Nobody teaches you what to do with anger.
They teach you what to do about it. Chill out. Breathe. Leave. Count to ten. The entire advice framework built around anger is founded on the idea of containment. Anger should be made less so that other people won't have to deal with it.
No one ever stops to think about why that anger exists.
What Is Anger, Actually?
Anger is neither a personal weakness nor a lapse of self-control; it is a message.
According to Dr Antonio Damasio, a pioneering researcher in the science of emotion and decision-making, emotion is not a distraction from logic; rather, it is our guide to logic (Damasio, 1994). Anger, in particular, is an alarm mechanism of the nervous system that signals a violation of any important boundary, whether physical or psychological.
The amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for handling threat situations, responds to any sign of injustice or harm instantly, without thinking or asking for permission (LeDoux, 1996).
The problem is not that we feel anger. The problem is what we have been taught to do with it.
What Happens When Anger Has Nowhere To Go
Emotional suppression is different from regulation. This difference is critical.
According to research done by Professor James Gross of Stanford University, emotional suppression actually triggers physiological stress responses rather than diminishing them (Gross & Levenson, 1997). This means that forcing oneself to suppress emotions only leads to them resurfacing elsewhere.
Emotions can surface in one of three locations.
One way is inwardly, where suppressed anger manifests as depression. Another way out is through explosions that confirm every worst-case scenario imagined when it comes to anger and violence.
The third way is into the body itself. That physical rerouting of unprocessed anger is called somatisation, where psychological distress converts into bodily symptoms. Migraines. Gastric disorders. Mystifying pains. Enduring exhaustion.
Dr Bessel van der Kolk writes at length in his groundbreaking book, The Body Keeps the Score, about how our bodies contain what our minds cannot (van der Kolk, 2014).
The Gendered Burden Of Anger
Anger is never neutral in India. It has never been.
Women are conditioned from childhood to not express anger. It is considered inappropriate and irrational. It could harm their interpersonal relationships, social standing, and, in turn, their prospects for marriage. To call someone aggressive sounds worse when said about a woman than it ever could be said of a man.
There is a study, "Consequences of Expressing Anger at Work, " published in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly.
In the Indian context, social and cultural factors value women's endurance. The suffering of women without complaint is admired. The suppression of emotions becomes social capital. Yet, the price it demands is paid slowly and painfully over time.
The Anger Of The Marginalised
For Dalits, the queer community, and individuals who have experienced abuse, anger has one more weight to bear.
The anger is politically inconvenient. It makes the people and systems who have harmed them feel uncomfortable. Instead, the very systems that hurt them demand they make their anger easier to digest.
That is precisely the dynamic social activist Audre Lorde captured when she explored the politics of using anger. She states that the anger of the oppressed is instead met with discomfort, which, in turn, is leveraged against their original anger (Lorde, 1981).
Empirical studies have shown a strong correlation between emotional suppression among marginalised groups and the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and somatic disorders (Williams, 2018). As van der Kolk pointed out, the body keeps the score. For those whose anger has never been allowed to speak, the score is high.
Destructive Vs Constructive Anger
Anger that is felt, named, and channelled deliberately is not rage. It is not explosion.
Professor Jennifer Lerner's research at Harvard University shows that anger creates a sense of agency and drives action (Lerner & Tiedens, 2006). It moves us forward. It tells us exactly what we value and what we will not accept.
Anger can create social change. It can end abusive relationships. It can help people re-establish boundaries they were giving up on years ago.
However, the real task is not to display anger. The task is to listen to it. To ask about what it reveals. To treat it like information and not as an issue that should be resolved.
What Sitting With Anger Can Look Like
Studies show that the process of working with anger in therapy should not be about venting frustrations. Evidence indicates that doing so makes people more aggressive, not less (Bushman, 2002). This process is about creating an environment with psychological safety to experience the anger without reacting to it. This helps figure out what the anger is all about.
This requires a therapist who is not afraid of anger. A therapist who realises that repressing emotions is not the answer but the problem. A therapist who recognises that anger can be used productively once properly managed.
At iDare, we recognise that anger isn’t your enemy. After many years of holding back your emotions, therapy can help you listen to the message your body has been trying to communicate. Book a session with our trauma-certified therapists to understand what all that pent-up anger is trying to communicate.
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