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Putting your Anger on a Leash Preface “Those,
who are unable to control their anger, are controlled by it.” Since
we first began our journey through history, the reactions and emotions of anger have been key to our individual and collective
survival. However, it is clear from the escalating violence in our neighborhoods and our world that if
we do not learn to control our rage and aggression, the emotion of anger, so necessary to our survival, will be a central
factor in our destruction. The depravity and cruelty of anger, violence and rage are brought into our homes
24 hours a day with reports of domestic and family abuse, school shootings, child kidnappings, rape, and murder.
The violence and destruction of terrorism, which once seemed infrequent and always in someone else’s country,
now appears as a frightening reality with daily updates on the war in Iraq and on terrorist sponsored assaults and killings.
The shootings in our schools and in our work places are powerful reminders and examples of how the destructiveness
of anger and rage could be intimately involved with each of our lives. The World Trade Center tragedy of September
11, 2001, the tragic crimes on our streets, the
war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the ongoing terrorist acts have dramatically focused the
world’s attention on the massive human cost of anger and hate inspired violence. The increased frequency
of destructive anger expression, both in our communities and in our world, has also given a new urgency to find effective
ways to reduce the violence. The nineteen terrorists, who crashed the hijacked planes into
the World Trade Center, the child, who walks into the school cafeteria with murder on his mind, and the six-year-old, who
throws a screaming fit in the aisle of Wal-Mart, to pursuade his parent to buy him a toy, have one critical feature in common.
Each is relying on anger and violence to solve their problems. We do not have a “gene”
for this kind of anger and violence. We learn to use anger and violence as a problem solver by
observing the models of that same behavior in our families, neighborhoods, and communities. However,
we can also learn to love, cooperate, and share in our primary family environments. If
we are going to reduce our reliance upon anger and violence to solve our problems, we must teach our children
how to control their anger and how to create nonviolent and cooperative problem solving solutions to conflict.
One of the primary goals of “Putting Your Anger on a Leash” is helping parents to use and teach
non-violent and cooperative problem solving skills. Putting Your Anger on a Leash is an entertaining,
but scientifically based explanation of how you become angry and how to manage it. Reading the
book and completing the exercises will help you to discover the origins of your anger and the faulty thoughts and beliefs,
which increase your anger. Family members are encouraged to read and do the exercises in the book together
so they can all become comfortable talking about anger and lessening the blame and shame associated with it's
expression. Family members can also help each other learn to critically challenge the underlying
attitudes and beliefs supporting their anger. Anger is a reaction to perceived interpersonal hreat.The author of “Putting Your
Anger on a Leash” describes three strategies for reacting to threat. Each of these strategies has
the same goal of self-protection, but involves different areas of our brain and look and feel differently. Self-centered
Red Dog reacts quickly with angry, blaming, and threatening defenses, when he detects a threat to your survival.
Under Dog, attempts to keep you safe in the face of perceived threat, by using fearful, low profile
strategies, such as helplessness, passivity, or submission. Top Dog attempts to ensure your survival by
engaging your brain and using cooperative problem solving skills to reach long-term solutions for the threats and conflicts
you face. Top Dog skills are easily remembered with specific visual images. We manage
our anger and resolve our problems best when we use all three of our strategies in an integrated fashion and at appropriate
times. Each strategy can be a check and balance to the other at different times.
This book is meant to be helpful to all members of a family. I encourage you to
do the worksheets together to facilitate honest and open communication with each other, develop a common language about anger
to resolve conflicts in your family, and model cooperative problem solving to your children. I hope you
benefit from reading this book as much as I have enjoyed using these ideas with my clients.
David C. Martin, Ph.D.
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