Archive: Around Town

Healing WellAnger manifests itself in two ways. We internalize anger. We experience feelings of anger directing it toward ourselves. This behavior represents our own internal depression or suppressed hostility. It can be a short term coping mechanism, but its long term affects are destructive.

People who choose to suppress their anger do so in several ways. Some repress their anger immediately forgetting it or placing it out of the way to be dealt with later or not at all. Others may completely deny its existence and pretend events that provoked the anger never happened. In either response, the failure to find a positive release for this anger causes further harm. Fear, frustration, physical and emotional illness, embarrassment, and guilt are just a few of the feelings that are experienced by people who direct their anger inwardly.

We also express our anger externally. In this case, we take our feelings of anger and direct it toward other persons or things. These persons demonstrate a repressed hostility and resentment that often results in some form of aggression. People who express their anger outwardly do so with the intention of destroying objects or injuring and punishing people.

Individuals who choose this method will confront others with hostile words and actions. They will provoke some response that will feed into their anger. Some may overreact and direct their rage toward a person who may not deserve it. Rage, revenge, and an aggressive approach with intent to harm are the goals.


Any outward expression of anger out by one person on another person is almost always followed with guilt. Often, the perpetrator may experience a sense of justice being done or feel vindicated for having “gotten it out.” However, this response is short lived. Guilt usually follows such an episode, and this guilt leads to remorse that the person has been so mean to the person upon whom the anger was directed.

These feelings of remorse will result in the anger being held in so that the anger becomes directed inwardly. The angry individual battles feelings of sadness, depression, and frustration. Over time, these feelings turn into resentment against the original person to whom the anger was directed. As this resentment builds inside an angry individual, he or she will reach a breaking point and vent their anger against that person. The cycle repeats itself in a seemingly hopeless loop.


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