Brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2nd Edition

Getting to the roots of your anger

As we have seen anger can gather a momentum of its own but it often draws its intensity from the past. Much of the anger we express on a day-to-day basis is displaced emotion – in other words it may be attached to some immediate and usually trivial cause but it stems from somewhere else altogether. The attitudes and beliefs that drive anger are usually forged in childhood experience, although other formative life events may also be fuelling your rage.

Social learning theory makes the point that our own behaviour can be heavily influenced by the behaviour we observe around us. If you were brought up by role models who displayed excessive anger – even if not actively directed towards you – it is quite conceivable ...