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Mindfulness & the Art of Managing Anger
Mindfulness & the Art of Managing Anger explores the powerful emotion of toxic anger - what it is, why we experience it and how we can learn to control its destructive power through the very nature of mindfulness. Fusing Western and Buddhist thought, therapeutic tools, specific meditative practices and frank personal anecdotes, this book reveals how we can all clear the red mist for peaceful wellbeing.
- GenresSelf Help
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
25 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
About the author
Mike Fisher
52 books5 followersMike Fisher has a background in humanistic counselling and psychotherapy.
Considered to be one of the leading experts in the field of anger management in the UK, Mike has contributed to many magazine and newspaper articles.
TV documentaries he has helped with include:
NASTY BOSSES - BBC3
THE ANGRIEST MEN IN BRITAIN (2002) - ITV1 Landmark Films
ANGRY BRITAIN (2004) - Landmark Films
LOSING IT - BBC3
VIOLENT FATHERS(Kilroy Silk) - BBC3
BEAT IT: ANGRY WITH MY FATHER - 2006 Landmark Films
Mike Fisher set up and helps run the professional training body BAAM (British Assocaition of Anger Management), which he set up in 2001 after a business betrayal sent him into a frenzy of rage.
BAAM provides support for anger sufferers around the globe. In his work, Mike focuses on how stress fuels anger and offers solutions to reducing this.
Considered to be one of the leading experts in the field of anger management in the UK, Mike has contributed to many magazine and newspaper articles.
TV documentaries he has helped with include:
NASTY BOSSES - BBC3
THE ANGRIEST MEN IN BRITAIN (2002) - ITV1 Landmark Films
ANGRY BRITAIN (2004) - Landmark Films
LOSING IT - BBC3
VIOLENT FATHERS(Kilroy Silk) - BBC3
BEAT IT: ANGRY WITH MY FATHER - 2006 Landmark Films
Mike Fisher set up and helps run the professional training body BAAM (British Assocaition of Anger Management), which he set up in 2001 after a business betrayal sent him into a frenzy of rage.
BAAM provides support for anger sufferers around the globe. In his work, Mike focuses on how stress fuels anger and offers solutions to reducing this.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 17, 2014
This book helps you to understand how anger manifests itself in your life (explosions or implosions) and in your behavior (rage or depression) and it provides you with some tools to learn how to get it under control. The book's Buddhist perspective brings compassion and understanding as well as useful Buddhist practices to the idea that your behavior is probably rooted in your past experiences but nevertheless with a focused intention to change, you can successfully work to alter your thinking, control your actions, and to be able to see clearly how both your thinking and your actions contribute to your own dysfunctional patterns and suffering. By paying attention and cultivating mindfulness one can, step by step, change one's life which ultimately influences the lives and experiences of others. Anyone who suffers from anger or depression, or anything else for that matter, would benefit from reading this book. The world will be a better place, one person at a time, if you do.
August 25, 2018
Mike Fisher is a trained counselor, facilitator and anger management consultant, and the founder of the British Association of Anger Management. Having struggled with anger issues himself, and having worked with clients also suffering with anger, Mike brings this experience into both his work and his books. In this book, he explores how mindfulness and meditation can be used as anger management tools.
In the beginning of the book, Mike explores the different ways in which anger manifests itself: passive-aggressive versus outwardly aggressive (towards others). He then goes on to talk about the fight-or-flight response and he explains anger from a neurobiology perspective. Nevertheless, we are still capable of gaining control and taking responsibility for our anger, Mike argues. ‘Suffering is an option and happiness is a choice’, he writes.
He then introduces the two fundamental principles of anger management: listening, and stopping, thinking and taking a look at the bigger picture. Being able to relax is a prerequisite for the successful management of anger, and Mike suggests simple and easy ways to achieve this. Before discussing specific relaxation and meditation techniques, he also explores the underlying factors that lie behind anger issues, and he shows how to challenge deep-seated beliefs that fuel and maintain anger (as an emotion, and often as a way of behaving too). He also introduces the technique of journal writing as another useful anger management tool.
As a Psychiatrist myself, I believe that mindfulness practices have such an important role to play in the management of a number of emotional and psychological problems, including anger. Yet, this is not the only approach. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has been very popular in the management of various mental health problems, and anger management is often based on CBT principles. Mike does not dismiss this. Instead, by linking anger as an emotion to the underlying core beliefs, physical sensations and outward behaviors, he actually draws from CBT. But he goes beyond this and he adds the extra layer of mindfulness (and meditative practices) to the toolbox of the already established therapeutic approaches.
As a book, ‘Mindfulness and the Art of Managing Anger’ succeeds in being psycho-educational, as it explains about anger and its management, it helps the reader understand what anger is, and encourages them to reflect on their emotional world. As well as being highly informative, it can also be used as a therapeutic tool, since it describes a number of mindfulness techniques that could help in the management of anger.
In the beginning of the book, Mike explores the different ways in which anger manifests itself: passive-aggressive versus outwardly aggressive (towards others). He then goes on to talk about the fight-or-flight response and he explains anger from a neurobiology perspective. Nevertheless, we are still capable of gaining control and taking responsibility for our anger, Mike argues. ‘Suffering is an option and happiness is a choice’, he writes.
He then introduces the two fundamental principles of anger management: listening, and stopping, thinking and taking a look at the bigger picture. Being able to relax is a prerequisite for the successful management of anger, and Mike suggests simple and easy ways to achieve this. Before discussing specific relaxation and meditation techniques, he also explores the underlying factors that lie behind anger issues, and he shows how to challenge deep-seated beliefs that fuel and maintain anger (as an emotion, and often as a way of behaving too). He also introduces the technique of journal writing as another useful anger management tool.
As a Psychiatrist myself, I believe that mindfulness practices have such an important role to play in the management of a number of emotional and psychological problems, including anger. Yet, this is not the only approach. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has been very popular in the management of various mental health problems, and anger management is often based on CBT principles. Mike does not dismiss this. Instead, by linking anger as an emotion to the underlying core beliefs, physical sensations and outward behaviors, he actually draws from CBT. But he goes beyond this and he adds the extra layer of mindfulness (and meditative practices) to the toolbox of the already established therapeutic approaches.
As a book, ‘Mindfulness and the Art of Managing Anger’ succeeds in being psycho-educational, as it explains about anger and its management, it helps the reader understand what anger is, and encourages them to reflect on their emotional world. As well as being highly informative, it can also be used as a therapeutic tool, since it describes a number of mindfulness techniques that could help in the management of anger.
January 3, 2021
I like having a vast array of weapons and armours to help my patients, so I'm always up for mental health self-help books. That said, I always choose them with a critical eye, judging from both my clinician (to determine whether the techniques provided are evidence-based) and my non-clinician perspectives (to see whether those same techniques are also understandable and doable by the general laymen). The ideal book for me would be one supported with correct—preferably up-to-date—scientific information, explained in easy and soothing language, and peppered with exercises that are organized from the simplest to the more advanced. Nice illustration is certainly welcome, too. A recent book I read that fulfils these criteria is Anna Black's Mindfulness and Sleep: How to improve your sleep quality through practicing mindfulness.
Fisher's Mindfulness & Anger (allow me to shorten the title) comes really close to that description as well. Fisher explains the various aspects of anger: possible causes of anger, other emotions that might overlap and underlie anger, the relationship between anger and stress, anger-fueled behaviours, angry thoughts, etc. For people who are more cognitively-inclined, just by reading this book might send them straight away onto the path of healing. Only thing that annoys me somewhat is the constant reference to Buddhist teaching, making the book feels more spiritual than scientific. If I hadn't learnt mindfulness as an evidence-based medical approach, I would've immediately written off this book as simply another pop-psycho-New-Age stuff. Hence, the three stars.
Yes, a three-stars rating means I still like the book. It enriches my vocabulary about anger so that my scientific outlook becomes more nuanced. This is very important because I need to be sensitive in my conversations with patients. Anger is a difficult feeling for many to process; it can be shameful and even taboo. Having colourful words in my artillery will help tremendously in the therapeutic relationship.
Fisher's Mindfulness & Anger (allow me to shorten the title) comes really close to that description as well. Fisher explains the various aspects of anger: possible causes of anger, other emotions that might overlap and underlie anger, the relationship between anger and stress, anger-fueled behaviours, angry thoughts, etc. For people who are more cognitively-inclined, just by reading this book might send them straight away onto the path of healing. Only thing that annoys me somewhat is the constant reference to Buddhist teaching, making the book feels more spiritual than scientific. If I hadn't learnt mindfulness as an evidence-based medical approach, I would've immediately written off this book as simply another pop-psycho-New-Age stuff. Hence, the three stars.
Yes, a three-stars rating means I still like the book. It enriches my vocabulary about anger so that my scientific outlook becomes more nuanced. This is very important because I need to be sensitive in my conversations with patients. Anger is a difficult feeling for many to process; it can be shameful and even taboo. Having colourful words in my artillery will help tremendously in the therapeutic relationship.
November 9, 2021
I am usually calm but have been extremely aggressive lately, picked this book up in hopes to return to my former self. It certainly helped me find my triggers and gave a practical approach how to control my red mist.
Thank you Mike!!!
Thank you Mike!!!
January 29, 2021
I skimmed the book until the end and take note only the important point. so far, beneficial but not mindblown. anyway good job, its suitable for practical
December 20, 2020
Wow this book make me enjoy about how to managing my anger and mood
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews