Anger is by far the easiest emotion to express. Many couples I have worked with find anger to be the primary barrier to being able to trust each other. It makes it nearly impossible to deal with conflict and gets in the way of being able to feel love and affection. Individuals who have learned to shut off feeling emotion usually do so to protect themselves from environments where the emotional energy of the home or environment they live in is negative and where it can not be safely expressed. It is an appropriate coping mechanism often used by children resulting in the parent saying their child never listens to them. One of the consequences to this is that it is difficult to be able to let down defenses and be connected with those who mean the most to us. One of the challenges of counseling is to overcome the lack of trust individuals have in others and particularly to being vulnerable with emotions. Dependents who have had to repress anger around a parent or caregiver usually have excess anger stored in their body. Often times attachment issues are present and the significant other, being the one who means the most to them, presents the greatest potential for loss. It can easily cause major damage to a relationship or family unless one learns to effectively live with the emotional self.
Anger management/processing
Sometimes clients seek counseling for anger management, often at the recommendation of a significant other. Anger management is only one of the outcomes of working with clients with anger. We learn how to cope with the stressors of life in various ways, some healthy and some not so healthy. It is invariably from copying the person most influential to them when they were a small child. If the adult caregiver coped with stress be getting angry it is going to be learned that it is an appropriate response. However, it is going to feel uncontrollable if they have to repress their own anger or receive further wrath from the adult. Anger is by far the easiest emotion for an individual to access and usually the one most evident in unhealthy relationships. The first step in working with clients with anger issues is to give them tools to manage it; however, this is only the first step. I typically use ego state therapy (EST) and EMDR to process anger. In doing so the current presentation of anger and memories of anger are identified and allowed to be processed so that the way the mind and body respond to anger and conflict is adaptable. Repressed anger is then no longer repressed in the mind and body and the way the client responds to conflict is no longer with exaggerated anger. We then are able to deal with stress and conflict with appropriate communication and support. Partners are able to then learn to trust each other in being able to manage their emotional response when in conflict.