Customer Reviews

The Healing Power of Anger: The Unexpected Path to Love and Fulfillment

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"Most people associate anger with loud, scary, and bitter explosions. But I define anger as the natural healing energy that the body generates in response to an injury. This energy is meant to address or tend to the injury." ~John Rifkin

When I think of anger, two things come to mind. Being emotionally abused by someone who is angry and being angry enough to change the situation. In many cases, my own anger in return just makes situations worse, especially when maintaining the relationship and allowing the angry person to repeat the abuse.

Without peaceful consistency, I experience conflict and disorder as if what is occurring inside is represented on the outside in my environment. Leading a well-organized life where everyone is pleasant and kind seems a dream. That is why the title of this book is slightly more than intriguing. Normally one assumes that the path to peace is love and understanding. Anger lashes out and is hardly an appealing cozy hug.

John Rifkin sees anger as a path to a more fulfilled life. He explores the reasons we "develop holes in our heart" and then gives practical ways we can deal with our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. He delves into the emotional damage you may have experienced while a child and examines anxiety (PTSD), mood disorders, depression, bipolar disorder and ways we misuse our anger. Chapter Seven contains helpful information about resolving conflict in relationships and how to improve communication skills.

Is anger a wake up call? Could you be anxious and angry because you have made choices that are harming you? Does anger help you to break out of complacency and change your life? What are the seven categories of emotional damage from childhood? Category six started to sound very familiar.

John Rifkin discusses anger on the entire scale of expression, from angry red anger to passive-aggressive anger. He also explains why Emotional Intimacy is one of the most difficult things to accomplish. I liked his ideas about identifying low self-esteem and why anger often takes the form of self-destructive behaviors. He explains why individuals can seem to be emotionally unaware and why people who are depressed often find themselves in a downward spiral. Is there hope and what can be done about depression and anger?

"Anger plays a central role in major depression and in all depressive behavior. Therapists define depression as anger turned against the self, combined with a sense of hopelessness or helplessness." ~Chapter 5

If you are interested in anger and want to understand why you react or the basis for the reaction, then this is an excellent place to start. This book is very much about learning to communicate effectively so you can use milder feelings of anger to solve the problems in your life. John Rifkin has truly written a book to help us understand anger from a variety of perspectives. I actually started reading this book when I was quite angry and by the time I finished, I felt like finally someone understood! Highly recommended to anyone experiencing anger, conflict in relationships or a general feeling of frustration, anxiety or even deep depression. If you think you may be bipolar or know someone who experiences wide mood swings, this book can help you understand bipolar disorder.

This book would also be an excellent resource for social workers, psychologists and counselors. Throughout this book there are numerous case studies. The Healing Power of Anger addresses all the shades of anger and how it can lead to depression, addictions and on the flip side, could help you overcome both.

~The Rebecca Review

On its way to the bestsellers list. This is the most insightful, intelligent, and practical analysis of anger I have ever come across. John Rifkin is onto something. His Stop, Drop, and Roll technique will change your life. A must-read if you suffer from anxiety or depression. Beautifully written, well paced, logically organized, helpful metaphors, an easy read. Perhaps the only advice on anger to date that is of any use to anyone who seeks real and lasting change in their relationships.

Author John Rifkin is a licensed clinical psychologist, meaning he's got a Ph.D but also hands-on clinical experience. He's written this book based on 28 years of observation and work with patients who have a variety of psychological ailments. At the root of these, proposes Rifkin, is anger. Anger misguided leads to depression, violence, and addictive behavior.

The chapters on addictive behavior throw a new light on a well-trodden subject. Rifkin ties in angry behavior and emotion to a variety of addictions including substance abuse, and he does not fall into the trap of simplifying this difficult health problem. Even though addictive behavior has complex causes and manifestations, Rifkin boils it down to one essential sentence "Please love me!" These chapters are vital reading to anyone with a substance abuse problem, or to anyone who has a family member with this problem. Rifkin has a method called "stop, drop and roll" to handle cravings that come from various triggers and angry outburst.

There is a huge amount of ground covered in this book in just 200 pages. The writing is clear and the stories are real; this isn't theory--it's about people and who they are and what they do. You are certain to find some aspect of your own behavior here--perhaps that will be uncomfortable or enlightening. Either way, this is a very revealing book. Absolutely recommended reading for anyone.

A Boulder psychotherapist with 29 years of experience, John Rifkin's book, "The Healing Power of Anger" is one of immeasurable value. The premise of the book, that anger contains energy that can be used to empower you and fix what's hurting you, is brilliant! He weaves real life case examples throughout the book to illustrate the practical application of this concept. You won't regret reading this book - it will challenge your previous assumptions and could change your life.

In this book, psychologist John Rifkin presents a simple plan for dealing with anger stemming from childhood injuries. His "Stop, Drop, and Roll" technique is an easy-to-follow system to acheive what Dr. Rifkin calls "unbending" your anger. Stop involves taking the time to pause and notice your anger or other emotions; Drop is the process of becoming grounded, distancing yourself from the event and thinking through what happened; and Roll is an action step which allows you to use your anger in a more functional, adaptive manner.

Underlying Dr. Rifkin's theory of anger is the concepts of the "Good" Kid, "Bad" Kid, and Bad Parent. While this model has definite merit and is a useful means for putting anger issues into a historical context, Dr. Rifkin becomes a bit jargon-y in his use of additional terms such as Hurt Child, Adult Ego State, Internal Parent, and Old Business Anger. In addition, he utilizes frequent references to popular culture; although these can be interesting, they are often quite esoteric as well, which may make them unrelatable to some readers. A final criticism is that Dr. Rifkin's writing style can be somewhat awkward at times. For example, instead of simply and concisely listing the symptoms of major depression, he draws them out in a needlessly long narrative.

Although I did see this book as having some flaws, as a clinical psychologist myself, I would definitely recommend the book to clients who were struggling with anger issues which seemed to have roots in their childhood. Overall, I found this to be a readable, useful, and mostly straightforward work, and I would rate it about 3 1/2 to 4 stars.

Some 'self-help' books have as much an impact to last until the last page is read: permanent tools to make constructive changes in our lives, our manner of coping with challenges, and our modes of adjusting to both our own personality traits and those of the people around us are more rare than the number of help books circulating would indicate.

What makes John Rifkin's THE HEALING POWER OF ANGER unique is his decision to bring focus on an aspect of life adjustment - recognizing our anger, the etiology of our anger, analyzing it and then putting it to the use for which it was initially embedded in our response system - is a lesson that he allows us to incorporate into our personalities via warmly personal conversation, meaningful examples from his vast experience as a psychotherapist.

Rifkin sensitively points out the fact that anger is a response to threat, that learned responses from childhood as to how to repair the 'hole in the heart' left by emotional injuries produce 'anger' which is a tool that can either be self destructive or, when recognized and understood, can actually be a healing tool. His very useable 'Stop, Drop, and Roll' technique takes us through the steps in a way that in Rifkin's hands straddle's that resistant force of change and aids the reader/patient through a very workable, imprintable method of dealing with anger and making it a useful tool once controlled and 'bent'.

It becomes obvious in reading his book why Rifkin has been successful in his career: his patience and no drama approach to problem solving and self-improvement are comforting without being indulgent. He extends his techniques to understanding addiction and intimacy barricades and fills the reader with the sense that his overwhelming driver is love for his patients (and us) and in helping each of us achieve that Valhalla state! This is a very refreshing book, a wise lesson much in need of our learning, and a complete pleasure to read. Grady Harp, July 06

I loved this book. Dr. Rifkin explains clearly how to use anger as a process of healing. Through exercises, a lot of examples and his technique of "Stop", "Drop", and "Roll", he shows the reader how to work step by step through an episode of anger. This is an excellent and easy to use technique to transform anger constructively.

I highly recommend this book, he not only cover anger and how to transform it to your benefit, but he also covers the roots of anger, addictions, intimacy with others, depression and more. The healing Power of Anger will help you to see anger as a gift to transform your life.

As a clinical psychotherapist, I have read many self-help books, several of which are about anger management. This book is absolutely the best of the bunch. Written clearly and eloquently, it thoroughly covers the causes for anger from early childhood to present time and gives a straightforward method ~ not to "control" (suppress) anger but how to work through it and use it in a way that creates positive solutions to problems that need to be addressed.

I really liked the central idea in this book-- the notion that anger is an energy created as part of the natural process of healing. I think that a person can get a lot out of the exercises provided, which are designed to turn that energy to a positive end.

Probably the thing that I found personally most useful were the exercises. I have the feeling that they are something that I will return to over time. As tools to help strengthen the "stop, drop and roll" method of dealing with anger, the exercises seem practical and very valuable.

I got a lot out of the book, and very much appreciated having the chance to read it. I would also recommend it to other readers. I will echo the sentiment of one of the other readers and wish that Mr. Rifkin would get picked up by a more established imprint. Particularly in some of the later chapters I felt as though the (very good) ideas could have benefited from a little more editorial rigor and organization.

One of the better self-help books out there, I think. And that's high praise coming from somebody who generally has a very low tolerance for the genre.

When people think about anger, images of violence, yelling, and screaming often come to mind. What doesn't usually come to mind are images of healing. Dr. Rifkin has set out to change that.

In his recently published book, "The Healing Power of Anger," John Rifkin argues that anger is the unexpected path to love and fulfillment in life. I first met John at a presentation he was giving in Denver, Colorado. I have to admit that at first, I was somewhat skeptical about his ideas. Placing "Anger" and "Healing" together sounded more like a gimmick than a sound philosophy. However, the more I heard him speak about his revelations from working with clients for over two decades, the more his ideas began to resonate with me.

In his book, he takes great strides to make his ideas accessible to both professionals, and non-professionals. Whereas some psychological and self-help authors try to weave elaborate formulas and steps to well-being, John chooses to keep his methods as simple and easy to understand as possible. This couldn't be more clear than with his unique "Stop, Drop, and Roll plan" to "unbend" anger. He writes:

"The idea of "bent anger" may seem kind of strange. Consider, however, my definition of anger: the natural healing energy that the body produces in response to an injury. If anger isn't used to fix what is hurting you, it will be "bent" into some dysfunctional use of your anger. Bent anger, then, means anger which is dysfunctional. The Stop, Drop, and Roll technique will help you redirect your anger..."

"...I call my system Stop, Drop, and Roll because it's easy to remember, and it's what you're supposed to do when you are on fire. Before you can Stop, Drop, and Roll, however, you first have to notice that you are on fire."

John then discusses in depth what it means to recognize that you're on fire, and offers concrete examples of how to cope and heal from that injury.

One of my favorite sections in his book deals with anxiety. In particular, anxiety as a result of fear and anger, and fear and anger as a result of injury. He offers helpful techniques to understand and better cope with anxiety.

Further on in his book, he delves into the relationship between anger and mood disorders, addiction, and intimacy. Showing step-by-step how anger can be used to understand and heal emotional injuries.

The next to last chapter focuses on healing the hole in your heart. He reviews and consolidates the methods discussed throughout the book, and presents practical approaches to healing.

The last chapter sets a realistic tone to his entire message, which is "Do Whatever It Takes." Do whatever it takes to become committed to change, do whatever it takes to regain and experience emotional intimacy, and do whatever it takes to heal.