James Barrett, PhD

In my last post I talked about ways to pitch the idea of self-soothing and recognizing cues and triggers to anger to boys.  The place where I see anger management programs fail the most for boys is teaching these skills out of context.  If a young man calms himself down and walks away from a conflict feeling like he was just made to look like a punk or being ashamed of being a coward our intervention can hardly be deemed a success.  I believe it is critically important to help boys understand that true power and control come from never letting someone else goad you into action.  This is an idea that has existed in martial arts for ages.  Sun Tzu said: “The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.”  When anger management is framed as being derived from a place of strength and mastery rather than suppression and submission, it is much more appealing to young men.  Thus, I never tell my clients that they can’t be angry, but I do ask that they never act out of anger or let someone else “play them out of position” and incite them to act by taunting them or challenging them.  I like to ask boys that if you have to strike back every time you feel you are threatened or challenged then who has the true power?  Who is really in control?  In the next and final installment of this series I will talk about the importance of feeling like “the top dog.”