The Types of Anger
Anger can appear and affect us and our moods at any time during the day. A good way of being able to cope with anger effectively is to be able to spot which anger type you, or people around you are experiencing. There are two main types of anger are Passive Aggression and Open Aggression.
PASSIVE AGGRESSION – Passive aggression is the type of anger where you don’t admit it. This mainly happens due to a fear, or a dislike of confrontation. Passive aggression can result in quietness, sulking, procrastinating and pretending that all is well, when it clearly isn’t.
OPEN AGGRESSION – Open aggression is the opposite to passive aggression. Open aggression is the tendency to lash out in anger, often times becoming physically and verbally aggressive which can result in hurting themselves or others. Typical signs of open aggression involve fighting, swearing, shouting, accusing, sarcasm, back-chatting and hitting.
Both passive and open aggression can be nullified and controlled by using a thing called ‘Assertive Anger’. Assertive anger is a healthy way to deal with both these aggression types as it forces us to ask questions about why we’re angry. Often times when we’re angry, we tell ourselves that it’s never our fault, and that we’re angry because of events that have occurred, and that the stimuli around us have caused us to feel this way. We rarely take the time to ask ourselves what it means for other people, and even less so take the time to question whether we are at fault for our own individual anger. Having assertive anger means doing things like thinking before you speak, potentially avoiding saying something that you will later regret. It also means listening to the other side of the coin, and hearing people’s arguments against yours as to what is the cause of the anger, and how it is affecting them as well. Besides this, patience is another virtue that is needed in order to show assertive anger, as it can sometimes take a while to see each other’s points of view, and come to an agreed conclusion as to why you’re feeling this way. Essentially, assertive anger is using your anger for good, and not letting it overwhelm you. In doing so, you can show your level of maturity, and show your friends and family that you care about them.