Anger Management

While feeling angry is a normal reaction to stressful and frustrating experiences, losing your temper doesn’t help you feel better. If your temper is getting beyond your control, visit Haresh Tharwani, MD, DFAPA, and the team at MD Psychiatry & Emotional Health, PLLC. At their offices in Durham and Cary, North Carolina, the team offers anger management therapy that helps you address the source of your emotions and channel your energy more productively. To learn how anger management could help you, call MD Psychiatry & Emotional Health, PLLC, today or book an in-person or telehealth appointment online.

What is anger management? 

Anger management is a form of therapy the MD Psychiatry & Emotional Health, PLLC, team offers to help people avoid losing their temper. The techniques the team teaches you help you to recognize the signs of anger building within you. You can then use what you learn during anger management sessions to calm yourself.

Anger is a natural emotion, and there’s nothing wrong with getting angry sometimes, providing you can express yourself appropriately. Anger management doesn’t prevent you from feeling angry or force you to contain your anger.

Instead, the anger management tools your provider gives you stop your anger from getting beyond your control. With the team’s expert help, you can recognize the frustrations that trigger angry outbursts and settle them, dealing productively with the situation rather than losing your temper.

Would I benefit from anger management?

If you often lose your temper and feel that keeping your anger under control takes significant effort (or you find it impossible to manage your temper), anger management is likely to be beneficial. Other signs that you’re not managing anger effectively include:

• Feeling irritable and impatient most of the time
• Having frequent arguments that don’t resolve anything
• Being overwhelmed by negative thoughts
• Focusing on life’s bad experiences
• Threatening others
• Deliberately causing damage
• Reckless driving

You might find you avoid situations where you know you’re likely to get angry. You may become anxious or depressed about your behavior after you lose your temper. If these problems seem familiar, the MD Psychiatry & Emotional Health, PLLC, team can help without being judgmental.

What does anger management involve?

Anger management involves learning behavioral skills that allow you to find better ways of coping with your anger.

The team begins by identifying issues like a lack of good quality sleep and chronic stress — things that are often responsible for increased anger. They may also identify underlying emotional problems and disorders, like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), that could benefit from interpersonal psychotherapy.

Your provider helps you identify the situations and thoughts that trigger your anger and respond more appropriately. You start to understand how your thinking feeds your anger and worsens it, and use cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques to challenge flawed thoughts.

You also learn how to calm yourself with relaxation techniques or know when to remove yourself from a situation if you feel your anger worsening. With practice, you can express your feelings assertively without resorting to aggression, channeling your energy to solve problems and communicate more effectively.

If you think you could benefit from anger management, call MD Psychiatry & Emotional Health, PLLC, today or book an in-person or telehealth appointment online.