Road Rage: Car vs. Bicycle

This image was snapped by a witness to a road rage incident where the driver of the car became enraged after the bicyclist shouted for him to slow down. The driver is being charged with 2nd degree kidnapping. The (literal) insanity that people can be "driven" to is amazing. I'm certain that sitting on his couch at home, James Millican (who drove the car) would have told anybody who cared to ask that he would never deliberately ram a bicyclist. But after being shouted at to slow down (and possibly having a few drinks), Millican allowed his reaction to drive him into some serious legal trouble. Fortunately, the cyclist was unharmed, and was able to get off the car when Millican slowed for an intersection.

Why would an otherwise sane human being do this? Once can only speculate ... but we know that anger does not come from external events, but rather from how we (choose) to think about those events. Millican must have felt some threat ... probably to his ego by the shouting cyclist. And once a person feels a threat, even just a psychic one, all bets are off unless they immediately use the tools of emotional intelligence and anger management to rein themselves in.

Self-knowledge and self-control, major components of emotional intelligence, would have helped Millican to not simply react, but to notice his thinking and his reactions and to contain them. Anger management skills could have helped him to de-escalate and behave in a rational manner. If emotional intelligence were considered as important as IQ, if it were taught in schools, Millican would likely not be facing charges and the incident would never have been newsworthy. After all, who can imagine a headline that reads Local Man Practices Anger Management and Avoids Committing Mayhem by Using Emotional Intelligence Skills Gained in Grammar School!

Anger management classes based on stress management help students realize that alcohol is a bad way to relieve stress. Emotional intelligence components help students to understand themselves and their triggers as well as to coach themselves through frustration. These techniques form part of the core curriculum of Anderson & Anderson's Anger Management and Executive Coaching curricula.

Happiness, Complexity, and Emotional Intelligence

Are happy people necessarily more complex people? To understand this counter-intuitive idea we need to begin with the importance of social capital. What exactly is social capital? It's described as an informal network of mutual aid and information exchange that keeps communities thriving. Crucially this network can act as a potential buffer against stress and alienation.

The irony: those who are happy are least susceptible to stress, and thus to anger. "Social capital" turns out to be a major benefit of practicing emotional intelligence. To know oneself and to control oneself lead to greater opportunities for happiness as well as being the foundations for emotional intelligence.

Anger management techniques, such as positive self-talk (essentially being your own coach) help to strengthen these abilities. Journalling on a regular basis can also help us figure out where difficulties lie. As far back as Aristotle, people have recognized that self-care, self-control, and self-awareness form crucial bases for happiness.

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam finds that happier people are more socially connected. This requires social awareness and relationship management—and also form a basis for emotional intelligence.

Maintaining meaningful social connections in a modern life that is ever more disconnected requires creativity and a willingness to embrace the more complex lives that go with holding down a career, commuting, being involved in family, and being a part of one's community.

Complexity leads to involvement and demands solidly developed skills of emotional intelligence. To some these seem to come naturally. Others require practice and growth, often times through executive coaching or an anger management class. But the dividends of greater happiness and less stress come to those who work for it.

Anger Management, a Consumer Alert

The Anderson & Anderson Anger Management Curriculum is currently the only anger management program accepted by the California Superior Court in Los Angeles County for court mandated anger management referrals. At the request of the Anger Management Committee of the Los Angeles Court, Anderson & Anderson is required to provide free copies of its client workbooks to any officer of the court. This includes the District Attorney, City Attorneys, Public Defenders, Commissioners and Judges. In addition, a list of approved Anderson & Anderson providers in Los Angeles County is provided to all Courts quarterly. Any consumer who attends classes not on this list will not receive credit for the classes attended. This arrangement has been in effect for over twelve years.

No court in any state has ever refused to accept the Anderson & Anderson Curriculum for mandated court referrals. This is not by accident; rather, it is based on the following facts regarding this model:

1. The Anderson & Anderson curriculum is published in English and Spanish. It is culturally appropriate for volunteer and mandated clients from businesses/industry and the courts.


2. It is universally accepted throughout the United States, Canada, the UK and most English speaking countries. The Anderson & Anderson model is used in businesses, human resource management, prisons, children services, mental health agencies and correctional settings worldwide.


3. This curriculum is used in conjunction with the Conover Anger Management Assessment. Each client or student is required to complete either the 18 item or the 104 item Anger Management Map. This Map determines the client’s level of functioning in managing anger, stress, communication and empathy/emotional intelligence. A fifth category is motivation to change. The built in post test is designed to determine the success or lack of success for each client. This is as close to evidenced based intervention currently available.


4. As an indication of the dominance of the Anderson & Anderson anger management model, a snapshot of it’s corporate/industry list will demonstrate its widespread use worldwide. The single largest Anderson & Anderson business client is the United States Postal Service with 820,000 employees, other organizations include the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Canadian Department of Mental Health, Cayman Island Prison System, Californian State Board of Prisons, Bermuda Probation Department and Sony Pictures Entertainment.


5. This model has been the subject of major articles and interviews in the Chicago Tribune, Cover Story of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Toronto Star, ESPN, NBC “Starting Over”, Sunday Edition of the London Times, NPR, and the Society of Human Resource Managers Magazine.


6. The Anderson & Anderson model is used exclusively by the California State Superior Court for all of Los Angeles County. No other anger management curriculum has achieved this distinction.


7. The Employee Assistance Program for the United States House of Representatives uses the Anderson & Anderson Certified Anger Management Provider list for it’s to make referrals of its client base.


8. Anderson & Anderson is the only anger management organization with the capacity, prominence and international recognition to sell licensing agreements worldwide.


9. This model is complete. It has client workbooks, posters, DVDs, CDs, pre and post tests, facilitator guide, sample brochures, sample websites, sample business cards as well as sample marketing plans.


10. Anderson & Anderson is the only anger management model with a special option for Executive Coaching for Physicians, Attorneys and high profile clients who need to be seen individually. We are the sole resource for celebrity clients in the Los Angeles area. All Medical Boards in the nation accept this model for mandated physician referrals.

Additional information on the Anderson & Anderson model can be found by visiting the following sites: The Anderson and Anderson anger management and executive coaching website, the Anger Management Trends blog, Anderson & Anderson Anger Management and Executive Coaching Blog, The American Association of Anger Management Providers website, and Carlos Todd's Anger Management Resources website. The Anderson and Anderson office can be reached at 310-207-3591.

— George Anderson, MSW, LCSW, BCD, CAMF

Addicted to Anger

If you had the ability to block pain would you use it?

If you could prevent yourself from hurting and feeling despair wouldn’t you?

Well that’s what many people do with anger. In essence there are a vast majority of people addicted to anger. When we are angry we don’t have to feel pain, we don’t have to feel anything but rage and disdain.

Like many drugs that block pain anger can also block positive feelings from flowing. It can stifle your creativity and your ability to process information correctly.

— Shannon Munford, Angry in L.A.

The change in brain chemistry associated with becoming angry is quite similar to the changes induced by methamphetamine. There have been cases of actual anger addiction where the addict would go on anger “runs,” becoming enraged as a way to avoid the come down into depression.

Addiction kills. Anger kills. Studies have shown up to a seven-fold increase in death rate for the most angry men. Ultimately, one must either recover or die. Recovery, from chemical addiction or from anger, means facing and accepting the pain we were medicating.

Anger management classes are one way of getting a handle on addiction to anger.

Proactive Anger Management

While anger management is not a cure for psychopathology nor mental illness, it can serve to separate at-risk students from those who exhibit deficits in managing stress, anger, assertive communication and empathy/emotional intelligence.

The United States Postal Service has demonstrated the effectively of anger management as a violence prevention strategy. "Going Postal" is becoming a rarity media reports of workplace violence as it has become a rarity in the real world of the Postal Services.

— George Anderson, LCSW, BCD, CAMF

The Postal Service has demonstrated the real-life benefits of proactive anger management, consisting of understanding and recognizing anger and its causes, stress management, assertive communication, and empathy or emotional intelligence.

Rather than being psychotherapy, this approach to anger management is psycho-educational: it helps students gain life skills. By applying even a few of these skills to life, rage, anger, frustration, and stress are reduced. When this happens in the workplace, workplace efficiency often climbs, there are fewer days of sick leave taken, fewer call-offs, and fewer workplace accidents.

This proactive approach can be used with higher levels of management and administration as well. Generally it is done in a one-to-one setting and referred to as executive coaching.

This usually starts with an evidence-based assessment, individual recommendations, and a personalized curriculum. A post-test helps the student see how much they've learned and been able to apply. Often this can be done in as few as a dozen sessions.