Anger management has been a buzz word when it comes to doing something about dealing with anger that is having a negative impact on a person’s life. What if there was a method that actually got rid of that anger – no management needed. It would just be gone.
When people are children, most of the time they are not allowed to show their anger. Adults are allowed to be angry with their children, but when children show signs of anger, they are often punished. So children learn not to show their anger. Every time a child gets angry, it is like he puts an unspent wooded match in a pile to light later. Then, as an adult, something small makes him angry, he lights a match, throws it in the pile of unspent matches and the whole pile ignites and explodes in anger, causing much more anger than the the one match was worth. But unlike real matches that once they are lit, they are gone, these old matches in the pile keep being reignited every time the person gets angry.
By releasing the old reasons for the anger, Gentle Reprocessing helps people let go completely of this old anger. Then when someone gets angry it is much more appropriate. For instance, a man with severe road rage had experienced an abusive childhood. When the feelings of the childhood were released, the road rage could be worked on and he no longer found traffic made him anger. That was very apparent when he called to say he would be late for therapy because of traffic. When he finally arrived he reported being in two long traffic jams. When he was asked how he felt about that, he said rather irritated with the therapist, “I could only move as fast as the car in front of me.” But when the therapist asked if that made him mad, he replied, “Of course not. What could I do?” The man did not even see the therapist’s point in asking if it made him angry. From his new perspective, what was there to be upset about?
So instead of trying to keep a lid on one’s anger by using various tools, Gentle Reprocessing simply helps a client let go of the old feelings that feed the anger. Once this is done, out of control anger ceases to be a problem in a person’s life.
