Anger management and other types of therapy are ‘helpful’ but more often than not, they’ve seem to be fallacious when actually looking at why people become angry, etc.
The main problem I’ve had with these therapies in general is that they usually fail to account for environmental differences and jump on the bandwagon that “you punched x,y,z because you couldn’t control your anger”. It’s something I also hear with mass murderers, “they didn’t learn proper anger management and decided to take it out on others”. Although I’m for personal responsibility, the main difficulty I have in accepting this idea also overlaps in criminology regarding whether people choose to commit crime in the way that society believes.
I always think about the school shooter, Kip Krinkel and his sister. They obviously made vastly different life choices most likely to due to genetics and gender (men are more aggressive), yet the general consensus among a lot of people would be that “He just couldn’t control his anger like his sister”. Same story with Elliot Rodger and his sister.
I don’t want it to exactly want to go down the route of gender differences in anger but more so discussing the environmental factors vs the innate factors along with the choice factor of the individual.
So how much do you know about Anger Management and Therapy? (Just the Hollywood movie Version?)
Medical science has Long tried to solve why People get angry and how to deal with it/ prevent it. From the simple Frustration theory of Freud and Lorenz’ simple ideas, today we have psychologists working with neurologists and new imagining methods for the brain plus biochemists looking at the differences in hormonal Levels in brain, plus child psychologists observing babies for months at a time, and thus have a better understanding.
Like: a small percentage of People is Born with neurological “damage” or imbalance of hormones that affect their brain/ mind. That doesn’t mean they’re evil; it means they react differently to circumstances than most of the rest of the People, and Need Special or different education and therapy than a neuro-typical Person. And apparently (as with many many things) catching it early and starting the right type of Special therapy early in childhood is much better results than trying to do therapy on an adult who has set in his ways and may not even understand that there is anything wrong with his behaviour.
On the other Hand, you have neurotypical People who grow up in bad Environment - abusive Family, or aggressive culture - and learn no other coping strategy than “hit when you hurt”.
So just taking 10 People and giving them the same type of therapy without looking at the reasons won’t give as good results as first figuring out the reasons and then adapting the therapy.
There’s still other factors: a therapy of 6 weeks, even if the correct one, won’t Change a 30 year old 100% right away. It takes months at least, often years, to Change ingrained Habits; moreso if the Person Returns to their old enviroment where everybody else still practices harmful behaviour. (Look at how difficult it is for normal People to get exercising regularly or on a diet or learn a new language/ Hobby).
That doesn’t mean it’s not effective and useful; it means it’s not a cure-all 100% guarantee that “this Person will never ever act out in Anger again”. That’s not how humans work.
What Society believes is not a useful measure there. The question is what experts believe? There was a big discussion I think about 15 or 20 years ago, when neuro-Imaging methods showed that Patterns of behaviour were indeed hardwired in the brain*, or that an order to act could be seen in the brain a few milli-seconds before a conscious decision.
So ethicists and philosophers and legal experts discussed how much a Person could be Held responsible for conscious Actions if some things might happen automatically in his brain. However, with more Research, this extreme Notion was disproven, and the current model of determining “How deliberate in this instance was this Action by this Person” still works.
Because even before seeing MRI scans of Brains, putting a Hand on somebody from behind, and then being surprised if that Person reacts by Reflex with a Punch or kick was not considered the same as deliberatly punching somebody from the front.
that doesn’t make scientologists right; it means Hubbard had some lucky guesses when describing things, but his “therapy” ideas are still completly wrong because his reasons for the mechanism are also wrong
Every individual case will have a lot of factors. The biggest factor in the US is the unwillingness to spend enough Money on mental health care and make it easily accessible. That could help a lot of People.
The second factor is the huge amount of injustice in Society. If People see not legitimate ressource available to solve Problems, it’s not always just that their view is skewed or that their coping mechanisms are bad - it can also mean that Society Needs a Malcom X so that they listen to MLK.
It mean that your OP made several generalizations about what people think without providing a single example of an actual psychological or sociological study that supports your claim. Your OP was vague enough to be possibly true, but if your (unsupported) hypothesis/belief is wrong, this whole thread is going to be nothing more than people with personal beliefs throwing out opinions with no bases for discussion.
IMHO, “anger management” is a sly tactic used by judges to taunt defendants.
I mean, is there anything more incendiary than telling an angry person, “I am sentencing you to take anger management classes?” It’s like telling an enraged person, “Calm down,” but 10x more provocative.
Well, to better get an understanding of why the brother went to anger management. Usually when I think of legal troubles, financial things come to my mind but obviously that’s not the case here and thus, I would like her to tell me how his case related to this thread,
As with all these kind of mandated “treatments”, my question is, does it work?
I would quite happy with forcing people to undergo any amount of apparently meaningless psychobabble if it can actually has meaningful results (In terms of reducing violence) that are verifiable in statistical manner.
If you can’t show it is effective, then it is just so much job-creation for counselors.
Here’s an idea. If you want to know whether or not anger management worked for them, ask if anger management worked for them rather than what legal trouble led to them seeking anger management.
He got CPS called on him after he knocked his daughter across the room when he was angry with her. I won’t defend him; getting CPS involved was absolutely the right thing to do, he was out of control. Both his parents have temper issues, and he got it from both of them; he had no model of how to cope with anger/frustration other than screaming/yelling/breaking things. Fortunately the violence was a one-time occurrence; the court mandated anger management, parenting classes and personal psychotherapy, all of which he has completed and all his parental rights have been restored. (They also required therapy for my niece and the parenting classes and therapy for her mom.) If that hadn’t happened, I have a feeling the violence would have continued.
Honestly, I think getting CPS involved was the best thing for everyone all around (and so does he). He is much better with her now, he has learned how to handle anger without lashing out and he is more aware of what is appropriate to expect from a kid at what age.
Are you saying that based on personal experience, you believe that anger management classes don’t work? (Red) Please elaborate.
Are you proposing a discussion of the role of anger management in preventing mass shootings, by examining outcomes in families? (Green) Please elaborate.
Are you requesting a discussion on the role of gender in aggression and anger? (Blue) Please elaborate.
I’m not entirely sure how that last paragraph ties in to the previous ones, but I’m sure you can flesh it out. Please elaborate as to how that ties into your thesis.
Once you’ve cleared up what this discussion is, things should go more smoothly.
I won’t defend him; getting CPS involved was absolutely the right thing to do, he was out of control. Both his parents have temper issues, and he got it from both of them; he had no model of how to cope with anger/frustration other than screaming/yelling/breaking things. Fortunately the violence was a one-time occurrence; the court mandated anger management, parenting classes and personal psychotherapy, all of which he has completed and all his parental rights have been restored. (They also required therapy for my niece and the parenting classes and therapy for her mom.) If that hadn’t happened, I have a feeling the violence would have continued.