Customer Reviews

The Anger Habit Workbook: Proven Principles to Calm the Stormy Mind

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read a number of books on anger management over the last ten years to try and help with being irritable and too quick to anger. Most were not practical enough and, even the ones that did offer exercises, didn't seem to help in any lasting way.

This book is different though. It approaches anger from some directions that are completely new to me. Because I now understand so much more about the reasons I've been using anger I'm actually finding I can control it! Because the whole book is practical exercises (as opposed to the usual "journal after the event" type thing I'm used to seeing) it really helps develop your understanding and skills while working through it.

"The Anger Habit" is also interesting because it offers more background and examples, however this Workbook stands up perfectly well on it's own, another reason to give it a resounding five stars!

The Anger Habit Workbook is a useful companion book to The Anger Habit. It contains right-to-the-point instructions and exercises for cooling down anger, owning anger as your own problem, reducing righteousness and how to identify and reduce control problems. Especially helpful are the "lessons" on criticism, judgmental thinking, and self-importance. Unfortunately, the gem of the book, the treatment of hurry as anger, is hidden in the twelfth chapter instead of up front where it belongs. In using this books with clients I recommend this chapter third rather than twelfth where it is in the book. All of the chapters are pretty independent from one another so that individuals or classes can pick and choose those topics they want to work with. This book, along with The Anger Habit, is going to be around for a long time.

Of all the books I've ever read on the subject, this book is like a key. It lays bare all of the reasons we use anger to the point of almost being embarrassing. I have always thought of my anger being justified for reason or another and I can never think about anger the same way after reading this book. I think this book can save many many relationships for those who take the time to read it.

Dr. Semmelroth has hit a homerun. I have the 2002 edition and this is what I am commenting on. I am a psychologist and do anger management training. This book is a personal favorite. Why? It's so me. It makes sense and it is practical. I did not want to reinvent the wheel and searched for ease of learning. There are basic tennants in anger management and most of the books and workbooks cover it in some form. People learn differently. Some with words, some from observation and most all from the results of doing it.

I like this book because it does "stand alone" for me. I don't know if the newer text does so. Dr. Semmelroth is my kind of guy because we learn by doing. His language is down to earth, and we do our own feedback by taking notes and reflecting upon what we have learned.

In identifying anger as a habit, it makes sense, because we all have the behaviors that comfort us. Whether they are healthy or not. Understanding it is a habit allows me to take control.

Anger has been an effective tool for me to accomplish tasks against the odds. On the other hand it can be a problem that prevents me from social interaction as well as a violation of other people's space.

When I got to lesson 5 on righteous anger, I smiled and got an Ah Ha experience. That's me! Other reviewers have found a different chapter.

My text has 13 lessons and each one has significance. Change comes through repetition of the new habits. As I tell my clients it's not what you read, it's what you do with the information.

First, a caveat: this book is not about understanding or transcending anger, it is about getting rid of it. The whole premise of the book is that anger is not a valid or useful response in relationships.

When you consider that anger is likely to have developed evolutionarily to protect us from death or harm, it makes sense that in *most* modern-day instances (and more on this in a bit), anger is not serving us. The author does not discuss this idea, but it makes sense to me.

Instead, Dr. Semmelroth makes the case, and I think convincingly, that anger is a set of behaviors we have learned to use to as an effort to control people or situations. That awareness alone seems like it could be hugely powerful.

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Ideas I found to be useful:

There are some real pearls in this book. Among them:
* anger is not like a pressure hose that must erupt, but it is instead a set of behaviors.
* anger is an attempt to solve a problem by seizing control.
* anger is simply a tool, but usually an ineffective one.
* it is better to use other tools.

His "tools" are really just awareness in different situations:
* being aware of what you are like when you are angry.
* being aware of what you are trying to control when you are angry.
* recognizing the cost of trying to control things (energy expended, harmed relationships).
* identifying your anger triggers.

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Ideas I found to be questionable:

The idea that instead of smothering or expressing anger, we should get rid of it, seems questionable in certain circumstances. Therefore, I believe his ideas ignore some of the real reasons humans developed the anger response. It seems that anger has a value in abusive parent-child relationships, for example. I doubt that humans respond to parental anger with more anger only because we need to learn how to be angry for future threatening situations. It seems likely that we respond also to protect ourselves against harmful parents.

In some circumstances endeavoring to get rid of anger may actually be more harmful than not. The child may need the anger to propel him to escape or leave. Sadness or fear are not likely help a child remove him/herself from a dangerous, habitually abusive or neglectful situation. If humans have lived in tribes for some of our human history, it makes sense for a child to try to find a better parent in the tribe, and anger could be a tool for this.

Tellingly, nowhere does Dr. Semmelroth state that people are likely to have learned the set of anger behaviors from their parents. I think we all are aware that angry people usually come from angry parents. Nowhere does he acknowledge that the likely result of being exposed to so much anger...is anger. (!)

But he does go on to assert in several places that often people find themselves angry at their parents for lack of love. But he insists in several places that parents don't *owe* children love, instead it is a *gift*. I found this highly suspicious. Parent/child relationships are not equal. Parents have power over and responsibility for their children; not vice-versa.

It is as if abusive behavior by parents never exists in Dr. Semmelroth's world since he never mentions it. All anger is the result of the feeling of entitlement, and never a natural and evolutionary appropriate reaction to abuse or neglect. When I first read the "love is a gift and not an obligation" assertion I thought....hmmmm...."he doth protest too much". I would not be at all surprised to discover that Dr. Semmelroth turns out to be either the parent of adult children who are angry at him for his parenting, or the partner of someone who is angry at her parents and Dr. Semmelroth for percieved or real lack of love.

If one considers evolution -- indeed, it is the parents who must give all they can to the offspring to ensure not only survival of the offspring, but to ensure propagation of the genes through natural selection. Therefore, the happiest, healthiest, most effective offspring will be the ones that succeed evolutionarily, and that success comes largely from the parents via genes and rearing. It only follows that this applies to the human condition.

If one considers social science, there is the famous study of infant monkeys who would rather endure abuse than suffer neglect. While the abused monkeys were not necessarily healthy, they survived. The neglected monkeys simply died. To say that parents don't *owe* their children love is not even legally true today...society recognizes the harm of neglect to the extent that if it is discovered, children may be removed from the home for their own protection.

I am not an expert in evolution or social science, but common sense tells me that Dr. Semmelroth throws most of what I've read on evolution and social science out the window.

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Language and style I found to be questionable:

To further stoke my caution I found some of the things he says to be biased -- sometimes downright strange -- in the way he asserts them. I would expect this from a layperson, but not a psychologist, who is supposed to be aware of his own biases and judgements. In several cases I expected a more professional tone. Examples:

"A useful rule for persons, organizations, businesses and government is: leave everything as voluntary as you possibly can. This rule dramatically reduces the amount of energy and resources needed to keep a person, organization, business, or government healthy and happy." (small-government bias showing)

"once we get beyond our barbaric young childhood we learn that anger is also about justice". Is he saying that childhood is barbaric, or that we erroneously think it is? (comment sounds like a sarcastic response to someone in his own life)

"whining is a form of anger designed to take advantage of other peoples' goodwill" (judgemental tone)

Section title: "Recognizing phony feelings of injustice" (again, judgemental tone).

You get the idea. I got the feeling that Dr. Semmelroth is writing from not just professional inquriy, but from the sting of personal experience. Which may have produced some of the great insights in the book.

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Conclusion:
Highly recommended. This book should be read and used by anyone who experiences habitual anger and is at a loss for what to do about it.

If that person is looking for empathy or understanding about what may have happened to produce his anger habit, this definitely is not the book.

Readers may want to use it in conjunction with outher resources, particularly if anger is informed by pain and sorrow, past or present. And what anger is not?

This was a good book and was delivered in a timely manner. It was just as described.

This book teaches you how to look at things in your life differently, how you react to situations differently, good book