In teaching emotion regulation, a large part of session time tends to be dedicated to working on the Opposite Action skill for anger (see Opposite action post). Because this emotion can to lead to disruptive and unhelpful outcomes, it makes sense that we become highly invested in changing it. But (and I do mean but), our emotions are critically important in our information processing. As has been mentioned previously, each emotion is hardwired to activate a particular action tendency. With anger, it is natural for human animals to feel an impulse to attack (physically or verbally). Sometimes, this emotion simply demands to be heard. So, when the Anger passenger simply will not sit down, this article shares some effective and healthy ways to work through it.
