I could get angry, but it won't help

IIt's a good idea to be angry

By Simon Y. Feuerman, Psy.D., L.C.S.W.

Created Jul 6 2010 - 1:28pm

I could get angry, but it won't help.

This is a familiar refrain one hears all the time. Whether it's from a spouse who lost his job or a friend who is out of work, they have an air of acceptance or is it resignation? It's hard to know for sure, but somehow you are left wishing they would get angry. At least it would make you feel better.

But wait a minute. Isn't suppressing your anger a good thing? We all know the damage that is done by an enraged parent or boss or spouse. Many people spend their lives recovering from the effects of having been raised by an "angry" parent. Why would we ever want anyone to be angry?

The wisdom of the ages, from Homer in ancient Greece to Emerson, have warned against "being" angry. It serves the ego, it impairs judgment and it leads us to say things that we will regret.

On the other hand, many hail the salutary effects of anger. "It clears the air," is the popular expression. Some warn that holding on to anger is not only self-destructive, but punitive to others as well. In recent months, there has been a loud drumbeat longing for President Obama to "get angry." He should be angry about the oil spill, the economy, Iran.  Maybe even he should be angry to please us.

Others argue that anger has no place in leadership. A calm, cool, collected president is someone to be admired, even treasured. Anger is sure to cause folly whether you are the leader of the country or the head of a household, they say, and cite examples in history from Machiavelli to most recently, McChrystal.

So which is it? Is anger clarifying or clouding, helpful or unhelpful?

The obvious answer is that it depends. However, it seems that groups of people are enormously accurate in identifying when an emotion is being papered over - when for example, one is truly seething, but attempts to hide it with courtesy and "correct" behavior.

One sees this often in psychotherapy groups, say when the spouse of an alcoholic describes her partner's condition. She may calmly describe how the family may suffer through his drinking problem: the missed family time, the rages, all manner of bottles and booze hidden at strategic points in the house and the lying and cover-up that is damaging to intimate relationships.

Members of the group upon hearing this "calm description" often start to get angry in response to the tale-teller's non-anger. She has been taught or perhaps she has learned that it is "not helpful." She doesn't consider it a good thing. Yet she is stupefied that others are angry at her for the "sin" of not being "angry."  What does this have to do with you? She might say. Or, how is anger going to help me?

But the refrain "anger won't help" is misleading. It does seem to help people in one profoundly important way: it helps them connect. Anger is a most powerful connector between people, perhaps even more so than sex.

However, despite anger's potential to connect people, it is extremely difficult to calibrate the right amount of anger and reasoned restraint, the correct equation between thinking, judgment and feeling. Inevitably most people will err on one side or the other. They might stifle their anger or they might blow their top. They might calculate to carefully and fail to connect with others. Any approach has the potential to be destructive.

What is interesting is that psychotherapy groups are often a precise barometer for measuring a "true" feeling. They tend to just "know" when people are off and disconnected from their feelings - even slightly. Groups instinctively know that feelings are what allow for progress between people. Thinking, as an activity, is many times, a paralyzer.

I believe that for good reason the country exhorts the President to be "angry." The country senses the President is "off" -- off of his true feelings.  People have a nose for feelings because it is feelings that are what allows for progress between people.  "Thinking" as opposed to "feeling" is a paraylzer.  Despite all this our longing for an angry more feelingful president is likely a waste of time.  It is we who most profit from when we cultivate the crop of anger rightly fermented. Anger born of legitimate discontent will yield more progress than a thousand congressional hearings and legislative panels.

It is worth remembering that once upon a time about 240 years ago, a group of 13 colonies got angry and produced the United States of America - the greatest country on earth.