Anger can be a challenging emotion to work through.
Sometimes our anger can be frightening. Or, maybe we consider it inappropriate to even feel this way at all.
Not only that, when anger is misdirected, it often leads to poor choices, damaged relationships, and even violence.
So what’s really going on in the brain and body when anger is triggered?
Here’s a tool to help you visualize anger's impact on the brain. Click To TweetWe thought it would be helpful for you to have a way to visualize this. (And please feel free to make a copy of this to share.)
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(When you make copies to share, please be sure to include the copyright information. We put a lot of work into creating these resources for you. Thanks!)
Next: How Anger Affects Your Brain and Body, Part 2 – How Stress Hormones Can Change Your Brain.
Your infographics are really good! It makes the neuroscience tangible. I have heard so much about the HPA over the years and seeing it so well illustrated and explained makes it more graspable. I will be using these graphics with my clients to help them understand what’s happening in anger.
Terence
hi
I work as a psychologist, work with trauma survivors and take great time in educating my clients in how the mind and body works. It is a big step in reducing shame.
I am so excited to use these with my clients. I will come back and tell you how it works.
One question, some of my clients do not speak English, is it ok for me to translate the infographics? I will make sure your copyright information will be on the Icelandic version.
Sigridur Bjornsdottir
sigridurbjornsdottir@gmail.com
Sharon Savage,
Have you utilized genetic testing to find genetic SNPs? In some people, nutritional deficiencies can block optimal brain function. More reputable and affordable testing companies are entering the market, you want to select one which interprets for nutritional deficiencies and offers suggestions.
Note: just because someone has a genetic SNP doesn’t automatically mean there will be a nutritional deficiency, but the risk is there especially if the body is stressed and isn’t fed a wholesome diet.
Annette Anderson
It is a great subject to discuss even if my English language my second language. It is clear and very interesting because more and more people suffering. People shy to talk about it or so busy.I just happy to read about it and share with friends.
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Amazing! Thank you. A Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA – WW) we run and Emotional Regulation Group that helps clients to understand the physiology around trauma. These resources are excellent and help clients to understand complex systems. It HELPS reduce the shame – My new mission as a therapist!
My experience receiving your descriptions of theory and practice is that it feels more like a marketing blitz. There are many behavioural medicine practioners vying for the same consumers in the same way and it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. It’s an industry. L I have years of experience in mental health, both as a professional and as a consumer. I have always seen the disparity in what is available to who and it comes down to money. I can not afford your product. Instead I search for information that is freely given. I am sure I am not alone in this. It’s a trust thing as well ……what are your true motivations. Why don’t you cut down on the number of “experts” your program offers trying to support their practice and change your business model where your revenue comes from donation. And be available to all. The spiritual component of giving away that which you were fortunate to receive.
In summary I can’t afford your program especially when I question the structure of it. This post has taken some courage to write on my part as may produce negative feed back. Possibly I speak for others?
this comment highlights the gaps in knowledge of the ‘operating system of the brain. Each part is distinct in its ability to manage stress and trauma. At the level of the cortex the stimulus is managed by the level of the stress and trauma. this activates the ANS response, including corticol levels. When it reaches a traumatic level the amygdala takes over. The age of the trauma and frequency determines the future regulation through the amygdala. This leads to a distinct operating system from that entrained though normal childhood development. That is one free from repeated stress and trauma through child maltreatment and sexual violence. The dissociative state and the identity that goes with it means that there can be limitations imposed on memory retrieval as the amygdala entrains stimulus in a haphazard way. This develops as a distinct persona and behavioural characteristics. The use of the word ‘experts’ is problematic because experts are expendable and like their theories are subject to change. the other political observation I would make is that the expert belongs to an age that is past as people are more open to challenging and resisting protestations of expert knowledge. I dont believe this type of terminology firs in with the notion of personal agency and practices of collaborative interactions within the psychotherapeutic relationship. Maggie Lawson
I believe Marny is saying that your programs for people that need help ate too expensive for the public and if you changed the business model to benefit every one. I have been through many traumas and wish I could go to people like you that understands how trauma effects the brain and body and now that I have read some of it and reading the charts helped me understand why Ive had and still am having physical and emotional problems. I have to deal with this alone and I wish I had the help I deserve.
My daughter suffers anger that is off the charts and her psychiatrist is ill-equipped to deal with it. In response, he tells her he believes the Rx mix they’ve achieved is perhaps the best they’ll be able to do. Meanwhile on bad days she harbors and festers and screams that she just wants to die. I am at a loss to know what to do though I have been her staunch supporter for years, whereas her father threw up his hands years ago and stays out of contact with her, upsetting her all the more. I would give anything to find something of benefit to her. Her life has been so hard she believes God’s desire is only to torment her. Because of this, at age 35 she is unable to live alone or manage life’s stresses, so we carry on together in a circle of non-progress, though not for lack of love or effort.
You may want to purchase the lecture series and listen together. Or, watch for the free videos and free reports nicabm publishes. I am an art therapist, and trauma survivor (multiple times over), and this information is some of the best that gets to the deep seeded wounds that are not recognized by a system of “managed care.” Rage is a natural reaction to trauma, and a healthy one… even though it can quickly go out of control. What happened that she is responding with rage? What needs to be addressed so she can begin to let go of the pain and heal? She may not know, but she might know exactly what has gone wrong for her.
The techniques used by these masters are very powerful, and not prevalent in the “mainstream” of mental health, although becoming more so. They are the best of the best material we use in trauma recovery work. I would also suggest that, as you listen together, and watch which clinician’s work seems to strike a chord with her, that you reach out to those masters, to see if they would be willing to work with your daughter in a workshop setting, to show learning clinicians how the practice works. Sometimes they will do this for free, because you are brave enough to out yourself and your problems, bearing your soul in front of an audience.
Good luck to you. You are not alone.
I feel for the situation that you and your daughter are in. I can only pass on what has assisted in dealing with trauma that may be of some benefit. Dealing with a parent that was absent emotionally at a young age can generate strong emotions, these emotions have a life of their own as they operate from the unconscious and this can confuse a person as they feel helpless in controlling their behaviour. I found getting in touch with my body sensations as a way of connecting with the subconscious, strong emotions are linked to past events and the emotion generates a physiological response, by generating awareness of the sensations you can reflect on thoughts or events that triggered the sensation. You daughter will need a trained therapist to support and assist healing and help ease her into the places she has been protecting herself from, places that may be outside her conscious awareness or have been previously to overwhelming to go into. I found breath work, mindfulness and yoga as good places to start with re-connection to the body. Given her father has given up on her physically maybe it happened emotionally way before, and being alone is too stressful. This could be a place to explore.
Good luck with your journey.
Sharon Savage,
Have you utilized genetic testing to find genetic SNPs? In some people, nutritional deficiencies can block optimal brain function. More reputable and affordable testing companies are entering the market, you want to select one which interprets for nutritional deficiencies and offers suggestions.
Note: just because someone has a genetic SNP doesn’t automatically mean there will be a nutritional deficiency, but the risk is there especially if the body is stressed and isn’t fed a wholesome diet.
Annette Anderson
I am very grateful for this resource. It’s beautiful and useful!!!
Thank you very much
Thankgyou for the great visual. It’ll be far mor fun and easier for my clients to grasp than my line drawings.
Excellent pictorial representation of common triggers, and the subsequent secretion of neurotransmitters ; good for clinicians and therapists, fabulous for patients!
I would imagine it is the same response to pain/chronic pain?
Beautiful. It helps a client to see what is happening in their bodies
Please include me in the follow up
Great to have a visual like this. Very useful for counselling.
Interesting