When clients struggle to control their anger, it can alienate their family, friends, co-workers, and perhaps even you, as the clinician.
I once did an entire study on people who had serious problems with anger. They had to have both anger and some history of attacking other people. What possessed me to do this study is not clear to me, but I did it. I got the University of Washington Medical School people to send their trainers to train us on how to take care of ourselves, because I thought, “What if they attacked us or tried to hurt us…?” That turned out to be totally useless – none of them ever did that. So, rule one that I learned in treating angry people is that if you tell an angry person that their problem is anger, they’ll get angry at you – you don’t want to make that mistake. But before I learned that, I said it to them and that’s exactly what happened; everybody got angry at me, and I didn’t like it. So, the next time, I said, “Your problem is irritability,” and they were immediately, “Yes, that’s it! That’s exactly it!” The first thing you have to do with people who have a problem with anger is to get them to agree that being less angry would be in their best interest – that’s the biggest issue. With this particular group, we did a lot of pros and cons around: Is anger getting you in trouble? Obviously, it was – they were in a program for anger, so we worked on that. Then, we developed a whole set of skills for anger and taught these skills to all the people in the group.
Anger is an excess of emotion and it can go way up, so we developed a number of skills around that. One of the skills that worked so well – and this I learned from a course I took in spirituality – had to do with the concept of willing hands. Willing hands is a strategy where you put your hands like this – I’ll show you. You tell them: If you get angry and you’re trying to get your anger to go down – this is when you’ve already convinced them that getting their anger down is a good idea – then put your willing hands by your side or on your knees. It turns out that it’s really very difficult to stay angry with willing hands. I had a friend from Europe calling me up after I’d taught it to him, and he said, “Oh, my god, Marsha, I can’t be angry anymore. This is really terrible! I’ve lost my ability to be angry.” I said, “That’s good – keep doing willing hands.” It’s a really good strategy for all of us – and extremely good if you’re at a meeting!
So how do you get your client to recognize that their anger is an issue . . .
. . . without making them angry at you (and stalling therapeutic progress even further)?
In the video below, Marsha Linehan, PhD shares her approach.
Check it out.
Click here for full transcript
Anger is an excess of emotion and it can go way up, so we developed a number of skills around that. One of the skills that worked so well – and this I learned from a course I took in spirituality – had to do with the concept of willing hands. Willing hands is a strategy where you put your hands like this – I’ll show you. You tell them: If you get angry and you’re trying to get your anger to go down – this is when you’ve already convinced them that getting their anger down is a good idea – then put your willing hands by your side or on your knees. It turns out that it’s really very difficult to stay angry with willing hands. I had a friend from Europe calling me up after I’d taught it to him, and he said, “Oh, my god, Marsha, I can’t be angry anymore. This is really terrible! I’ve lost my ability to be angry.” I said, “That’s good – keep doing willing hands.” It’s a really good strategy for all of us – and extremely good if you’re at a meeting!
For more interventions to help clients who struggle with anger, please check out Practical Skills for Working with a Client’s Anger. You’ll hear from top experts including Marsha Linehan, PhD; Peter Levine, PhD; Steven Hayes, PhD; Bessel van der Kolk, PhD; and more.
Now we want to hear from you. What strategies have you used with clients who struggle with anger? Leave a comment below.
If my client has a background of a traumatic childhood, it helps for me to explain to them that anger is a normal emotion when a person is abused or neglected. If they feel anger rising within themselves as adults, first quickly ask themselves what triggered their anger, which already helps because they now have engaged their left frontal cortex. then have them take some slow, deep breaths and tell themselves calming statements.
Love the concept of willing hangs and will share with clinicians in my office
I love Marsha’s style! Very much like Belleruth Naparstek’s, who has guided me for many of year.
Willing Hands. Of course! Thank you, Thank you.
i admire Marsha Linehan so much. Through the years after going to her very down- to-earth work about borderline personality traits
and treatment, i have learned so much. This short segment is terrific. Thanks
I’m in Addiction Psych and I see some traumatized folks who are angry and explosive.
I just had an interaction with a pt when I told him we were not a couples rehab, he exploded calling me a lot of hurtful names. I dont respond in anger, and with this guy, I could not engage. I left him alone and when I returned to his room for rounds the day he was leaving, he apologized. I responded with, thats ok, people are never at their best in detox. As you stated there is fear underlying these explosions and I try to explain the effects of trauma and validate them. i like the willing hands and using the term irritable. Thanks for the tips
In my experience anger can express underlying feelings of helplessness. Physical expression is definitely useful and I would like to know more. Willing Hands seems to express an openness to receive help. This it seems to me would require feelings of trust and safety in the therapist.
To clarify: trust in and safety with the terapist. Although the therapist certainly needs trust in the method and the client as well!
Agree. I got mildly irritated watching this, which is more about behavior modification than therapy. The awareness fostered to utilize the physical hand response does create a sacred pause…
I never heard of introducting the concept of Willing Hands until now. It makes sense to work with the body to influence a change in the mind. I like how it can be introduced in an experimental way, ex: “Want to try an experiment with your hands? This has helped some people.” Timing is important, of course. And an attuned therapist.
I’m no longer working at age 84 but I enjoy your site. It gives me a sense of humanity working to heal each other. I did work for 40 years, until the end of my 81st year however. Mostly I learned to believe in the underlying empty, craving, feared hearts in the many who either came for help or were referred for reported problems.
I also learned it is not just the method used, but how you choose to present your help. At the end of the first meeting, I would say something like, “Go home and think about our talking and see if you feel good or bad about it. I won’t be hurt. I enjoyed meeting and I think I can work with you, and you must sense me to be ok and maybe get a comfort of sorts being here. If so, give me a call for another appointment. OK?
The onion starts to peel or not, right then. I think I would present Willing Hands soon into the work, the 2nd or 3rd session. It gives a relaxing feeling to the body and brain, and I thank Marsha Linehan for this delightful idea of opening to not only the work, but also offers a tool for outside the office – bringing more possible aha’s. Thank you so much.
I had success with parts work for the angry teenager part. It erupted with intensity as the healing process made it safe enough to come forward and have a voice. As that part felt heard for righteous anger (history of CPTSD) and then given compassion and it began to trust the wiser adult self, it could receive needed support on healthier attachment dynamics. It wanted safety and love underneath all that. It needed others to be a certain way to feel safe and when they didn’t meet the “rules” then anger. There was also self hatred for not being the kind of person they wanted to be not realizing they never were given any tools to even know how to be a resilient human. Seeing this pattern became transformative. Clinical EFT/ Energy psychology was used.
Ruth’s instructions clearly say not to advertise services. Why is this comment posted???
something simple
so profound