Anger Management

Anger is seen across many different disorders and for many different underlying reasons.  Anger can be seen as intense bursts displayed under unusual stress, or anger can be lower-intensity reactions displayed in frequent social situations. The reasons for the display of anger are many, but anger usually signals that feelings of distress have surpassed what their usual coping skills can handle.

Anger can be seen commonly in very young children with features of autism when they are in social situations that they do not know how to navigate.

A relatively new disorder was created in 2013 called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Irritable and angry outbursts is one of the key features.

Temper outbursts and constant arguing are features of oppositional defiant disorder.

Anger can also be one of the more obvious outward signs of posttraumatic stress disorder.

In the general population, anger is probably seen most commonly among individuals with personality disorders.  In fact, for several types of personality disorders, many experts consider uncontrollable anger one of the hallmark features.  Personality disorders are difficult to diagnose in children but they become more clearly evident by the time individuals become teenagers and young adults.

Treatment:

The ideal treatment would be to focus on the underlying issue, such as social interaction skills, depression, or PTSD.  When it is difficult to identify a treatable underlying issue, a time-limited and focused course of anger management with a specialist in that area can often be very helpful.

Local Experts

On the Find A Provider page of the Kid Catch Directory, you can use the Issues filter box to search for local experts on anger management.  Clicking on this filter selection will return results of clinicians who advertise themselves as working with this problem.  Kid Catch cannot guarantee that clinicians who advertise themselves this way are truly expert.To find a specialist, click on Providers on the top menu and then click on "Anger Management" in the Issues search filter.

If you are a provider who specializes in anger, or know someone who does, please share that information with us by emailing [email protected].