Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
Before anyone does something exposing, let them check their own conditions and give them a clean way to say no. A public yes given under pressure is not really a yes.
It can be as ordinary as asking someone to consider whether they have the privacy, the time and the state of mind for this today. Ask it first and whoever declines has not failed in front of anybody. It costs a minute, and it is the difference between practice a person chose and something that happened to them.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer, though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble (Quran 2:45). The difficulty is stated openly, which is a good model for how to ask someone whether they are ready.
وَٱسۡتَعِينُواْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ وَٱلصَّلَوٰةِۚ وَإِنَّهَا لَكَبِيرَةٌ إِلَّا عَلَى ٱلۡخَٰشِعِينَ
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer- though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble
Qur’an 2:45read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In 125 male veterans with post traumatic stress and anger difficulties, group anger management delivered by videoconference did as well as the same therapy given in person. The conditions of delivery clearly matter enough to be studied, and they can be got right. That trial compared formats rather than testing how people were prepared beforehand.
Leslie A. Morland; Carolyn J. Greene; Craig S. Rosen; David W. Foy; Patrick M. Reilly; Jay H. Shore (2010). Telemedicine for Anger Management Therapy in a Rural Population of Combat Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
People can stay with something difficult when they know they are free to stop.
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
Most of what feels wounded when someone slights you is a story you carry about who you are. A story can be looked at, which is a very different thing from having to defend it.
Practice gets more useful when someone is really watching. It also gets harder, so agree that part before you begin instead of adding it once the person is already in the middle of it.
Whatever line you plan to use on yourself in a hard moment, say it in your own words rather than tidy ones. Polished phrasing tends to evaporate exactly when you need it.