Anger is not a "bad" emotion ... it provides energy for change
- leannejmatheson
- Jul 11
- 1 min read
When anger comes up as a problem area that clients would like to work on, there is often resistance or surprise to my assertion that anger is not a bad emotion and, conversely, we need anger. However, because our experiences with anger (be it ours or someone else's) usually do have consequences ranging from mildly unpleasant to wholly unsafe or dangerous, we can form the view tat anger IS bad and should be eradicated or suppressed. The thing is, like many of our 'troublesome' emotions, anger itself is not the problem. It's what we do with anger that can cause problems.
I prefer to view anger as energy for change - when handled effectively, our anger can signify our needs for change and/or can motivate us to make meaningful changes.
I'm not one to reinvent the wheel, and I'm always happy to credit other people's hard work, so to continue the theme of my previous blog posts, I am pointing you to a link where the topic of Anger is discussed in ways that I tend to approach the subject with my clients: