The Compassionate Mind Approach to Managing Your Anger

Book excerpt: We can all get angry from time to time but when it gets out of hand it can have a serious impact on many aspects of our lives. As well as having an impact on our physical and mental health and our ability to engage in healthy relationships, it can also potentially have an enormous impact on society. The media is rife with stories of domestic violence, tragic stories of shaken babies, road-rage incidents and bullying. Mounting evidence suggests that all this anger can be harmful to us in a number of different ways. As well as the enormously damaging impact chronic anger can have on our relationships with other people, it is being linked to health problems such as cardiovascular disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and mental illnesses such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This invaluable self-help guide will enable the reader to recognise their personal anger problems, gain an understanding of what lies behind their anger, and use techniques based on Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) to deal with their anger more effectively. CFT was initially developed by Professor Paul Gilbert, author of The Compassionate Mind, to treat those with high levels of self-criticism. It uses the proven, research-based techniques of CBT and other therapies with a special focus on the importance of developing inner compassion, in order to alleviate feelings of shame, develop a more balanced outlook and promote resilience. It incorporates elements of mindfulness and Tibetan Buddhism with recent research on human development and studies of the brain. It is increasingly used to treat a wide range of emotional and psychological problems including depression, overeating, shyness, trauma, anxiety and anger.