Dr. Paul Standal uses a person-centered approach in assessing anger with a goal of determining the underlying reasons for becoming angry. His treatment is tailored to each person’s unique needs. Anger warns others that our physical or psychological space has been violated. It can be a protest against a feeling of loss or abandonment, or a response to frustration of needs and desires that conflict with one’s values and ‘conditions of worth.’
Anger is necessary and adaptive, but like all useful things, too much can be dangerous. Understanding what anger is helps to recognize and assess one’s own feelings of anger. It also helps is dealing effectively with other angry or difficult people. In Dr. Standal’s practice, he applies a two-pronged approach to resolving problems with anger:
1. He provides tools for managing and containing the hyper-arousal state that leads to destructive behaviors and relational wounding. He helps you recognize unhealthy responses to anger as well as how to cope with and resolve feelings of anger.
2. He teaches techniques for resolving conflicts without becoming destructively angry and teaches effective rules for the adaptive communication of anger.
Basic Anger Management is a tricky business. Anger can be healthy and productive, or it can be harmful to oneself and/or others. Dr. Standal’s work with people with chronic anger issues includes helping them learn to recognize feelings of anger, determine if the anger is justified or not, explore why they are angry and upset (with themselves or someone else) and explore situations that are similar to the original source of their anger (when they thought there was no reason to become angry). He also helps them learn and practice healthy, alternative ways of dealing with situations, practice expressing anger in assertive ways that do not injure or offend, and how to cope with anger that leads to destructive consequences by identifying and resolving behavioral triggers.