People frequently come to counselling with a problem, but what if what was ailing them wasn't a problem at all? What if your problem with anger was really a paradox?
This is the insight of David Bohm, a noted theoretical physicist of the late 20th Century. You can read his original essay "The Problem and The Paradox " here.
He argues that because we live in a technological society, we think about things as a problem, and then try to find a solution to that problem. However if what we are trying to solve is actually a paradox, then all that happens is confusion, which can make the 'problem' worse. #footnote 1
When I read David's piece it strongly resonated with me, because I often encounter paradox in the counselling room. And what I would like to do is take you through one of these paradoxes - the 'problem' of anger
Anger as a problem
When someone comes to me and says "I have a problem with my anger," what they often mean is that they have angry outbursts which are affecting their relationships.
The solution to this problem is usually, "I need to be calmer." Often the person has already tried very hard to be calmer, and they might even describe themselves as being, "Normally calm, and easy going."
While you might think that someone who is calm, and easy going having angry outbursts is something of a paradox, the more paradoxical part is the act of trying to be calm, is making their anger worse.
We get angry in response to a threat of some kind, usually when our boundaries have been crossed, whether this intrusion is into our physical or emotional space. For instance if someone stands too close to you, or starts making unreasonable demands on you, anger gives you the energy to reassert this boundary.
However, if you decide that the response in these situations is to be calm, then that anger has to be re-directed in some way. You might for instance deny you are angry, argue it away, ignore it, hold it in, or direct it at someone or something else.
By being calm, the original situation is never addressed. The person who crossed your boundary may never realise, and indeed may do it more. Eventually your ability to remain calm will fail, and you will have an angry outburst, followed by regret and a resolve to be calmer in future. And so the cycle starts over again.
You may be wondering if avoiding being angry, only leads to getting angrier, why people try to avoid being angry in the first place?
The paradox of anger
Because we are social animals, relationships are where we experience most threat, and hence the source of most of our anger.
However, when we use anger in a relationship we encounter a paradox,
Responding to a threat in our relationships by getting angry creates a threat to those relationships - anger threatens the very thing we are trying to preserve.
You have started seeing someone. You are hopeful the relationship will develop into something more. You have started to invest emotional energy, by daydreaming, and thinking about the person.
We very commonly take the second option, because this one carries the least risk of a sudden break in the relationship - i.e. you ensure that your date spends the evening with you.
However, your feeling of resentment is also a threat, because now you feel less committed to the relationship.
The story may then develop something like this,
Although there are many good aspects to your relationship, you feel increasingly neglected. Eventually you decide you are going to do something about it.
In this imaginary example, are the two features which David Bohm says happen when we treat a paradox as though it was a problem,
The assumptions behind avoiding anger
And this brings us back to the beginning of the article. What is the problem you are trying solve?
It often looks something like this,
You have learned relationships are harmed by conflict...
Relationships are in fact harmed by unresolved conflicts. Being able to successfully resolve conflict in a relationship will strengthen it.
Therefore to avoid conflict you must avoid responding to anger,
Which firstly prevents you from resolving the conflict, and secondly you can not avoid responding to anger, even if it gets turned into something else, such as a betrayal.
And to avoid responding to anger you must avoid feeling angry.
Even if you manage to avoid being aware of your anger, by suppressing it, diverting it, or explaining it away, there is always a bodily response to anger - while you may not personally feel angry, your body most certainly will!
Each of these is a problem solving step, and relies on a false assumption; leading you to believe that in order to have good relationships the 'solution' is to avoid feeling angry.
When that solution doesn't work, rather than looking at how you framed the problem, the problem instead becomes trying to make the solution work better.
So you seek help and say "I have a problem with my anger."
As your counsellor, if I also treated this as a problem to be solved, all I would succeed in doing is creating more confusion, and in all likelihood make things worse.
Counselling for anger
Unlike a traditional anger management approach which tends to be structured, counselling is more fluid and responsive.
My approach contains 3 interwoven strands,
Resolving the paradox
When you experience a threat created by a relationship, trying to resolve it will always cause some kind of threat to the relationship.
The secret to resolving a paradox is to attend to both sides. You must attend to the threat to yourself and the threat to the relationship. It is an act of balance, not one of seeking a solution.
The counselling approach outlined above is an act of balance. It attends to your feelings of anger and it attends to how to manage this in your relationships.
Looking at anger this way, you can also see why assertive statements are useful. A basic assertive statement takes the form,
When you do [X], I feel [Y]
The "when you " part of the statement uses neutral terms so that it only describes the action the person took. You avoid blaming words which suggest that their action was purposeful, such as ignored, made me, humiliated, rude, insulted. You then describe how you felt in response to their action.
So in the restaurant example you might say,
When you turned up late, I felt really angry and let down.
By keeping the first part of the statement to description you reduce the chance the other person will feel the need to defend themselves, which may lead to them retaliating, dismissing, or deflecting blame. This attends to the threat to the relationship.
The second part of the statement accurately informs the other person how you felt. You are raising the other person's awareness of the impact their actions have on you. This attends to the threat to yourself.
With an assertive statement you can save it till later when you feel calmer, where it can be more effectively used. You can also signal that you are about to talk about something difficult by prefacing it with, "I want to talk about what happened earlier."
When using an assertive statement it is important to bear in mind they are not a magic formula. They still contain a threat to the relationship, and will always remain a balancing act.
There is no magic wand
Relationships are central to the existence of every Human Being. A warm, fulfilling relationship with another person is the one of the most complex and extraordinary things we will attempt.
Relationships contain every contradictory emotion we will ever experience. We can not avoid feeling anger in a relationship, just as we can not avoid breathing.
What matters is not whether we feel angry, rather it is whether we use our anger destructively or creatively.
main photo by peter bierman via freeimages.com
Footnote #1 An even stranger paradox
Would you like help with anger?
I am an experienced counsellor in private practice in the Southampton area of England, UK. I specialise in helping people to seek more constructive ways of dealing with angry feelings.