An analysis of anger

Like most others, I get angry, furious, vengeful etc. As a kid, I was always known to have been endowed with an excess these the emotions. They blamed it on some kind of inheritance of traits. But post adolescence, I have learned to manage rage very well. Honestly, now I am proud of how well I can control anger. I thought I will put down my basic understanding of anger and tenets of my anger management strategy.

The change started when I first read about anger, the nature and causes of it. It was an article on the internet (I'm unable to find it now though). From what I remember, there were 3 types of anger. I shall call them Internal-A, Internal-B & External.

Internal-A: This is the long lead time type of anger and can sometimes be confused with your personality type or mental outlook. The cause of this anger is internal and the anger takes a long time to build up. The outwards symptoms are tough to identify and this type of anger rarely does produce fits of rage. Very often, this type of anger begins during the developmental phase of one's personality (sometimes even during childhood) when the person starts to harbor ill-feelings towards specific aspects of his circumstances, surroundings or upbringing. The specific cause of the ill-feeling is not external but is the incapability of the person to come to terms with the perceived external stimulus for anger. The usual examples are anger and hatred towards rich people, anger at parents for their behavior type etc. Such feelings once developed, continue to linger with time and are hard to let go off.

Internal-B: This is a more common anger type which is sporadic and short lived. This can be triggered by internal reactions to external stimuli. External stimuli which are not anger causing. Let's say this is very expectation dependent. Anger caused by jealousy, remorse, guilt etc. fall into this category. This type of anger can affect a wide range of personality types. A few might take this anger very seriously (or to put it correctly - a few will be affected very badly by this type of anger) Reversing this anger is usually easy.

External: As the name suggests, this type of anger is caused entirely by external factors. These are external factors that specifically stoke anger in the psyche. This type of anger is most common and something which all animal species exhibit. External anger is driven by the mind's survival instinct. When someone hits you, you get angry and hit back. This anger is healthy and I would say 'right'. This anger is difficult to control, and in my opinion is wrong to try and control. It is supposed to be a natural reaction to external stimuli.

What I have found is that anger is very often a mixture of the three types. The pre-existence of one type of anger enhances the effect of the other. e.g. I've been feeling very angry at myself for driving carelessly thereby resulting in a scratch on my new car (can be classified Internal-B) Then this guy at the traffic signal bumps his car into the back of my car. I lose it completely (External anger enhanced by Internal-B).

Anger type Internal-A is very a existential angst type of thing. At a basic level, it can be overcome by logic and acceptance of life as it was and it is. If you've always been obese and hence hate slime people, relax. Give your genes their due. Being obese might be the right thing for you. At a more complicated level, Internal-A anger might need medical attention. Chronic cases of hatred, ill-feeling might lead to pathological depression warranting psychiatric care. But extreme cases aside, Internal-A can be overcome by right thinking.

Anger type Internal-B is the most unwanted type of anger. I personally find it the silliest and most useless type of anger. It is this type of anger that I have almost completely quashed from my mind. I often tell myself that it is I who lose when I'm angry for there is nothing to gain from this anger type. You never scare anyone, never make a point, never get someone to do things for you. I try and ensure that I never develop Internal-B anger. And believe me, it is easy once you realize that it serves no useful purpose.

External anger is good and necessary anger. The only challenge is to use it in a controlled and careful manner. External anger follows the pattern of diminishing marginal returns. Hence it is important to understand where you are on the curve and what the slope is. I rarely try and control external anger. The most I do is to examine where there's marginal benefit in continuing or increasing my anger levels.

All said and done, the most important step towards anger management is to understand which anger type one is experiencing and delve into the actual cause of the anger. Once there, one can use the skill of logic and cost-benefit analysis.