Anger is a Secondary Emotion
If you or someone around you has anger outbursts, is quick to anger or has other anger issues, you may be wondering what causes anger.
What really causes anger: other underlying painful emotions that aren't getting dealt with directly.
What's in This Post
Anger is the Tip of the Iceberg |
List of Negative Emotions |
What To Do with Anger |
Anger Turned Inward: Depression |
Anger Management Activities |
Anger is the Tip of the Iceberg
With an actual iceberg, about one-third of it is visible and two-thirds of it is hidden under the surface.
With anger, anger is the visible response, and some sort of emotional pain is hidden under the surface. Instead of dealing with that pain directly, we turn it into anger as a way to release it or redirect it.
It is much healthier to learn how to identify and process directly the pain that’s underneath the anger.
That emotional pain under the anger could be many things.
Sadness can get turned into anger. Anxiety can be turned into anger. Rejection, shame, resentment, or any other uncomfortable, painful, "negative" emotion can show up as anger.
A single incident of anger might have one underlying emotion, or it might have many different contributing emotions.
Learning to identify the particular emotions under specific incidents of anger will help you manage anger -- your own anger and other people's.
List of Negative Emotions
Emotions are meant to give us information. Not knowing how to label your emotions gets in the way of you understanding and using that information.
I developed a list of 101 emotion words to help people expand their vocabulary around emotions. I use the list in all my emotion skill-building books and products including A quick look at Demystifying Emotions: Simple Powerful Tips to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence and Help You Stop Overreacting and Emotional Intelligence Booster card set.
Here's the half of my 101 emotion word list that describes painful, uncomfortable, "negative" emotions.
First a few words about the terms negative and positive emotions. These labels infer that some emotions are bad and some are good. From my perspective, emotions aren't bad or good; they are all information. Some emotions hurt and some feel good. I prefer terms like uncomfortable and painful and comfortable and feel-good rather than negative and positive.
What To Do with Anger
Anger can become a useful tool, helping you understand what’s going on for you.
When you feel anger rising, ask yourself “What’s really going on for me? What is/are the emotion(s) under this anger?”
With the answers to those questions, you can make decisions about what you might do to deal with the situation. You can ask yourself what would be helpful to change -- in yourself or the conditions you find yourself in.
I’ll use the example of a parent losing a child in a store to demonstrate:
The parent is afraid that the child is lost and fear mounts about all the horrible possibilities of terrible things that might have happened to the child.
Instead of expressing the fear to the child when he or she is found, the parent expresses anger, possibly shouting at, berating, or even hitting the found child.
It would be better for the parent to express his or her fear to the child in a verbally direct message. For example: “I was really scared that you were lost or taken by somebody.” That can help relieve the parents pent up fear and give the child more understanding about why they shouldn't have wandered off.
You can get to a place of experiencing a lot less anger when you learn how to deal with emotions directly.
Anger Turned Inward: Depression
Depression is anger turned inwards. There is some emotional pain underneath that isn't being addressed and is getting turned into depression.
Depression can have a biochemical component, but it's a chicken and the egg thing: which came first.
With depression, it's always wise to ask "What's underneath this depression?" As with outward anger, the underlying pain could be one emotion or many.
For a description of depression in both men and women, check out my post: Depression in Men: It Happens More Than You Think.
Anger Management Activities
I've created journal/workbooks to help people understand and label the emotions under their anger and process those emotions so they aren't bursting out as anger.
My Building Skills to Uplevel Life: Silver Lining Emotional Intelligence Workbook is a step-by-step guide to understanding, using, and tactfully expressing emotions in general, how to manage anger, and practical tips for personal and relationship happiness.
- Tags: emotional intelligence
- Ann Silvers
Comments 12
Ann Silvers
Hi Refina. Thanks for asking about the iceberg as a poster. I’ll look into the possibility of producing this as a poster. I’ll email you more information. -Ann
Refina
Do you have a poster of the anger iceberg?
Ann Silvers
Hi Becky. Good to hear how much you appreciate my anger iceberg graphic. I’ll reach out to you via your email address. – Ann
Becky
Hi Ann,
I run an addiction recovery group and I’d like to use your graphic, the Anger Iceberg, in a PowerPoint I developed for my group, please?
Ann Silvers
Hi Wendy. Good to hear that you think your daughter would benefit from the anger iceberg. I’ll reach out to you via email to talk more. -Ann
Wendy Liu
hello,
May i use your iceberg image? I am working with my daughter who is exhibiting behavioral issues and lashes out but I know there are so many things underneath her anger. I think this would be a great visual to show her.
Ann Silvers
Hi Joanna. Glad that you like the anger iceberg graphic. Thanks for asking to use it for your workshop. I’ll reach out to you via email to talk more. -Ann
Joanna Baker
Hello Ann, May I use the iceberg image in a workshop I’ll be teaching? It’s a wonderful representation of anger as a secondary emotion.
Ann Silvers
Hi Ronda. I’ll reach out to you via your email address. – Ann
Ronda SHirley
Hello, I’m a LMFT. I think that your anger iceberg is amazing! I would love to get this image and use it as an intervention. Would this be possible? I appreciate you taking the time to read my request.
Ann Silvers
Hi Erin. I’ll reach out to you using your email address. -Ann
Erin Holbrook
May I use the image of the iceberg in a personal blog post? I can also quote your book (though I haven’t read it, yet, it is on my list).