Customer Reviews

Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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Carol Tavris offers some very practical advice. Apart from when the expression of anger is intended to dissolve a relationship, anger becomes effective when: (1) the anger is directed at the offending person (telling friends may increase anger); (2) the expression satisfies your need to influence the situation and/or correct an injustice; and, (3) your approach seems likely to change the other person's behavior, which means you can express yourself so they can understand your point of view and so they will cooperate with you. She takes issue with those who would encourage venting. Like Harriet Goldhor Lerner, her goal is change.

I first read this book about eight years ago. Though some of Ms. Tavris' analysis is suspect, the vast majority is well-founded and accurate IF YOU APPROACH IT WITH AN OPEN MIND. Unfortunately, simply implying that anger is a learned, self-controllable response provokes a very angry reaction in many people (see other reviews) that makes it hard to get the point across. Tavris has a lot to say. Unfortunately, very few people will listen.

Dr. Tavris has based this book on serious research on the subject of anger. She debunks many of the pop myths about the purpose of anger and helps the reader to understand the causes of expressed anger. Her central point is that anger is a self-reinforcing mechanism that does not have healthy outcomes in itself. She explains the physiological purpose and effects of anger, pointing out that we really don't need to be angry in our lives.

Instead she suggests various models and techniques to help understand what "sets us off" and how to manage anger. A number of situations are covered and illustrated by personal and clinical examples.

This is not a prescription for a quick fix for quick tempers - while Dr. Tavris is sympathetic about the many reasons why we get angry, she avoids simplistic behavioral techniques as well as overly introspective ones

I have not written a book ! am not a psychologist or psychoanalyst ! and I am often a very angry person (wife and mother especially and Ms Travis has insight about this kind of problems). I went through therapy thinking I was going to discover some awful thing that had happened in my past but could not uncover anything and I have to come to terms with what is only MY problem eventually. It did make me a more open and dynamic person though and this experience for me was quite well explained by Carol Tavris` book.

I think the angry reviews in part misunderstand what she wrote. It is not true that she "ignores the fact that different individuals have learned different ways! of dealing with frustration and anger" as the writer of another book on the subject puts it. She quite acknowledges that. She also thinks anger is useful in certain ways.

Please read or re-read her book. It is refreshing, full of humor and yes she has some reason to criticize the ALLMIGHTY UNCONSCIOUS that unconscious shrinks interpret as they wish. Good thing that the unconscious cannot talk back !!!

Carol Tavris has written a clear, informative, interesting, and meaningful analysis of anger. She documents the various ways in which anger has been understood versus misunderstood by leading (popular) self-help authors and researchers, and distills from these various treatments helpful guidelines for understanding and managing anger. Carol Tavris is one of those rare writers whose writings are informed by a conscientious reading of research coupled with commonsense conclusions suggestive of easy to understand, helpful behavioral guidance. This book is a winner!

This book is extremely well written and contains many fascinating little tidbits of info on history, culture, religion and philosophy, but it was ultimately a bad book on anger. Anger is indeed the "misunderstood emotion" and Dr. Tavris understands it least of all. For her it is a mere social and/or political construct that is bad and can be programmed away. Her attitude reminds me of that old Twilight Zone eppisode aboute the society where everyone had to think "happy thoghts" all the time because the dictator could read your mind and would do horrible things to you if you weren't sunny and joyful. It seems obvious to me that the feelings in the rich spectrum of human emotions are fundamentally good because they were given to us by nature to enhance our survival if used properly. "Dark" emotions such as anger are tools to protect the self and the soul against physical or spiritual predators. Certainly many people overemphasize anger, but they are usually people who have been hurt a lot, so their defense systems have been programmed to be over-active. In her zeal against this emotion, Dr. Tavris glorifies cultures and religions that share her distaste for expressions of anger. Two of her favorites tend to be the early Christians (before the converion of the barbarians) and the traditional Japanese. Admittedly both of these groups had good traits, but they obviosly suffered from their rigid emotional control. For instance, they turned their anger against themselves. Frankly, I would rather live in a culture that tolerates a little too much swearing and bickering than cultures where the highest expression of virtue is to be fed to lions or to impale oneself on a sword. Of course, the martyrs and the samurai accepted their fates graciously with a smile (or at least not a grimace) on their faces, so Tavris considers them paragons of mental health. Jews, on the other hand, tend to complain and fight back when they are oppressed and hurt (imagine that!) so they figure in (along with Arabs) as one of Dr. Tavris' least favorite ethnic/religious groups. Of course, her anti-Semitism is very sugar-coated and non-angry. She doesn't hate the Jews, she just wishes they would be nice and stop being so overly expressive and sarcastic. And, even though her political convictions seem pretty left-wing (in a genteel, Ivy League cocktail party sense), she does not seem to see anger as playing a legitimate role in motivating feminists, gay people or minorities to revolutionary change. She is not against much needed social change, of course. They should just be done in a polite manner. P.S. Have a happy, anger-free day! (laugh)

Carol Tavris' book is direct, funny, and involves the reader in a way that makes it accessible by anyone, even a university student who was merely curious about whether she would be considered an angry person. Tavris was straightforward, comprehensive, and clearly taught that recognizing others' and your own perceptions is the key to problem solving situations. She also taught that problem solving is the best solution to anger, though in certain situations, anger is a solution.

Whenever a researcher challenges a well entrenched belief, ripples are felt throughout society. Dr. Tavris appeared like a voice in the wilderness when dearly held mythologies about anger were the standards guiding psychology professionals and policy makers. This book is very readable with ample research and anecdotes to make it understandable to a diverse audience. Well done.

It has been sixteen years since Carol Tavris first published this book, and she deserves credit for focusing attention on the terrific confusion in American society surrounding the phenomenon of anger. Dr. Tavris draws on her training and expertise as a social psychologist (not a clinical psychologist or psychotherapist) to presumably enhance the reader's understanding of anger: that undeniably most misunderstood human emotion. In so doing, she attempts to debunk some common assumptions about anger, e.g., that frustration causes anger. But in making her argument against the classic "frustration-aggression hypothesis," Tavris is guilty of cause-and-effect reasoning of the most simplistic, mechanistic and concrete kind. While frustration surely does not always lead to anger in the form of a reflexively automatic, knee-jerk response, and certainly not to aggressive or violent behavior, Tavris ignores the fact that different individuals have learned different ways! of dealing with frustration and anger-- which could explain some of the inconsistencies she finds in the research upon which this theory is based. For example, people who, feeling frustrated, crave ice-cream or head to the nearest multiplex may well feel angry about being frustrated, but be unaware of it; that is to say, they might be unconscious of their anger. The proper inquiry thus turns to how that specific person deals with feelings of frustration and anger--i.e., consciously or unconsciously--instead of whether frustration automatically "causes" anger, or, for that matter, whether anger "causes" aggressive behavior. The ice-cream and movies may be means of ameliorating or avoiding angry feelings rather than, as Tavris suggests, hard, scientific "evidence" that no such emotions are universal in the face of frustration. Indeed, Dr. Tavris does not seem to acknowledge the unconscious in general, leading to a rather superficial analysis and li! mited understanding on her part of the quite complex roots ! of rage and anger. This same misunderstanding of the central role of repressed anger or rage in psychopathology and "madness" in general leads her to yet another mistaken distinction between certain violent eruptions of rage and psychosis. At the same time, Tavris is right in recognizing that one can be angry--even violently enraged--and not technically "psychotic" or "insane." She also makes a valid case against the "ventilationist" mentality underlying various forms of psychotherapy, arguing that far from producing the desired effect of catharsis, rather than "exorcising the anger, . . . can inflame it." These and other well-taken points serve the purpose of pointing our inquiry in the right direction, but Tavris' conclusions fall far short of the mark. Rather than recognizing the crucial importance and vital value of anger--or even rage--to becoming a whole person, she for the most part perpetuates the demonization of this p! rimal, much-needed and potentially creative passion. She seems to take the side of society--and "adjustment" to its sometimes crushing conventions-- against the integrity of the individual, perhaps not such a surprising position for a social psychologist. However, the stifling of anger in the individual for the sake of civility leads not to social harmony and peace but instead to the destructive outbursts of anger and rage we have recently witnessed in American culture. Dr. Tavris' prescription for this so-called senseless violence is to further suppress rather than consciously comprehend and constructively redirect one's anger. It is a misguided prescription that can serve only to promote more madness, evil and continued misunderstanding of the dual-edged, daimonic nature of anger.

Carol Tarvis is putting out there a change in how to see and understand anger. I'm not surprised at the negative comments. Seems too many of us need to hang on to our old views by going to the extreme of criticizing different takes on old beliefs. Oops! Did I make anyone angry?