Honor Your Anger: How Transforming Your Anger Style Can Change Your Life

by Beverly Engel

Honor Your Anger is a clearly written, insightful look at a topic that concerns everyone. You can indeed learn to understand and manage youranger, and this book will show you how."
—Robert Epstein, Ph.D., West Coast Editor, Psychology Today, Director Emeritus, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, University Research Professor, California School of Professional Psychology

"A critical first step for people who have trouble getting in touch with their anger and expressing it in direct and appropriate ways."
—Virginia Williams, Ph.D., coauthor of Anger Kills and Lifeskills

Do you act out youranger in destructive or underhanded ways? Or do you suppress youranger and turn other people's abuse and criticism against yourself? Anger is a normal, healthy emotion. But if it's channeled in negative directions, anger can do real damage to you and your loved ones.

In this provocative, healing book, psychotherapist Beverly Engel explains why your personal anger style may be hurting your relationships, your career, and yourself. She then shows you step by step how to transform a negative anger style into a positive one. Once you've discovered how to express youranger in healthy ways, you'll find that anger can empower you, motivate you to make important changes, and help you gain a sense of control over your life.

Genres: Self Help, Psychology, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Unfinished

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 1999

About the author

Beverly Engel has been a psychotherapist for thirty years, specializing in the areas of abuse recovery, relationships, women’s issues and sexuality. She is also the best-selling author of 20 self-help books, many of which have been featured on national television and radio programs (Oprah, CNN, Ricki Lake, Starting Over) as well as national print media (O Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Psychology Today, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and The Chicago Tribune to name a few).

She is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the issue of emotional abuse, as well as a pioneer on the issue, having written one of the first recovery books on the subject (The Emotionally Abused Woman).

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isn't it affirming when you've reached some conclusions about life on your own, and then you find a book where someone else articulates them? And isn't it frustrating when you realize how different your life could have been had you reached these insights and found some useful advice much sooner than you did?
Beverly Engel makes the case that there are four main dysfunctional anger styles: aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive AND projective-aggressive and two healthy ones we can strive for: assertive and reflective. She presents her material in an easily digestible way, with lots of checklists and quizzes.
Because they can't get properly angry on their own behalf, projective-aggressive people push someone else's buttons (a person with aggressive tendencies) to get them to express it. It's awful to be repeatedly manipulated in this way, but it can also be frustrating to live with a passive or passive-aggressive partner, and let's face it, this is an area where we probably all need to do some work--especially those who would claim they never get angry. The book is a good starting place.

[Salsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most life changing books I’ve read. I cried so much when reading this book, I realized that the number one source of my depression is my inability to let go of anger - that I have accumulated since I was a kid. The book came with several exercises to release and acknowledge anger, which is super helpful to me. I would love to read it in the future over and over again.

[Res N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good descriptions of anger styles. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t look at good reasons why someone might need a particular “bad” anger style in their life right now. Someone might use an avoidant anger style because they are in an abusive relationship they don’t have the financial means to leave, for example, and there are people in such relationships for whom it’s not physically safe to express anger.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explains all the different kinds of anger and how they hurt you and others. It then gives more assertive ways to handle difficult situations.

[Teo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book on anger. As an individual with an aversion to aggression, I had trouble being assertive because I equated it with aggression. However, Engel's approach to anger and the anger types provided a framework that was accessible and reasonable. The author has a way with words. The book does not come across preachy or lay down a victimhood mentality. It is kind, frank and comprehensive. Engel includes questionnaires, exercises and terminology that explores developmental, cultural and social elements related to anger. The first section of the book focuses on understanding anger, the second focuses on your anger and communication style, and the third provides tools for becoming more assertive and less passive, passive-aggressive, aggressive, or projective aggressive. The author is careful to inform that individuals may be one or several of these types and subtypes. This made reading about all of the types and subtypes that much more rewarding. Not only does it help the reader become acquainted with their personal anger style, it provides a wealth of knowledge towards the anger styles you may encounter through daily interpersonal communication. A great read. I have already went back through it three times! I will be working from the third section as needed. Practice makes permanent.

[Ypatios Varelas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found very interesting and helpful, to some degree, the idea of anger styles and advice for coping being style-specific. And the numerous thoughts and suggestions included in the book. However, it's all too much to digest. Definitely not a self-help guide, more like a reference book, especially since often there is not enough detail about how to do what needs to be done. I would prefer to see more such detail and less about stress management and topics that could be left out of this book. And I don't agree with several of the ideas and suggestions offered. To be honest, I believe that there is no chance of someone changing anger style on his/her own, as the book suggests as a way of getting over anger problems. Such a systemic change is not always helpful, should take into account side effects and can only be done with the help of a professional. Apart from that, I think that most readers could extract useful information and actions to try out, but it is not always easy. Not sure if I can recommend this book for practical self-help, but I might recommend it as an aid for understanding anger purpose and related behaviors.

[Maria Isabel Chang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great guide for self-introspection and navigating what anger means, where you are at in terms of this emotion, and how to deal with it. I appreciated the multiple exercises included in the book. Definitely a book I will come back to for further exploring and self-work.

[Zahra Albohmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

يشرح الكتاب كل انواع الغضب وكيفيه التعامل مع كل نوع
والاهم من ذلك كيف تستمع لنفسك وتفهم سبب غضبك

[G.G. Grit]

Empowering. Detailed and brining to life actual people.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 1 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.

[Bridgett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book showed different styles of anger: aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, projective-aggressive and, the ideal, assertive. There were some helpful tips on what to do and how to look at anger-related situations.

[Jim Rossi · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anger is an issue in your life - perhaps because of negative experiences growing up - then I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. It's about understanding, accepting, and sublimation instead of denial and repression.