- 28 December 2021
Anger can be a difficult emotion for us to manage, yet it is not an uncommon one to feel. Sometimes, it arises when we are snubbed at the workplace. Other times, it creeps up on us when a family member forgets to do the dishes. It can even strike when we miss the bus. When faced with unfavourable circumstances, anger is a normal and healthy emotion. However, our anger can have a destructive impact on our relationships if we simply act in accordance to how we feel. Besides, getting angry more frequently has been correlated with having a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases (Reitman, 2020). One solution worth exploring is seeking means to manage our own anger. This would mean reducing the intensity of feelings of anger and our physiological reaction to them (American Psychological Association, 2021). Self-help books are readily available sources of information that can help us to better manage our anger.
Anger Management Books for Self-help and Relationships
Anger Management Books for Self-help
Listed below are some bestseller self-help books for anger management, lauded for their practical strategies to better cope with anger. In fact, there are a plethora of books that talk about how to deal with specific instances of anger. Their content caters mainly to the adult age group.
Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman
Gary Chapman, a renowned counsellor, is the author of The 5 Love Languages, one of New York’s best-selling books. In his newly published book on anger, Chapman takes inspiration from biblical scriptures on anger and forgiveness. He explores both the protective and destructive influences anger can have in our lives. In addition, Chapman explains the root of our anger and identifies circumstances where anger can be arguably right or wrong.
Through examples of clients he has counselled, Chapman highlights how both unadulterated and repressed anger can destroy relationships. While Chapman validates the shame and denial usually associated with anger, he also shares how to process them.
In the book, Chapman delves into a step-by-step guide on managing long-term anger and processing repressed anger. Furthermore, he proposes means of responding constructively to angry people. He also discusses the ideas of forgiveness and reestablishing trusting relationships.
The Anger Trap: Free Yourself from the Frustrations that Sabotage Your Life by Les Carter and Frank Minirth
The Anger Trap is the brainchild of Carter and Minirth, mental health professionals with therapeutic and medical expertise respectively. It encourages readers to take note of their subtle experiences of anger in daily life.
Although experiencing anger is inevitable, Carter and Minirth invite us to reflect on how we choose to respond to it. They highlight that our choice of response often is preceded with consequences on our relationships. The book also examine how cycles of anger can be perpetuated by patterns in our lives. These cycles can be broken through applying specific strategies in our interactions with others around us. This can come in the form of boundaries and advocating for our well-being.
Through offering practical solutions, Carter and Minirth share means of managing our environmental stressors to reduce the incidence of anger.
How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons by Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis is a clinical psychologist and renowned pioneer of psychotherapy. The book provides overarching advice for readers in difficult interpersonal situations in life. This may include conflicts with loved ones and even colleagues in the workplace.
Ellis draws inspiration from his theory on Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy, which promotes emotional regulation. He explores common beliefs we have that lend power to situations and people in our lives.
Ellis proposes alternative thought processes that can be helpful for taking charge of our own life experiences. Thereafter, he provides means of coping with irrational fearful and angry thoughts.
Anger Management Books for Relationships
In our relationships, we will inevitably face moments when we need to manage our anger: be it when we disagree with our significant others or when we feel jealous or neglected. While being angry is completely normal, the health of our relationships depends on how we choose to respond.
Anger management books are useful in teaching us how to navigate our anger in relationships. These strategies can be healthy for our emotional well-being and for the growth of our relationships.
The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Pattern of Intimate Relationships by Harriet, G. Lerner
Harriet Lerner is a clinical psychologist, recognised for her contributions to psychoanalytic theories of family and feminism. In The Dance of Anger, she recognises how societal stereotypes have undermined women’s expression of anger.
Through this book, Lerner intends to empower women to enable their anger to change relationships for the better. She urges readers to hone their communication skills to better manage conflicts and allow their requests to be heard.
The book draws a distinction between ineffective fighting and asserting oneself when experiencing anger. With this awareness, readers can better navigate conflict in their intimate relationships for more productive outcomes.
Love More, Fight Less: Communication Skills Every Couple Needs: A Relationship Workbook for Couples by Gina Senarighi
Love More, Fight Less is a book by Gina Senarighi, a certified relationship coach. This book serves as an interactive workbook with activities for couples to complete together.
Senarighi based the book on the concept that couples’ fights stem from ineffective communication between parties. Rather than seeing arguments as sign of a failed relationship, Senarighi urges couples to see them as opportunities for teamwork.
Love More, Fight Less is filled with tools to tackle common areas of contention in relationships (eg. intimacy, finances, career). The book provides 30 communication skills and activities to bring awareness for both individuals of their own preferences, and highlights 29 common areas of weakness when navigating relationships.
Anger Busting 101: The New ABCs for Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them by Newton Hightower
Newton Hightower is the Director for the Centre of Anger Resolution. In this book, he combines stories of personal experience and clients, with clinical data on anger. Hightower presents an easy-to-follow guide with practical advice on managing anger.
He advocates for the Recovery Approach, a strategy he coined, to diffuse anger before it gets beyond control. Hightower provides readers with an ABC framework to create sustainable change in their destructive expressions of anger.
Readers are first encouraged to abstain from destructive angry behaviour and verbal phrases. Next, they are to remember their belief in principles for peace, happiness, and permanent change. Lastly, readers will communicate with their new phrases.
Anger Management Books for Parents and Children
Anger Management Books for Parents
When parenting our children, we need to be mindful of our anger. As parents, we usually take upon both the roles of being a nurturer and disciplinarian. While caring for our children’s well-being, we need to teach them appropriate behaviours as well.
The experience of anger towards our children is definitely a normal and necessary part of the parenting journey. However, we may need additional help in managing our emotions to ensure we fulfil our parenting roles effectively. Anger management books are one possible source we can turn to to deal with our emotions while managing our children.
How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent by Carla Naumburg
How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids is a book by Carla Naumburg, a clinical social worker. An author of 3 parenting books, Naumburg is familiar with parenting struggles. She combines compassion, humour, and evidence-based practices to guide parents in managing their anger. She also makes sure to validates the struggles that parents face and affirms that they are not alone in this journey.
Besides offering insight into behavioural habits, Naumburg provides practical guidance on improving parents’ behaviours. She attentively reminds parents to meet their own basic needs as well, to improve the regulation of their moods.
The strategies Naumburg suggests are easily actionable and encourage greater self-awareness of one’s own triggers. She also advocates for self-compassionate practices, including building a support system to allow parents to take breaks from their responsibilities.
Anger Management for Parents: The Ultimate Guide to Positive Parenting Without Anger by Henry Hal
Anger Management for Parents is a book by Henry Hal, an educator and New York Times’ bestselling author. Hal recognises the stress of parenting, where influence of the media and peer pressure can mould and shape children. He acknowledges parents’ struggles in managing their child’s anger and their own. However, he highlights that some aspects of parental anger can have detrimental effects on a child’s development.
Since anger can be an effective strategy in getting children to listen, parents may habitually get angry. Hal intends for readers to recognise that anger can potentially be their pattern of response in managing their children. This can occur even in circumstances where anger is not appropriate or necessary.
The book hence includes solutions and strategies on effective communication with children. There are also tips for parents to manage their own anger so their emotions do not dictate their parenting.
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting by Laura Markham
Laura Markham is a clinical psychologist who specialises in relationship-based parenting. Based on research in brain development and Markham’s experience working with parents, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids integrates this model of parenting as well.
Markham believes that developing an emotional connection with our children can be a reliable basis for creating lasting behavioural changes. With this connection, parents will not have to lose their temper at their children. The book endeavours to help parents gain greater awareness of their own emotions and better manage them. This in turn allows them to develop empathy and boundaries, and learn to communicate effectively with their children.
The book also comprehensively discusses how to assist a child in managing their anger and processing their emotions.
Anger Management Books for Kids
The concept of anger and managing their emotions can be foreign to children. They require more guidance in navigating their emotional worlds and learning how to deal with difficult feelings. While adults may not always be readily available to help children cope, books can be a reliable resource. They provide an avenue for children to learn about and explore their emotions independently.
Anger Management Workbook for Kids: 50 Fun Activities to Help Children Stay Calm and Make Better Choices When They Feel Mad by Samantha Snowden
Samantha Snowden is a mindfulness coach specialising in children and family. Children aged 6 to 12 years-old are the target audience of Anger Management Workbook.
Snowden intends to help normalise children’s experience of difficult emotions, most notably, anger. This book guides them in recognising their feelings, being aware of their bodily reactions to them and naming them. Snowden specifically explains how the body reacts to anger in an easily comprehended manner for children. She also explores the complicated relationship between anger and other emotions like fear and sadness. These help children grow more aware of the triggers of their anger and how they usually express it.
In the activity section, children are given an array of resources to self-regulate and seek adult help when needed. The book emphasizes to children that other individuals in their life can feel anger as well. It teaches children about empathizing with these emotions in others and how to seek forgiveness.
Snowden reminds children that even when experiencing anger, they still are responsible to make good choices for themselves. This includes choosing safe methods to express their anger and calm themselves down.
Today I Am Mad by Michael Gordon
Today I Am Mad is a book by Michael Gordon is an author of several international best-selling children’s books. Gordon integrates self-regulation theory into his writing to encourage children to ventilate their emotions in a healthy manner.
Today I Am Mad is a storybook aimed at children aged 3 to 5 years old. The protagonist, Josh encounters different situations where he and the people around him experienced anger.
Gordon teaches young readers skills to deescalate conflicts with others who are angry. In other encounters where Josh was angry, he used strategies to help manage his own anger. These include deep breathing and finding a safe physical outlet for expression (eg. kicking a ball around).
Besides delving into easily applicable self-regulation skills, he also includes lessons on how children can calm an angry friend down when they witness a conflict. The book is fully illustrated and written in simple language to be relatable for the younger age group.
Train Your Angry Dragon by Steve Herman
Steven Herman is a best-selling children’s book author. Train Your Angry Dragon is part of the My Dragon Books series where Herman writes about different emotional and developmental issues children face. This storybook series is aimed at children aged 4 to 9 years-old. In Train Your Angry Dragon, the protagonist Andrew attempts to train his dragon to manage its anger. Herman uses the angry dragon character to relate to young readers who experience anger. This teaches them how to identify their emotions.
Herman encourages readers to manage their anger through strategies that Andrew teaches his dragon throughout the book. This includes perspective taking, where young readers are encouraged to recognise the needs of others in their interactions with them. Moreover, the book also shows readers how expressing anger can be destructive, while suggesting alternate healthier means of doing so.
The book is fully illustrated and each line of the story is written in a rhyme. This would appeal more to children during story time, when the story can be read aloud.
All in all, anger is not a ‘bad’ emotion that we should attempt to dismiss or repress. Anger management books are possible sources of information to consider if you wish to better manage your anger when it arises, and get in touch with your emotions.
Nonetheless, if you find it difficult to cope with your anger alone, therapy is another viable option. Speaking with a therapist can help you process your emotions and delve deeper into the root of your anger.
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References
American Psychological Association. (2021). Controlling anger before it controls you. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/anger/control
Reitman, E. (2020). Stress and anger may exacerbate heart failure. Retrieved from https://news.yale.edu/2020/08/11/stress-and-anger-may-exacerbate-heart-failure
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