A RAGING FEVER
Finally, Shuck-Hoehne says, she stopped in front of her car and turned toward the man.
"You know, sir, you really ought to come to my anger-management workshop."
As a licensed clinical counselor, Shuck-Hoehne has more tools than most when it comes to dealing with the checkout-line version of road rage. She's used them for years conducting mini-workshops on anger management sponsored by the Counseling Center at Proctor Hospital in Peoria, Ill.
Now she and Jim Herr, a licensed social worker, are trying to expand the mini-workshops into full-fledged eight-week group therapy sessions. The first one, however, pricked at Herr's and Shuck-Hoehne's frustration levels. Though they had hoped to get six to 12 participants, only two people signed up.
But both therapists believe problems with controlling anger are far more widespread:
- Note the now-famous, still-controversial head-butting incident toward the end of the World Soccer Cup championship game between France and Italy.
- Or that new study that generated public debate about something psychiatrists have discussed for years. Road rage, apparently, can be more than just another rude, discourteous driver. Some of it is a sign of mental illness, "intermittent explosive disorder." More importantly, in terms of the research, it is far more prevalent than doctors believed, which gets back to Shuck-Hoehne's incident at the grocery store.
Anger is a normal emotion. "With all the things that go wrong in our lives, it's appropriate to get angry sometimes," Herr says. Anger is different from aggression, however, and angry emotions don't necessarily escalate into aggressive behaviors.
The man in this case may have had understandable reasons for reacting, if not legitimate reasons for exploding. In fact, as Shuck-Hoehne describes the scene, his rage may have been triggered by a feeling of invisibility.
If he wanted empathy, he went about it in the wrong way.
One telling hallmark of out-of-control anger is it doesn't achieve the desired results in the long run. Rather than listen or understand, the recipient of the anger is more likely to stop listening or stop trying to understand, Herr and Shuck-Hoehne say.
Often, anger becomes a way of taking power and control over a situation. But even in situations where anger works - that is, when an angry outburst appears to resolve an issue - "you've got to weigh the costs versus the benefits," Herr says.
And habitual anger, whether passive or aggressive, is rarely effective in resolving family problems, work relationships or other issues.
Passive anger turns inward, leading to depression, ulcers or other health problems. Anger, acted outwardly, can lead to any number of negative consequences, from divorce to loss of employment to time in jail.
But, contrary to one enduring myths about anger, people can learn how to control how they react when they're angry, Herr says.
In a sense, participants in anger-management sessions practice how to talk themselves down before they overreact to stressful situations.
The first step is recognizing the personal triggers or red flags that provoke anger. People will often have physical warning signs - clenched fists or increased heart rate - as anger builds.
Many people don't realize an individual angry event can be broken out into specific points on a cycle, Shuck-Hoehne says: the event, what a person tells himself about the event, and how a person reacts to what he tells himself about the event.
"Most of us don't cue into the automatic thoughts going through our head," she says.
With anger-management therapy at its best, participants learn to recognize the triggers, confront issues they may be in denial about, and practice effective strategies for, of course, managing their anger.
Herr and Shuck-Hoehne admit there are limits to what eight 90-minute therapy sessions can accomplish.
"People who are a significant danger to themselves or others need more," Herr says.
However, participants probably won't have to worry about getting kicked out of class for getting too angry.
SIDEBAR
All the rage
By Pam Adams
Copley News Service
Score your anger-management skills by answering the following questions "yes" or "no."
1. People often tell you that you need to calm down.
2. You feel tense and angry much of the time.
3. At work, you find yourself stuffing your feelings and not saying what is on your mind.
4. When you are upset, you try to block the world out by using the Internet, watching TV, reading a book or magazine, or going to sleep.
5. You are drinking or smoking marijuana to help you calm down.
6. You have trouble going to sleep because of your anger.
7. You feel misunderstood or not listened to much of the time.
8. People ask you not to yell or curse so much.
9. Your loved ones keep saying - or you see that - you are hurting them with your angry responses.
10. Friends or co-workers do not seek you out as much because of your anger.
SCORING: Add up the number of "yes" responses.
0-2: Manageable. You could benefit from relaxation training. If one or two areas are causing greater problems in your life, you may consider anger management.
3-5: Moderate. You may need to learn more about anger management and anger-management techniques.
6 or more: Out-of-control. You definitely have an anger problem, and you could benefit from learning anger-management techniques.
Greater Paramus News and Lifestyle Magazine
http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20060906221733530