We tend to think of anger as a negative emotion. But by recalibrating our understanding of  this most maligned of emotions we can better process it, says Rachel Kelly

And so to rage. We live in angry and anxious times. Perhaps we could date this from 2016, when Donald Trump became President and said he would “gladly accept the mantle of anger”. Since then much of politics has got angrier, from furies on both sides about Brexit, to outrage about modern life due to the rise of automation, to an unexpected item in the bagging area – all amplified by the anonymity of social media. As the journalist Emily Bootle put it in a recent Prospect piece, it feels as if there’s nothing for it but “to rail with fury”.

But is there a better, more constructive way to be angry? The writer Sam Parker thinks so. In his new book Good Anger: How Rethinking Rage Can Change Our Lives he argues that it’s time to make friends with this most stigmatised of emotions, the black sheep of the feelings family. Parker traces the demonisation of anger to the monk Evagrius Ponticus who in 375 AD categorised eight evil thoughts, which were to become the seven deadly sins, including anger (though there were different rules for God, who was allowed to see red).

I was struck by Parker’s book, as bringing up teenagers for the past decade or so has meant I discovered a darker, sometimes angrier side of myself. Teenagers can drive you nuts. One friend told me that adolescence isn’t difficult for teenagers, but for their parents. I know I felt a new depth and intensity of anger as the mother of adolescents, one I hadn’t known before. It could be that murderous rage if they’ve trashed the kitchen and the bin is full of empty vodka bottles. The fury that they haven’t respected that curfew you’d all agreed on. Finding your best Afghan shaggy coat – the one you found in a market on your travels and is irreplaceable – gone from the cupboard. Rage can rule a parent of teenagers.

Our first instinct may be to wish we didn’t have to experience such painful and powerful sensations. But what if these powerful feelings are actually a blessing? Our culture tends to value our cognitive thinking brains over our emotional minds and we’ve become numbed to our feelings. But emotions such as anger can give us insights. They can tell us more about what we are drawn to, and what we want to avoid, as well as what others are feeling – as long as these emotions not out of control. The trick is not to be frightened of our feelings, but learn instead how to regulate ourselves and turn anger into something more positive.

Such skills begin with understanding a bit more about feelings in general. In 1890, the pioneering psychologist William James defined four basic emotions – fear, grief, rage and love. More recently, the psychologist Carroll Izard took it up to ten – fear, anger, shame, contempt, disgust, guilt, distress, interest, surprise and joy. Any other emotions, such as love and envy, are just variations of these ten.

All these emotions express themselves physically in some way, particularly in our facial expressions. The face has more than 40 muscles, especially around the mouth and eyes. Psychologists believe that certain emotional responses are basic and automatic, while others can be learned (or conditioned) through repeated experiences. Managing feelings is a process psychologists call “emotional regulation”. It begins with becoming more attuned to what exactly we’re feeling. Often we’re not sure, especially in complex situations. Moreover, there may be a need that underlies our feelings, of which we may be even less aware.

I like a technique developed by the clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, who was best known for his ideas about non-violent communication (NVC). Rosenberg developed two lists of basic human feelings. The first list has about 100 feelings we can experience when our needs are being met – feelings like being calm, confident and mellow. The second list is another hundred or so feelings we can experience when our needs are not fulfilled – like being angry or sad. The idea is for us to identify our feelings, as opposed to our thoughts or interpretations. In NVC these are referred to as “evaluations”.

The mindfulness teacher Mary Louise Morris introduced me to this approach recently. Often, when you describe and identify the feeling it begins to change. If I focus on tension in my chest and face when I’m angry, I’ve noticed that as I do so, that furious feeling begins to move, and sometimes melts altogether. I’ve paid the feeling the attention it needed.

On other occasions, I need a second step: to identify the need underlying the feeling, and clarify it into some kind of resolution of what to do. The basic idea is that anger, sadness or other challenging feelings are the result of unmet needs. It might be a need for autonomy, a need for connection, or a need for some kind of physical nurturing. Once we’ve identified what needs underpin our strong feeling, we can plot how to meet them. (There are NVC resources online that have lists of feelings and needs which you can print out and keep somewhere handy, or apps such as iGrok which have lists that can easily be referred to when you’re out and about.)

I’m a fan of the approach of taking responsibility for our own feelings, especially anger. While other people can affect our feelings, blaming them doesn’t necessarily help us – though I’m not advocating being a doormat here: anger can be useful at times as a reminder to set boundaries and stand up for ourselves. But in general it’s hard to change other people. However, we can change ourselves and our reactions to others, and this is empowering.

Language can help too. When a teenager has taken our credit card and bike key, instead of saying to ourselves, “I’m angry”, we could try saying, “This is anger.” By doing this we’re quietly acknowledging to ourselves the presence of emotions, while allowing detachment. We could also add “right now” to remind ourselves that all feelings pass. We are accepting their existence in the moment. They are part of being human.

By contrast, if we refuse to experience our negative feelings – by ignoring them, suppressing them, or distracting ourselves – they can often intensify, leading to higher levels of distress and unresolved problems, and sometimes even to physical expression such as headaches, tension or illness. Famously, Freud said depression might be seen as “anger turned inwards”, suicide being the most violent act against oneself.

So the stakes are high, and it’s worth working on our angry feelings, unpacking them, being curious about them, facing up to them, and at times sitting with unpleasant sensations rather than acting on them. Hope Trump gets the memo.

Rachel Kelly’s latest book is The Gift of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less – out now.

This article is from Idler #106.

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