Run an anger management group
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Most teenagers get angry. It’s a natural emotion, something that we all experience. But, for some young people, their anger gets out of control and they find themselves in difficulties, especially at school. As a result, anger management groups have become more and more common in education as a way of helping students take control of their emotions and avoid getting into trouble. This guide is about how to set up and run an anger management group with students in a school. Although it’s been written as if planning for a secondary school lesson, you can adapt the principles to apply for other age groups.
Understanding anger
The starting point for working with young people in this area is to have a clear understanding about what is ‘anger’. One advantage of this topic immediately springs to mind: unlike other issues like self harm or bereavement, we all experience anger. It’s a universal human emotion. That means when it comes to leading a group, you’ll be able to draw from your own personal experience. Be prepared to be honest with yourself and others about how you deal with anger.
Anger is described by most psychologists as a secondary emotion. That means that it is a direct result of another emotion. We might first feel afraid, attacked, offended, disrespected, forced, trapped, or pressured. If any of these feelings are intense enough, we think of the emotion as anger. Successful work with young people in anger management will involve helping them identify and deal with their primary emotions as well as with their anger.
Anger is a powerful and primitive emotion. In some ways, it could be thought of as a survival tool. Nature has developed the emotional state we call “anger” to help us stay alive. Anger sends signals to all parts of our body to help us fight or flee. It energizes us to prepare us for action. Many years ago we were threatened by wild animals who wanted to eat us! Now we more often feel threatened by other human beings, either psychologically or physically.
Anger affects us physically as well as emotionally. When we get angry a huge number of things change in our physical bodies: for example: adrenalin and other hormones are released, our body temperature may rise, our heart rate increases and our face becomes flushed, we may shake, sweat or even cry. Although these physical changes can take place in a matter of minutes, they often take several hours to dissipate and disappear.
Anger can be positive as well as negative. There are places and situations where anger is the correct response: however, there is a distinction between the feeling of anger and whether it is expressed appropriately. Learning to deal with conflict is a more positive way as an important step away from difficulties with anger. These are some of the issues that an anger management group will need to explore.
Why people get angry
It’s hard to categorise the reasons why people, especially young people, will get angry. Sometimes the causes are obvious, at other times inexplicable. However, there are some broad themes that can help in understanding what might be the reason.
Working in groups
It’s important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using small groups as a way of working with young people. Much of the pastoral work in schools today is done one-to-one: group work is less common. However, there’s a strong argument for taking the group work approach, especially when dealing with subjects like anger and conflict.
Young people can have as much to learn from their peers as from a curriculum or group leader. Hearing the experiences and stories of others can be encouraging (“I’m not alone”) and open up new possibilities (“Perhaps I could try that solution”).
There is also the potential of students providing support for each other once the group has ended, especially if the young people in the group have had a positive experience of being together and got to know and trust each other. Having someone who has been through the same programme can be a real asset back in the everyday reality of the classroom.
Working in a group makes exercises and tasks much easier to run. Take, for example, an exercise in the form of a game where students have to look at cards containing different situations and place them on a board with spaces for different ‘reactions’ . In a one-to-one session this would be hard to play with just one student, but with a group of four or five the dynamic and experience changes, becoming much more interactive and allowing students to listen to the answers of others as well as thinking about what they would do. The contrast in views has the potential to create a much broader discussion than you might expect from talking to a single student. It’s also less intense, giving students moments in the ‘spotlight’ and other moments where they can step back and listen to others.
Group work also allows many more young people to benefit from a programme. In an hour, five or more young people can participate, compared to just a single student in a one-to-one session. With a subject as universally applicable as anger management, demand is often high. Group work enables at least some of that demand to be met.