Anxiety, Depression and Anger. These are the three negative Emotions we experience. But when we leaf through the two-inch thickness of the main reference book on mental health, a tome called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders, we find that the great majority of diagnoses have to do with only two of these negative feelings, Anxiety and Depression. To date, these two Emotions are the most thoroughly researched and cover most of the formal mental health diagnoses.
But DOLIF psychology contends that one of these three essential human Emotions, Anger is not only missing from the text, but unfortunately underrated, sorely unappreciated, repressed and often even denied! Moreover, it seems that our best current advice about treatment for Anger issues in therapy, where it is usually referred to as “Anger Management”, is to try to help people do whatever they can to squelch their Anger! So we might be coached to “breathe through” our angry moments, count to ten, or try to think it over before we dive into action. Yet there is no doubt that Anger is an integral a part of our human experience and that, to a greater or lesser degree throughout our lives, we ALL must experience this powerful Emotion.
So the question arises: Why has research psychology not concerned itself with Anger to the degree that it has with Anxiety and Depression. The answer lies not only with the fact that Anger is a very uncomfortable Emotion because all three are, as we all know, equally unpleasant. Part of the reason is that, of the three, Anger is the only Emotion that is externalized. That is, as mentioned in other contexts, Anger is an Emotion that is turned outward and expressed toward people and objects that reside outside the physical and mental boundaries of its owner. This makes Anger a more difficult Emotion for others to handle. As the outsiders who are the targets and recipients toward whom Anger is directed, we are faced with choices of how to react. We can do so by verbally or physically threatening, disciplining, fighting back or reprimanding our angry attacker, or alternatively, by choosing a peaceful path and trying to rehabilitate them. Or, if their infractions are serious, we can put them through our court system that has the authority to punish them by fining or locking them up.
Since this is what we do with the numerous criminals who fill our jails, we can look to prisons for more clues about how to deal with Anger. Here we immediately notice that the population is greatly overrepresented by the masculine gender! It tells us that men have a greater propensity for putting their Anger to use. It means that men tend to express their feelings externally, or turn their Anger outward onto others rather than directing it inward against themselves. Men simply seem to have more access to their inherent Anger. At the same time we can postulate that, since we find that women form a relatively lower proportion of the prison population, unlike males, females are more inclined to turn their feelings inward against themselves rather than outward against others. Emotionally speaking in DOLIF terms, this would explain the greater tendency for women to experience Anxiety and/or Depression, but vent lesser amounts of the Emotion of Anger that would cause them to direct aggression onto others. Referring to our practical life experiences, we can search for answers. We find that, as a general rule, women tend to be more socially compliant, and do not venture to challenge society or the law as often as their male counterparts. Rather, in the face of personal problems, they seem to choose to turn to their more socially acceptable means of handling their feelings such as medicating themselves or seeing a therapist. We can say that, by and large, women tend to stay more within the boundaries of social propriety and prefer not to channel their aggressive energy into violent behavior against others. On the other hand, they probably more often choose to show their aggression in veiled, socially disguised ways such as spreading rumors, telling secrets, gossiping and such. Naturally there are women who display overt Anger too and are sent to prison, but without conjuring up deeply technical explanations that might prove otherwise, we can surmise that the difference in behavior of men versus women can be attributed to the prevalence of the male hormone of testosterone, versus estrogen in women. In any case it seems likely that, from society’s point of view at least, the female of our species is easier to handle than the male, since she is more preoccupied with her inward anxieties and sadness than the kind of anger that might lead to disputes or altercations with others.
The failure to study or understand Anger and its repercussions has resulted in very few known diagnoses of Anger-centered ailments. Few are cited that might involve Anger-based motivations, besides Oppositional Defiant Disorder in youth and Sociopathy or Psychopathy in adulthood. The puzzling question that arises when we consider the diagnoses in the DSM then, is why it deals almost exclusively with more female issues and ailments, but undermines or almost ignores the severe mental challenges that men face in handling what seems to be their inherent Anger. Is it fair to say that all the violent men in prison should be lumped into two catch-all diagnoses, Sociopath and Psychopath? It is indeed tragic considering the serious harm they inflict on others and the extensive time and resources we spend on incarcerating or attempting to rehabilitate them.
In contrast, when we deal with people who suffer from Anxiety and Depression, since these two feelings are internalized, they are easy for us to tolerate as a society. They do not cause us direct social problems since the disturbance occurs inside its owner and we are only there as observers. Anxiety and Depression cause internal pain and suffering to the individual who experiences them and are largely invisible. They cause us no pain or discomfort and hurt themselves, not us, so while their symptoms may be self-crippling and we may giving them our sympathy and empathy or medicate them, we can otherwise ignore them. The person afflicted with Anxiety may shake, have heart palpitations, embarrass themselves, make unnecessary movements, be hyperactive, overly vigilant, and so on, while if Depressed, they may hide, sulk, cry or kill themselves. Both Anxiety and Depression only cause problems for us only perhaps secondarily, if and when we feel sorry for them or have to take care of them physically or medically. By contrast, Anger has its outlet on others and on objects in the environment, the people and things that become its targets. Society is then mandated to deal with their destruction.
Numerous questions arise from this discussion. The most important is whether men actually have a greater propensity for Anger than women. In that case, it is fair to ask whether we should worry more for the future of our young boys and begin early on to teach them about how to control their Anger. We can ask: How much Anger is healthy? As mentioned repeatedly in this context, the noxious Emotion of Anger is always accompanied by a good measure of Anxiety. Does this mean that our first priority should be on reducing Anxiety? What happens when Anger is necessary for self-defense?
(For a more in-depth discussion of the topic below, visit the 3 blogs titled Emotions as Percentages.
