to decide which of them is the real one. Both were in the room.