Walking the Tightrope of Anger

If nothing else was evident in the recent hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh (regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum) was that he verbalized quite vociferously the emotional state he was in. To even the most obtuse observer, the vocabulary he used, his choice of words, the decibel level at which he spoke, his facial expressions and the energy he radiated, made it clear that he was not in control of his emotions. Anger was running the show. What he was experiencing could be referred to as emotional hijacking, a term that was coined by Daniel Goleman, PhD, who wrote the book entitled Emotional Intelligence. He describes the ways in which the part of the brain called the amygdala reacts when in a stress inducing situation. “The amygdala is the trigger point for the fight, flight, or freeze response. When these circuits perceive a threat, they flood the body with stress hormones that do several things to prepare us for an emergency. Blood shunts away from the organs to the limbs; that’s the fight or flee. But the response is also cognitive—and, in modern life this is what matters most, it makes some shifts in how the mind functions. Attention tends to fixate on the thing that is bothering us, that’s stressing us, that we’re worried about, that’s upsetting, frustrating, or angering us.” When working with clients who have anger management problems, I describe it as if a big, burly being scoops them up and runs away with them before they can protest. Cl...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Anger Minding the Media Stress Women's Issues Anger Management Brett Kavanaugh Disillusionment Frustration Source Type: blogs