When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within [Paperback]

Matthew McKay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1989

Complete step-by-step guide to changing habitual, anger-generating thoughts while developing healthier, more effective ways of getting your needs met. It is ideal for therapists who work with families or teach anger control and helpful for health professionals who treat the effects of Type A personality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A good book...practical and down to earth...it will prove quite helpful to a great many readers."
—Albert Ellis, Ph.D., founder of rational emotive behavior therapy, and author of A New Guide to Rational Living

“The latest edition of When Anger Hurts is at the cutting edge of recent work on anger. The work on emergency anger control and the costs of anger is an important contribution to the literature. The new presentations on creating an anger coping plan and providing anger inoculation techniques add substantially to the armamentarium of individuals dealing with this problem.”
—Aaron T. Beck, MD, professor of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, founder and director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, and author, Love is Never Enough and Prisoners of Hate

“The authors have done an excellent job in revising an already excellent book. They have integrated new research topics, such as addressing anger when driving. McKay and collegues provide a wealth of practical strategies fo ranger management and making self-directed change. User friendly, simply and clearly written, without professional jargon, the book is a delight to read and should be very useful to clinician and lay person alike.”
—Jerry Deffenbacher, Ph.D., professor of psychology and anger researcher, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, and coauthor, Overcoming Situational Anger and General Anger

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

The second edition of this best-selling classic book — a quarter of a million copies sold — draws on the latest research on dealing with anger, including new chapters on emergency anger control, the interpersonal and physiological costs of anger, road rage, and parental anger. Includes techniques for creating an anger-coping plan and anger inoculation. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 319 pages
• Publisher: New Harbinger Pubns Inc (November 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0934986762
• ISBN-13: 978-0934986762
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book on anger really works!, November 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within (Paperback)

[e-mail] from Tulsa, OK., USA Nov. 5, 1999 I consider this to be an excellent book on the subject of anger! Why? Because it helped me!

I read the reviews of this book on Amazon, and I am pleased to say I am one of the extremists. I thought it was well written and direct, not clouded with excessive rhetoric or "powdered sugar". It places the responsibility for anger right where it can be fixed, on me. It does not involve itself with painstaking research into the "Why" of anger, although that may come out through the use of the Anger Journal. It does contain many suggested causal areas, and my mind was quick to point out my guilty participation. I have gone from multiple angry outbursts per day to one or so mild angry responses per week in less than two weeks. Learning about "Shoulds" and "Blamers" can do that! And was I surprised to learn that I was contributing to my cholesterol problem by being angry! Anger was killing me!

It is behavioral in nature, and for those looking for, and brave enough to use, a path to correcting anger as a response to problems, this is your book! I strongly recommend it!

When Anger Hurts (chapters)

Understanding Anger

1. When Anger Helps 2. The Myths of Anger 3. The Physiological Costs of Anger 4. The Interpersonal Costs of Anger 5. Anger As A Choice - The Two-Step Model 6. Who's Responsible? 7. Combating Trigger Thoughts 8. Controlling Stress Step By Step 9. Stopping Escalation 10. Coping Through Healthy Self-Talk 11. Response Choice Rehearsal 12. Problem-Solving Communication 13. Images Of Anger 14. Anger As A Defense

Anger At Home

15. Anger And Children 16. Spouse Abuse

I have made a detailed outline of the book. If you'd like to have it, e-mail me.

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Facing Anger, February 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within (Paperback)

"When Anger Hurts" is an excellent book. I had mistakenly believed that to hold in anger was bad for your health both physically and psychologically. Although I never got angry with my casual friends, my "loved ones" were not spared. I realized something wasn't right about the way I was expressing my anger. This book was an excellent source of information for me. It made me look at how anger is good if we use it to propel us to positive action. If you read this book, you will gain tremendous insight on what triggers anger. It will amaze you! This knowledge alone will help you to use your anger more effectively and appropriately. We need not make our lives painful. Holding onto anger and blaming only make our lives less joyous. This book will help you live a life that is more fulfilling. It will at least give you a wonderful start.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Long-haul read, but very effective for me., April 19, 1999

By 

Mike Hession ([e-mail]) (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within (Paperback)

I picked up the book in a library, and have been looking for a copy to own ever since. The book painstakingly talks you through the argument that anger is not in itself bad, but that anger is a response which at some level is a choice.

The chapters take you through the process of identifying the patterns of thoughts which trigger anger, such as blaming, globalisation (making a mountain out of a molehill) etc. Once these triggers have been identified, the book offers a number of strategies to cope with them.

The book emphasises that by controlling your response to the trigger thoughts you can choose not to be angry. It's hard work, and no quick-fix, but I found it more helpful than anything else I've tried.

As a bit of background, I am a happly married family man with two kids, but I found I had this bullying side to my nature which was out of all proportion to the stimuli received. It's still there, but the techniques in the book kind of slow down and separate the stages of becoming angry in this way, and so have given me a chance to choose a different way of coping with the stimuli.

Anyway, it's a book I would recommend.