As our physical and digital lives get ever more chaotic, it was interesting to hear an enlightening talk from psychotherapist and coach Renée Van Der Vloodt on the hidden causes of anger, held at the Elysian Centre on Cinque Ports Street on Saturday January 21.
As someone who has experienced ‘red mists’ I joined the packed room to get a better understanding of why such irrational behaviour can take hold – to a seemingly calm and rational person such as myself!
Renée’s key premise is that anger management courses don’t work because they don’t address the underlying causes of anger. As Renée explored over her two-hour seminar, the main causes of anger is unmet emotional needs. Those needs range from the basic – the need for security and the space to grow as an individual; the need for privacy balanced with the need to feel part of a wider community; through to the need to feel that you have achieved at something which brings with it a feeling of self-worth.
Anger in itself isn’t a bad thing because it is essentially providing information to those around you but there are extensive physical and emotional costs to angry outbursts.
Renée asked the participants to complete an emotional needs audit, which covered a range of emotional needs. It was the final one that I found most profound: Does life feel meaningful to you? It’s not often on a cold Saturday afternoon in January that you are asked to ponder the meaning of life and I instinctively thought of the teachings by most world religions. But this question can also be interpreted as the positive feeling that giving or serving others generates or from learning things that interest you and being mentally stretched by that activity.
Photo: Kevin McCarthy
I reckon a 2 hour seminar followed by a questionnaire would probably make me very angry !