Do anger management programs just teach people not to go nuts when they get angry, or do they actually remove the sources of the anger in people so that they’re not so angry?
As a rule, they help people deal with their anger in appropriate ways, rather than in unacceptable ones. And get over it quicker. But they won’t keep a person from becoming angry.
As I understand it, you don’t remove the source of anger within people. Just about everyone gets angry or upset about something or other. For folks with an anger problem, it’s not that they are getting angry that’s the problem, it’s that they don’t deal with that anger properly and they get frustrated and everything builds up until they explode.
Rather than let that happen, anger management teaches them to slow down and express themselves more clearly so that others will listen to them, which helps to prevent the frustration which leads to a blow-up. It also teaches them to vent their anger in more constructive ways. Instead of lashing out at whoever they are angry with, they learn to express why they are angry in less accusative ways so that they are less likely to escalate the anger with the other person, again diffusing the situation instead of leading to a blow-up.
That’s the basic idea of it, anyway. As for how well it works in practice, I have no idea.
Is there any evidence they actually do that? As in actual statistical evidence that could judge the efficacy of anger management treatment in the same way you’d judge any other treatment be it a type of therapy or a new antibiotic.