One of my favorite experiences as a therapist for teens is when my teens get angry in therapy.

Yessss- I freaking love it!!

I know parents don't always love and appreciate it, but it lets me know that we are getting to the good stuff.

Let me break it down for you in this video post…

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STORYTIME - the time my client got really angry in session

Way back when I was a new social worker, I worked at a residential facility for teenagers, and let me tell you, many of them did not really want to be there working with a therapist on a weekly basis.

So enter me: bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, Mallory!!

I was pleasantly surprised one day when I was working with a teenager who actually wanted to be doing the work and appreciated the help that we were offering him. He was super motivated, always ready to go, always invested.

So imagine my surprise, when I had to break the bad news to him, that his parole officer was denying a home pass for a weekend. He was angry!! I had never seen him like this before- he totally exploded. He stood up really fast, was yelling at me and I could see the red on his neck.

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Most people at this point in the story would either cringe with fear or anxiety and be a little confused. Or they would get angry right back and be like, "How dare you yell at me? I am going to yell right back at you." 'Cause a lot of times we just don't know how to deal with anger in the moment.

Anger can be really scary and threatening.

I reacted differently. I literally sat back in my chair and I just smiled real big 'cause I knew we were getting to the good stuff.

*Of course, I did the good therapy thing and I let him safely express his anger. I set limits and expectations, and then we talked about it once that initial anger storm was over. We were able to get right back into the swing of things….

ANGER IS A SUPER EMOTION

If you didn't know already, is usually not a really comfortable emotional experience. It can be really intense and strong and part of that is it's meant to be protective. It's trained to protect us from some deeper pain, hurt, or a more intensely uncomfortable emotion that we are experiencing.

Even though anger in and of itself doesn't always feel great, it can offer a distraction or some time and space away from the real deeper hurt if it's too painful to acknowledge and experience in the moment. That's a pretty cool benefit of anger.

The thing is that when it gets too strong, or too in the way then we never actually deal with the underlying pain and hurt and that's not good. That's where therapy can really help.

There are three things that I really love about anger:

Anger Can Help Notice + Acknowledge Your Deeper Feelings

Once you are able to notice the anger, you can also check in about it like, "Huh, what is this anger trying to help protect me from?"

Then you can make a conscientious, mindful wise decision for yourself about whether you need some time and distance away from that pain and hurt still.

So you might want to use some coping strategies, or maybe you need to dig in and stop avoiding this on a safe level (again, therapy is great for this!).

Anger Can Help: Motivate You To Take Action + Change

Anger isn't meant to be comfortable. It's not something that we're meant to experience over a long period of time.

When you start feeling that anger and that discomfort and irritation from the anger, I really encourage you not to sit in it too long because as you know as human beings, we like things to stay the same. So if we continue to stay angry, then we start thinking like, "Oh, we're supposed to be angry." And then we create that homeostasis for ourselves and that's not great.

But if you can sit with it a little bit and try to see, "Okay, what can I do differently, to either change the way I think, change the way I feel, or maybe take some action to create some change in my life or in the world around me, to move in a more pleasant emotional experience?"

When you can create a more positive, more pleasant emotional experience for yourself that anger can decrease.

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So sometimes that's not always something that's within our control and that's quite all right, but we can do things to kind of ease the discomfort.

For example, in the United States of America, when you are underage you legally have to go to school. It's often not something that many people look forward to on a daily basis. Maybe some days 'cause there are some pleasant things about school too like getting to see your friends, or getting that degree so that you can go on to the job or career that you want after high school. But usually on a day-to-day basis, we don't really love it.

When you can tap into, “Okay, what is it that this is making me angry about? Maybe I feel angry that my grades aren't where they need to be at and that is really painful because I need certain grades to get into a certain college program because that's the path that I wanna take to the career that I want after high school.”

Totally makes sense that you'd be frustrated and angry about that. Maybe a little hurt, maybe a little upset or disappointed. That's quite all right.

Some things that you could do to ease that pain and anxiety might be to consider what can you do to get through today's boring assignments so that you can achieve that goal.

Or it could be creating fun while doing it, like turning it into a game, maybe you can bundle it with some music or some YouTube videos. Eh? Whatever is gonna help ease that stress.

Anger Can Help: Communicate What’s Important To You

So oftentimes when we feel anger, it's because something is happening that we don't like, or that we don't think should be happening.

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

→ Why is this important?

→ Is it important to me?

→ Is it important to someone else?

And then, we can start to see where you can communicate what we would like to be different, or you might be able to sit and manage your expectations.

So I don't know if you know this but when it comes to anger in teenagers, that can actually be a sign of depression. So I've got a really great video for you right over here if you're feeling depressed and you wanna talk to your parents about it, I highly recommend it: https://youtu.be/KTMgOVlls8s

IF YOU ARE CONCERNED THAT YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW, MAY BE CONSIDERING KILLING THEMSELVES, PLEASE CONNECT THEM WITH HELP.

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