Fundamentals of Anger Management

For more information about my services, both individual and training programs for schools, please visit my web page at http://www.relatedminds.com/the-angry-child  General information can be found at http://www.relatedminds.com  My offices are located in both Burnaby and Vancouver, BC

Many families come to me because of issues relating to anger and aggression.  They hope to receive anger management training of some sort, and are often surprised by the exact nature of anger management programs which often include a component on assertiveness training.  For the next few blogs I'd like to walk you through some information about anger management and what is out there that is helpful. There are a lot of anger management books available, some make much more sense than others. Some are evidence based, that is, developed through a process of program assessment, and others are not.  I'm going to start with a review of a program we often use in the schools- Aggression Replacement Training. This program comes with staff training videos, workbooks, social skills programming as well as specific training in anger replacement and cognitive therapy. That will be today's post. In the next post I'll be reviewing a workbook I often use: The Anger Control Workbook by Matthew McKay and Peter Rogers.  This workbook is a cognitive therapy based program about anger management and when used with some materials on assertiveness training can form the basis of a good program on anger management.

Aggression Replacement Training: ART

Aggression Replacement Training (ART) is manual-based program focused on teens. It is designed to  help them to with aggressive emotions. It is a complex, multichannel, program that uses three coordinated components to reach the youth; Social skills, Anger management and moral reasoning.  These three components cover most of the materials necessary to make significant changes in children with problems with aggression. (For younger children there are specific social skills books, and an alternative suggestion is The Explosive Child by Green.)

Anger Replacement Training is used in schools and correctional settings in North America as well as Europe. It was designed by Arnold P. Goldstein, Barry Glick and John C. Gibbs in the 1980s. They took concepts from a number of other theories for working with youth and incorporated them into one comprehensive system. The main methods for the youth to learn from the various components is though repetition. Practice, role play, and practice again. The model also focuses on Jean Piaget’s concept of peer learning. 

Social Skills
Social Skills training is the behavioral component of ART. Many youths who are involved with criminal behavior and/or have difficulties with controlling their anger lack social skills. Many of the concepts of the social skills component are taken from Albert Bandura’s. There are many different social skills that these youth are thought to lack, such as;

Making a complaint

Apologizing

Understanding the feelings of others

Dealing with someone else's anger

Keeping out of fights

Dealing with an accusation

The program begins with an assessment of the youth’s social skill levels. Then these social skills are broken down into various steps (both thinking and action steps). The facilitator discusses the day's skill, bringing out relevant examples. Then the facilitator demonstrates a practice situation to give the youth a picture of using the skill. The youth are asked to point out each of the steps using behavioural techniques such as sub-vocalizing while engaging in the behaviour. This component also provides a great deal of psycho-education for each student. Each of the youth is asked to use a practice situation that they have recently had using the skill. Again the other youth go though and discuss each of the steps each time. Modelling and practice are key components, with homework for generalizing these skills.

Anger Control Training
Anger control training is the emotional component of ART. This moves from the teaching of social skills, to losing anti-social skills and replacing them with pro-social skills. The anger control training uses what is called the “anger control chain.” This is a process taught to the youth to deal with situations that cause them to get angry. Once again, one segment of the anger control chain is taught each week and the both the facilitators and the youth practice the new skills with relevant life activities.

The anger control chain is as follows:

Triggers (internal & external) -- The situation that starts the slide into anger and the self talk that perpetuates it

Cues -- physical signs of becoming angry

Anger reducers -- activities that are done to reduce or take our mind off of the situation

Reminders -- short positive statements

Thinking ahead -- If then thinking

Social Skill -- Implementing a pro-social skill into the situation

Evaluation -- Looking back over the use of the anger control chain and evaluating how was implemented

Again, youth practice these skills, use subvocalization, model the skills, role play and use homework assignments to generalize the behavioural skills.

Moral Reasoning Training

Moral reasoning training is the “values component” of the program. This component takes various scenarios and asks whether various activities would be right or wrong to do in those situations. Thinking errors are also taught during this day of training. The thinking errors that are taught are:

Self-centered thinking -- "it's all about me"

Assuming the worst -- "it would happen anyway" or "they would do it to me"

Blaming others -- "it's their fault"

Mislabeling / minimizing -- "it's not stealing, I'm only borrowing it..." or "everybody else does it"

This, and all other componets, of the program are all well planned out. Lessons are specific with a good deal of teacher specific suggestions incorporated into the written materials. The program comes with an excellent training video to help facilitators learns these specific skills, although having some supervision for new trainers would be best. 

The books: Berj Harrootunian, Arnold P. Goldstein, Jane Close Conoley (1994), Student Aggression: Prevention, Management and Replacement Training, Guilford Press, 

All of the necessary materials are available from Research Press. 

If your a teacher or behaviour specialist, take a look at these materials. They are all you really need to start an excellent program addressing aggression and anger within the school. A great way to start!

Next blog post will be addressing Anger Control for adults. This will specifically look at readings and skills programs for individuals with anger management problems from a cognitive behaviour   therapy perspective. After that, which may take two or three posts, we will discuss assertiveness training and how it is a critical component of any successful program.