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Make Anger Your Ally
Positive, constructive ideas for managing anger and transforming its energy into a dynamic force.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
4 people are currently reading
112 people want to read
About the author
Neil Clark Warren
33 books8 followersNeil Clark Warren is an American clinical psychologist, Christian theologian, seminary professor and co-founder of the online relationship sites eHarmony and Compatible Partners.
In 1995, Warren and his son-in-law, Greg Forgatch, created Neil Clark Warren & Associates, a company which offers seminars and teaching tools based on Warren's books. In early 2000, they established eHarmony, an online compatibility matching service which gained two million users in its first three years. After retiring in 2007, Warren came out of retirement in July 2012, returning as the chief executive of eHarmony.
In 1995, Warren and his son-in-law, Greg Forgatch, created Neil Clark Warren & Associates, a company which offers seminars and teaching tools based on Warren's books. In early 2000, they established eHarmony, an online compatibility matching service which gained two million users in its first three years. After retiring in 2007, Warren came out of retirement in July 2012, returning as the chief executive of eHarmony.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 4, 2017
Neil Clark Warren’s book was a disappointment to me, especially after having just completed Powlison’s Good and Angry. I will share some of my disappointments below, but before I do, let me share the four ways I found Warren’s book helpful.
First, throughout, Warren is pushing for the reader to not merely identify anger, but to push toward the root causes of the anger. Anger, Warren says, “is not a primary emotion, but is typically experienced as an almost automatic inner response to hurt, frustration, or fear” (5). Similar to Powlison, Warren identifies a number of different ways in which we handle anger, all of which look different, but all of which bear a family kinship. We need to dig to the bottom of what is causing our anger to be able to deal with it. For Warren, those issues typically revolve around negative self-image and self-perception (more on that later).
Second, Warren helpfully pushes back at some coaching that it is helpful to vent. Psychological research shows us that “aggressive behavior facilitates more aggressive behavior rather than less” (31). Warren pushes back against the bias of psychologists to share. Sometimes, the negative consequences of inappropriate sharing and venting can outweigh the positives.
Third, Warren helpfully lays out the physiological nature of anger and the negative physiological impact of dealing poorly with anger. Warren doesn’t talk much about the Bible in his book, but in the one chapter he does, he shares that the Hebrew words which are translated “’to be angry’ literally means ‘to snort’ and ‘to be hot or passionate.’ Anger has a distinctly physical quality about it” (165).
Finally, similar to Powlison, Warren encourages journaling as a helpful tool to identify anger and its root causes and help you better familiarize yourself with your responses to situations and environments. This is something that I have started over these past two months and am finding the exercise of journaling to be spiritually and emotionally beneficial.
I’m grateful for these contributions, but was fundamentally disappointed with the book. Warren’s book is not rooted enough either biblically or psychologically to stand as a significant help. As I mentioned earlier, for Warren, the most important root to get at when managing your anger is your self-concept and self-esteem. “When your self-concept is well put together and you have plentiful self-esteem,” Warren says, “you have ample energy to run your life” (175). And later he says, “No friendship you have is as crucial to your self-esteem as the friendship you maintain with yourself. In fact, all your other friendships combined are not as important to the way you feel about yourself as your internal friendship with you is” (187). Warren encourages us to change the way we talk to ourselves, focusing on the positive (“Unfortunately, most people spend considerably more time focusing on their faults than on their strengths” (188).). Ideas of self-concept and self-esteem are not inherently problematic, but they need to be grounded solidly biblically and rooted in our fundamental identity in God as well as our own sin and brokenness. There is no such firm grounding in Warren’s book.
First, throughout, Warren is pushing for the reader to not merely identify anger, but to push toward the root causes of the anger. Anger, Warren says, “is not a primary emotion, but is typically experienced as an almost automatic inner response to hurt, frustration, or fear” (5). Similar to Powlison, Warren identifies a number of different ways in which we handle anger, all of which look different, but all of which bear a family kinship. We need to dig to the bottom of what is causing our anger to be able to deal with it. For Warren, those issues typically revolve around negative self-image and self-perception (more on that later).
Second, Warren helpfully pushes back at some coaching that it is helpful to vent. Psychological research shows us that “aggressive behavior facilitates more aggressive behavior rather than less” (31). Warren pushes back against the bias of psychologists to share. Sometimes, the negative consequences of inappropriate sharing and venting can outweigh the positives.
Third, Warren helpfully lays out the physiological nature of anger and the negative physiological impact of dealing poorly with anger. Warren doesn’t talk much about the Bible in his book, but in the one chapter he does, he shares that the Hebrew words which are translated “’to be angry’ literally means ‘to snort’ and ‘to be hot or passionate.’ Anger has a distinctly physical quality about it” (165).
Finally, similar to Powlison, Warren encourages journaling as a helpful tool to identify anger and its root causes and help you better familiarize yourself with your responses to situations and environments. This is something that I have started over these past two months and am finding the exercise of journaling to be spiritually and emotionally beneficial.
I’m grateful for these contributions, but was fundamentally disappointed with the book. Warren’s book is not rooted enough either biblically or psychologically to stand as a significant help. As I mentioned earlier, for Warren, the most important root to get at when managing your anger is your self-concept and self-esteem. “When your self-concept is well put together and you have plentiful self-esteem,” Warren says, “you have ample energy to run your life” (175). And later he says, “No friendship you have is as crucial to your self-esteem as the friendship you maintain with yourself. In fact, all your other friendships combined are not as important to the way you feel about yourself as your internal friendship with you is” (187). Warren encourages us to change the way we talk to ourselves, focusing on the positive (“Unfortunately, most people spend considerably more time focusing on their faults than on their strengths” (188).). Ideas of self-concept and self-esteem are not inherently problematic, but they need to be grounded solidly biblically and rooted in our fundamental identity in God as well as our own sin and brokenness. There is no such firm grounding in Warren’s book.
July 6, 2023
Generally I would categorize this as a loosely Christian self-help book that references some general psychological findings. It's definitely not scholarly and does not dive deep into any scientific studies. And it was actually a bit surprising to me how the author would on rare occasion reference Scripture but only very briefly and in cursory ways. For that reason, I felt like this book, while very helpful, struggled to "know its place" a bit.
But the helpfulness of this book is certainly there! It's a quick and easy read. Informative. Particularly helpful in revealing the various ways in which anger can be manifested and affect us. It would be too easy to assume that anger is the same as aggression and if you're not exploding then you're simply not an angry person. Not so fast!
The greatest reward of my reading this book has been further understanding the potentially positive value of the energy that anger gives us as a means for dealing with hurts, frustrations, and fears in life. The author does well to offer at least some practical tools and methods, too, for altering our habitual anger responses that are likely unhealthy into ones that are. And though the book is over 30 years old now, as I look at the world around me, I feel like people today desperately need to be reading this book and really processing their anger more productively and learning how to make anger their ally rather than their achilles heel.
But the helpfulness of this book is certainly there! It's a quick and easy read. Informative. Particularly helpful in revealing the various ways in which anger can be manifested and affect us. It would be too easy to assume that anger is the same as aggression and if you're not exploding then you're simply not an angry person. Not so fast!
The greatest reward of my reading this book has been further understanding the potentially positive value of the energy that anger gives us as a means for dealing with hurts, frustrations, and fears in life. The author does well to offer at least some practical tools and methods, too, for altering our habitual anger responses that are likely unhealthy into ones that are. And though the book is over 30 years old now, as I look at the world around me, I feel like people today desperately need to be reading this book and really processing their anger more productively and learning how to make anger their ally rather than their achilles heel.
July 2, 2018
Good book. I feel like everyone could get something out of this. My take-aways:
-This book defines anger differently: rather than conflating anger with an aggressive reaction, it considers anger the physiological arousal that precedes the reaction, a mobilization of your resources to action. It doesn't have to be used destructively, but can be used constructively to fix situations that are causing the person pain, to avoid the hurt in the future. It's been good for me to learn to reframe anger as a positive thing, a gift we've been given, and something essential to the human experience.
-It's also been good for me to understand that anger MUST be used constructively. It can't be ignored, or it will start coming out in other ways (anxiety, deteriorating health, etc). We need to use our anger to come up with strategies to fix the situations that continually trigger our anger, we can't just allow our anger to be aroused over and over with no result. I'm now committed to working through my frustrations to find a positive end, rather than trying to ignore them and considering my own anger a problem I need to just push down.
I can see now that the road ahead of me is going to be a long and hard one on this, but the steps are illuminated a little more clearly for me now.
-This book defines anger differently: rather than conflating anger with an aggressive reaction, it considers anger the physiological arousal that precedes the reaction, a mobilization of your resources to action. It doesn't have to be used destructively, but can be used constructively to fix situations that are causing the person pain, to avoid the hurt in the future. It's been good for me to learn to reframe anger as a positive thing, a gift we've been given, and something essential to the human experience.
-It's also been good for me to understand that anger MUST be used constructively. It can't be ignored, or it will start coming out in other ways (anxiety, deteriorating health, etc). We need to use our anger to come up with strategies to fix the situations that continually trigger our anger, we can't just allow our anger to be aroused over and over with no result. I'm now committed to working through my frustrations to find a positive end, rather than trying to ignore them and considering my own anger a problem I need to just push down.
I can see now that the road ahead of me is going to be a long and hard one on this, but the steps are illuminated a little more clearly for me now.
April 7, 2018
Overall the book is written with a easy to read format for people that struggle with anger issues. I have always had issues with anger but people couldn't tell because of my laidback demeanor. I was somatic and then one in a while would explode about something dumb, usually while dealing with strangers because I would have been embarrassed of my anger otherwise. I worked through this book diligently over a year, really thinking and wanting to healthily accept anger in a positive way and minimizing any form of aggression in myself. I've never been super aggressive, never more than yelled something I didn't mean, I don't drink.. but I knew I was holding onto unhealthy anger. This book really did help as I listened and talked it through with my anxiety counseling as well. I highly recommend it. It has made a large difference in my life.
June 27, 2020
I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to capitalize on their anger and make it work for them instead of against them. It has short chapters and it’s an easy read. Loved it and will implement many of the teachings!
March 12, 2023
This book had, in my opinion, good and easily doable advice for someone dealing with anger issues.
January 30, 2012
I don't feel that I have an "anger problem," so this book has been sitting on a shelf for years. I finally read it and truly did take away some good things from it. The book espouses being more self-aware and discusses different ways to deal with anger aggression, all the while pointing out, that anger itself is power that needs to be properly channeled.
It's an easy read and has something in it for everyone.
It's an easy read and has something in it for everyone.
August 24, 2012
A pretty decent book, especially for those just realizing they have a problem with anger and want to change it. There's some good ideas, some not-so-great ideas, but a book I would recommend overall.
February 13, 2013
I liked it! I liked the fact that the chapters were short and the information easily to follow. Everything is broken down for you and you don't have to figure things out. I am actually implementing the information suggested and it's working!
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April 2, 2008I was referred this book to learn about "somatizing" how you can internalize anger and it turns into health issues etc..
August 20, 2019
Great book.
February 8, 2016
Should be required reading for anyone married, in the teen years, are ting a teen or supervising or interacting with any other human being. A biblical approach to anger, I really enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews