The Emotional Origins Of Anger

In this groundbreaking social history, Carol and Peter Stearns trace the two hundred-year development of anger, beginning with premodern colonial America. Drawing on diaries and popular advice literature of key periods, Anger deals with the everyday experiences of the family and workplace in its examination of our attempts to control our domestic lives and lessen social tensions by harnessing emotion. Offering an entirely new approach to the study of emotion, the authors inaugurate a new field of study termed "emotionology," which distinguishes collective emotional standards from the experience of emotion itself.

The message of the book is universal and relates to the essence of our humanity. It is an illustrated guide to understanding the emotional origins of our anger. By understanding the origins we can learn to defuse our anger and resolve the external issues that promote it. Such issues have often stayed with us from our childhood, or arise in the present. The relationship between depression and anger is noted; both the result of issues to which we see no solution. By acknowledging and exploring the emotional origins of anger our apparently hopeless and incurable problems can be resolved. It is important to understand that the mechanism of the anger associated with brain trauma or developmental abnormalities is different and requires different counselling and interventions, not covered in this book.

Tracing the story of anger from the Buddha to Twitter, Rosenwein provides a much-needed account of our changing and contradictory understandings of this emotion All of us think we know when we are angry, and we are sure we can recognize anger in others as well. But this is only superficially true. We see anger through lenses colored by what we know, experience, and learn. Barbara H. Rosenwein traces our many conflicting ideas about and expressions of anger, taking the story from the Buddha to our own time, from anger’s complete rejection to its warm reception. Rosenwein explores how anger has been characterized by gender and race, why it has been tied to violence and how that is often a false connection, how it has figured among the seven deadly sins and yet is considered a virtue, and how its interpretation, once largely the preserve of philosophers and theologians, has been gradually handed over to scientists—with very mixed results. Rosenwein shows that the history of anger can help us grapple with it today.

An argument that voter anger and authoritarian political attitudes can be traced to the displacement of anger, fear, and helplessness. Politicians routinely amplify and misdirect voters' anger and resentment to win their support. Opportunistic candidates encourage supporters to direct their anger toward Mexicans, Muslims, women, protestors, and others, rather than the true socioeconomic causes of their discontent. This book offers a compelling and novel explanation for political anger and the roots of authoritarian political attitudes. In Raised to Rage, Michael Milburn and Sheree Conrad connect vociferous opposition to immigrants, welfare, and abortion to the displacement of anger, fear, and helplessness. These emotions may be triggered by real economic and social instability, but Milburn and Conrad's research shows that the original source is in childhood brutalization or some other emotional trauma. Their research also shows that frequent experiences of physical punishment in childhood increase support in adulthood for punitive public policies, distorting the political process. Originally published in 1996, reprinted now with a new introduction by the authors that updates the empirical evidence and connects it to the current political situation, this book offers a timely consideration of a paradox in American politics: why voters are convinced by campaign rhetoric, exaggeration, and scapegoating to vote against their own interests.

Conventional wisdom views anger as red-hot yelling and screaming, a force to be feared and repressed. But psychotherapist John Rifkin views anger in a revolutionary way -- as the natural energy created to heal one's emotional injuries. In "The Healing Power of Anger," Rifkin explains how to identify dysfunctional uses of anger so that readers can "unbend" it and become empowered and self-nurturing. To do so, he explains his Stop, Drop, and Roll system, which he's used with clients for more than 20 years. In addition, Rifkin explores the childhood roots of anger, the spectrum of angry behavior, how anger can be a gift to a relationship, and ice-cold passive-aggressive anger.

States of Rage permeate our culture and our daily lives. From the anti-Catholic protests of ACT-UP to the political posturing of Al Sharpton, from the LA Riots to anti-abortion gunmen murdering clinic personnel, the unleashing of rage, marginalized or institutional, has translated into dead bodies on our campuses and city streets, in our public buildings and in our homes. Rage seems to have gained a currency in the past decade which it previously did not possess. Suddenly we appear willing to employ it more often to describe our own or others' mental states or actions. Rage succinctly describes an ongoing emotional state for many residents and citizens of the United States and elsewhere. States of Rage gathers for the first time a critical mass of writing about rage--its function, expression, and utilities. It examines rage as a cultural phenomenon, delineating its use and explaining why this emotional state increasingly intrudes into our social, artistic, and academic existences. What is the relationship between rage and power(lessness)? How does rage relate to personal or social injustice? Can we ritualize rage or is it always spontaneous? Finally, what provokes rage and what is provocative about it? Essays shed light on the psychological and social origins of rage, its relationship to the self, its connection to culture, and its possible triggers. The volume includes chapters on violence in the workplace, the Montreal massacre, female murderers, the rage of African- American filmmakers, rage as a reaction to persecution, the rage of AIDS activists, class rage, and rage in the academy.

Written by award-winning author, highly experienced mediator, and co-founder of the Prison of Peace project, Douglas E. Noll, De-Escalate gives you the proven process to calm any angry person or volatile situation in 90 seconds or less. Based on the practical experience of a master mediator and grounded in the latest findings in neuroscience, Douglas Noll offers his proven process—to empower you to successfully and efficiently de-escalate an angry person or volatile situation in 90 seconds or less—and how to apply this skill in all areas of life. We live in a more socially polarized time nationally and globally than ever before, as arguments easily flare up, aggression and bullying rises, and lines are drawn over politics, religion, and ideology. De-Escalate provides a new set of social listening and communication skills that solve the problem of what to do with angry, emotional people. The quick and effective techniques detailed in De-Escalate will help anyone dealing with this increase in anger from outside sources or anger in themselves. With simple, easy-to-understand steps, De-Escalate walks you through real-life examples and scenario-based conversations in order to create resolutions, build emotional intelligence, and cultivate empathy and healing. This book will teach the precise tools to master becoming a peacemaker, cultivating ways to co-exist and co-respect others in an increasingly hostile world.

It would seem that if the striking changes produced by fear and anger and by physical trauma in the master organ of the body-- the brain--were due to WORK, then we should expect to find corresponding histologic changes in other organs of the body as well. We therefore examined every organ and tissue of the bodies of animals which had been subjected to intense fear and anger and to infection and to the action of foreign proteins, some animals being killed immediately; some several hours after the immediate effects of the stimuli had passed; some after seances of strong emotion had been repeated several times during a week or longer.