The Anger Habit: Proven Principles to Calm the Stormy Mind

by Carl Semmelroth, Donald E.P. Smith

Carl Semmelroth's The Anger Habit is a leading anger-management book that is poised to become a major force in the category. This book is centered around the principle that for those who have anger problems, anger can be a learned response. Often the people with the problem don't realize that they are acting habitually, or why they are.
Semmelroth takes you step by step through the process of identifying and getting over the anger habit.
Case studies and stories show you how to - Feelings of losing control - Depression - Panic - Family battles

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Among recognitions Dr. Semmelroth has received, he is proudest of a "Civie" which he received in 2004 from Americans for More Civility for speaking out against violence in sports. His four books on anger have been well received in the US and are also published in several foreign languages including Arabic in Saudi Arabia and Indonesian in the Far East. Carl served as an expert on child discipline for Child.com answering readers' questions. His latest book is The Compassion Switch. Dr. Semmelroth has taught graduate psychology classes at Cleveland State University, Western Michigan University, and The University of Michigan,.

Reviews

[Michael K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be full of good information on handling our anger problems. Some of our anger creates or stems from other things in our lives and in our histories. Take your time to truly see...the roots of your anger. I have been angry since childhood and have never had my guidance, that which I truly needed. Here in my fifties I am still searching on how to stave the ease of occurrence of my anger and explosions. One day before I am buried in the ground I should attain one of my personal goals! Worth the time to read as it may give you some helpful tips.

[Noushin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book.

Anger un­pro­duc­tive at best and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive at worst.

Angry feel­ings con­tain im­por­tant, nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion. These feel­ings can tell in­fu­ri­ated peo­ple that they have acted upon cer­tain ex­pec­ta­tions, made cer­tain ob­ser­va­tions, in­ter­preted the data ob­tained through ob­ser­va­tion and ar­rived at cer­tain con­clu­sions. Gen­er­ally, they have made these ob­ser­va­tions, in­ter­pre­ta­tions and con­clu­sions with­out being aware of all the steps. Gen­er­ally, too, they have not ques­tioned their in­ter­pre­ta­tions. To stop angry out­bursts, though, they must learn to do so.

Often, angry peo­ple are self-important - and this is their great­est weak­ness. They fear any sug­ges­tion that, in fact, they may not be so im­por­tant after all. Self-importance is not the same as self-respect. Self-respect is based on an hon­est self-evaluation, whereas self-importance, iron­i­cally, may arise from un­jus­ti­fied self-contempt. Anger often re­flects the frus­tra­tion that en­raged peo­ple feel when they at­tempt to con­trol what oth­ers think of them and what they think of them­selves. Mov­ing from self-importance to self-respect can en­able them to re­al­ize their full po­ten­tial and to re­spect the per­sonal po­ten­tial of their co-workers, fam­ily and friends.

anger is not just a fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate. It often in­volves force. Al­though force is an at­tempt to demon­strate strength, it is the dan­ger­ous prod­uct of fear. Fear and anger re­in­force each other. In fact, anger may lead to panic when those in a fu­ri­ous strug­gle for con­trol begin to feel that they are los­ing the strug­gle. Be­cause angry peo­ple fear los­ing con­trol, they turn to threats, which they some­times carry out.

Angry peo­ple feel guilt but not re­morse - and these are not the same thing. Re­morse is hon­est. Re­morse­ful peo­ple un­der­stand what they’ve done wrong and try to re­pair the dam­age. Guilt-ridden peo­ple, in con­trast, deny re­spon­si­bil­ity and try to es­cape from the truth.

Chil­dren’s anger is sim­i­lar to that of adults. Often, it is rooted in their recog­ni­tion that their ex­pec­ta­tions and pre­dic­tions are not com­ing true. But rec­og­niz­ing such out­comes, and cop­ing with them, is a life les­son. Par­ents must teach their chil­dren to deal with dis­ap­point­ment with­out erupt­ing in anger - but first, they must teach them­selves.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books I think I will need to read several times because it has so many good ideas. The ideas come in layers, so I will probably need to revisit it when I’m ready to go beyond the first layer.
The premise of this book is that we develop a habit of anger, often during childhood,and we use it as an automatic response to situations where things don’t go as we expect or we don’t get our way. Anger is the feeling we have, but the actual habit is of attacking or confronting people when they don’t behave as we would like. The authors explain that it is possible, with some effort and patience, to develop more constructive habits for The Times when things don’t go our way. They also explain that if we begin to work on anger in one relationship, we are likely to make similar changes when dealing with others. Over time, growth in this area is exponential. As we work through this process, we will learn skills that help us get what we need without damaging our work or personal relationships. The final piece in this puzzle is to learn how to handle it when someone starts attacking you because they didn’t get their way. Responding with an attack of your own will only escalate things, and that won’t get either of you what you want. Responding without attacking the other person can help things calm down, then it’s easier to work out the problems or misunderstandings that caused the other person to attack.

[Whitney Buckley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't one to offer recommendations to fix your anger problem. The title is misleading in this. Instead it offer insight as to what is causing your anger. Both Carl Semmelroth and Donald Smith hold a Ph.D. and practice Psychology. They believe that anger is caused by the desire to control another person or thing. Of course, you cannot control others. Therefore, you become angry and lose your tempter because the people or things do not do what you wish. This slowly builds and eventually you stop thinking logically and respond emotionally (i.e. blow up or tantrum). The idea to watch for the small things that bother you and try to control less.

The authors use letters to clients to help explain feelings and thoughts that increase our anger. The book is more about understanding the different forms anger can take on in a person's life. This is not a self-help book because it does not offer specific ways to deal with your anger. It does, however, provoke thoughts on how anger appears and runs rapid in your life. I recommend this book if you have an anger problem because if you are willing to be open, you may see a few things that increase your anger. The clearest principle in this book is stop trying to control everything and decrease the self talk. They just don't add the how. I guess you have to figure that out yourself.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good ideas

[Karla Owen foisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other books on anger generally encourage a person to learn positive communication in order to persuade the person that angered you to change. This book suggests a habitually anger person is probably not going to be less angry even if he can convince all the people in the world change.

The author gives a person who has gotten into the habit of angry outbursts a another option: to recognize anger is a choice to control others, that anger is NEVER someone else's fault, and that you are responsible to find personal solutions to your frustrating situation. For instance, if you are angry, because someone wants you to help them with something you feel is their job, you don't need to throw a tantrum or talk to the person about how he is taking advantage of you. You simply set your own personal boundaries and say, "No thanks. I have other things going on right now." You are not the victim until you allow yourself to be. Find personal solutions to situations rather than waiting on others to change. Lots of practice solutions. Lots of applicable exercises to use with counseling clients.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 2 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[Mary Karpel-Jergic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a read to examine how anger can function in a myriad of ways in life on a daily basis. Recognising anger feelings is the first step and then recognising it as a warning signal for what we are about to do is the second. Getting rid of feelings of self-importance is recommended and in place, the cultivation of self-esteem. Self-importance demands (anger); self-esteem trades (communicates/negotiates).

[J. Schmidt · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Anger is often an attempt to control others". This is pretty much the only useful thing I got out of this book. Many other things including on proper parenting are down-right wrong in my opinion (and based on books I read on parenting such as "raising an emotionally intelligent child" among others....

[Bridgett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The examples were a bit boring, but I liked the idea of anger as being used as a means of control and how we are each responsible for our own anger.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

I checked this out but I don't remember if I read it or not.

[Elizabeth]

As seen in FYI: For Your Improvement.