Posted by Steve Wolf.
GOING BEYOND ANGER MANAGEMENT
BY DEVELOPING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
by Dr. Steve Wolf
I’m a Clinical Psychologist who, after working with many Alcohol & Drug Counselors over the past 30 years, has developed great respect for the work you all do, often as overworked, underpaid providers of front line mental health services within our society.
I’d like to thank CCAPP for welcoming me to participate in the Weekly Dispatch.*
This week I’d like to talk a bit about Anger Management. Until now, going to an Anger Management Class has been like going to the Dentist. Most people don’t go to the dentist until they are in pain. Similarly, most people don’t go to an Anger Management Class until they have physically hurt or emotionally threatened someone so badly, that they’ve been told by a Judge to go to Anger Management classes or go to jail, lose a job or lose a relationship. Then, for many folks attending Anger Management Classes, its like going to detention hall in high school. You have to show up but you don’t get much benefit. You may learn some information about anger and how to manage it, much of which you may already know, but you don’t walk out of that class room acting any differently. You don’t learn to change your behavior.
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can learn to teach your clients to go Beyond Anger Management by developing their self-control as they become emotionally smarter to avoid creating problems in their future.
Some folks don’t wait until they need root canal before going to their dentist. They see the value of brushing and flossing and visiting the dentist yearly for prevention, to avoid the pain.
Similarly, some folks see the value of developing emotional awareness and self-control to reduce negative consequences of abusive anger expression in their personal and work relationships before it becomes problematic. They also see the value of developing Mindfulness and of becoming Emotionally Smarter.
You can learn new ways to support your clients to develop new behavior patterns, over time, to replace old, habitual, dysfunctional habits: to become emotionally smarter.
We all recognize that Drug and Alcohol Addiction Counseling is not just about teaching classes to addicts about sobriety; it’s about saving lives.
We also understand that Recovery includes developing increasingly more meaningful, honest, loving relationships and better self-control. Learning to handle anger expression often goes hand in hand with both: achieving and maintaining sobriety and achieving and maintaining relationships.
I’m here to serve as a resource for you to expand your therapeutic-counseling-coaching skills by attaining three additional Certifications to develop your career.
I have developed the Taming Your Anger with Emotional Intelligence Program (TYA) to train and certify folks like yourself who would like to enhance their counseling career, at work or in private practice, by learning to teach others to Tame their Anger and develop their Emotional Intelligence (EQ) as they develop their own.*
You can learn to teach your clients to become emotionally smarter:
- To become more aware, more mindful and more able to communicate feelings.
- To become more sympathetic and empathetic with others’ feelings.
- To become more understanding of Emotions.
- To develop self-control to avoid creating problems with anger expression.
I welcome you to join us, Mondays at 4:30 PM Pacific Time, at www.shrinkdifferentradio.com, beginning Monday August 29th, as we use radio to explore the field of Psychotherapy, Counseling and Coaching. I look forward to sharing my work with you in the future.
*BRIEF BIO: I am a published author (“Romancing the Shadow for a Vital Authentic Life” with Dr. Connie Zweig, 1997) and a Diplomate of the National Anger Management Association
(Namass.org). I’ve maintained a private therapy practice for 30 years. I directed the first Rikers Island prison drug program. I volunteered with Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to co-create an acupuncture detox program on LA’s skid row. For five years I was Psychologist in charge of co-occurring disorders at the Cider House program for men coming from prison, jail, and the streets. I developed and taught the Taming Your Anger with Emotional intelligence program in LA’s women’s prison. I also taught it as high school curriculum to hi-risk inner city teens on probation and, as an Adjunct Associate Professor at USC, I taught the same program to Dental students at the Ostrow School of Dentistry. I’ve been producing the “Shrink Different Radio Show with Doc Wolf” for the past several years and I am Founder and Director of the Wolf Training Institute. (A more complete resume is available at www.TamingYourAnger.com )
Contact: steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com