Coping With Anger in ACT for PTSD
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- Опубликовано: 23 июн 2021
- Anger can lead to avoidance and distress but is a valuable source of information about a client’s values. Defusion is a useful tool for this in ACT.
Anger can lead to avoidance and distress but is a valuable source of information about a client’s values. Defusion is a useful tool for this in ACT. In this presentation, Dr. Sonja Batten discusses how to address anger with trauma survivors.
Here are some highlights we’ve extracted from this video:
1. Anger is often addressed indirectly in trauma-focused therapy.
2. In ACT, the trauma survivor is engaged to approach anger as a valid source of information about values.
3. The client is supported to slow down the moment of the anger response and choose more workable behavior.
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#act #ptsd #values #anger #avoidance #defusion
Anger makes me cry having PTSD. It's painful to be triggered intentionally. It's like an electric shock to the brain to set off a rage of explosion but manageable if happy and stay in this state of mind working passionately with others that's kind
I take it a step further and get beef with the entire universe. I feel betrayed so I keep a chip on my shoulder. I don’t work and I can’t be around people. Life is great 🎉😂
Holy crap. So many amazing nuggets of information in a concise video! :)
I do have PTSD I was at a self check out at a store and I store clerk came up to me. I told her she was in my space. For me she was in my safe space. PTSD we need to be safe the clerk crosssed my safe space.
Thanks a ton for all your videos. Really helpful
This implies that there's something 'wrong' with anger. No.
It is not a 'bad' emotion
...it is feedback. Part of our survival mechanism; but what not to do is to internalize it and harm ourselves with anger. Accept it and express it. There is valid anger and there is anger that masks other feelings.
The client needs to be validated for their anger.
I'm glad you posted this, because when I watched this video and I am thinking about trauma, to some extent I would prefer a video that normalizes anger, especially in reaction to triggers. You can be a very calm person overall and then realize as well that when certain words/actions/smells/etc./ trigger you, you don't act in a way that is normal for you. My problem with just teaching coping skills like this is that I'm uncertain that it understands the exact issue with trauma where somebody goes from being completely fine to hearing a word and feeling that emotion in their head as soon as it's there followed by that feeling immediately going away or even just feeling your heart rate speed up when introduced to a trigger, but knowing that doesn't happen with other words.
This is what happens to people with trauma. I'm not sure it makes sense to go straight for coping skills without understanding the depth of the trauma reaction and the depth of the difference between feeling completely calm and then feeling completely triggered. This just seems judging because to the person they may have loved their calmness their entire lives until they started to get triggered and now you are just telling them to gain coping skills as if they didn't already have them their entire lives until trauma flipped their world upside down.
I'm not certain that what is in this video is the best approach to help people with trauma, which matters a lot since this video is specifically aimed to help people with trauma.
There is a reason actually that anger is often only indirectly treated in trauma therapy. There really is a difference between someone who gets angry at every other thing vs. someone who gets angry in relation to a traumatizing experience. Focusing too much on anger can lead to blaming the client for their reactions, which is not okay. Especially when you consider that people who are overcontrolling of their emotions are actually more likely to become traumatized, which means that you have this really weird and unsettling paradox where the people who have fought the hardest to remain in control become the ones who find that they no longer have it.
***Focusing on anger, especially in more overcontrolled people (who are more likely and not less likely to develop PTSD), can be judgmental, condescending, and patronizing because it doesn't understand what people are going through. It doesn't understand adequately what trauma does to people. ***
When people are unregulated, then they act unregulated and when people aren't, they don't. Coping skills are a short term strategy because if people are still getting triggered by certain things then teaching these skills does nothing to address the actual trauma. Instead, to some extent, it may just push it down farther.
I see the reason that we focus on underlying memories and prolonged exposure/triggers as being different from what should be addressed in the moment. If someone is angry in the moment, by all means, this can be very helpful, but overall it may not actually address those underlying fears and triggers. *which really need to be addressed*
People with PTSD and trauma are not just angry. They are reacting to situations that they never should have been exposed to. Something horrible has happened to them and that needs to be honored and understood. Of course they feel angry, that is reasonable, especially in response to triggers.
If people are now yelling at others in their lives or having difficult emotions then that needs to be addressed (but also normalized), however, it is more important to resolve the underlying threat that they are feeling and that may no longer exist, but that certainly feels very real to them. ***This is why anger ends up being more indirectly addressed*** There is very good reason for that.
*I am not a licensed professional anything, I have my own trauma and I am in school to get a degree and because I care about this topic and want to help people and also think that even very well meaning people often misunderstand a lot of the issues that come with trauma*
@@morganmcmanus2738 That's cool you're in school to get your degree.
I'd like your opinion about the comment I wrote after watching this video.
At first I was feeling more like you were throughout the video, but every time I felt that way, I would pause it and think about my reaction to it and then come back and watch some more.
My comment is just my notes pulling together what I've learned with what I was hearing her say.
This topic is a very important one.
@@morganmcmanus2738 appreciate u commenting, idk which ptsd survivors this video is supposed to help (clearly not me) but I hope it’s someone ig 🤷🏼♀️. Appreciate you tho because once the video said “let it go” I had a mental break down for a half second because HOW??🥴😂
Yeah but if I get pissed off with my gf over nothing one more time I'm just gonna leave her so she doesn't have to put up with this
I have ptsd due to life-long abuse and neglect. I hate when I get angry.
I hate being angry all the time, but I'd rather be angry than depressed.
I believe PTSD and anger go together when the PTSD is caused by abuse. And Chronic (C)PTSD plus anger are going to be ongoing (that's what chronic means) as long as the person is being abused, and if you have, say, a chronic illness, you will be abused for as long as it disables you, which can be for life, because according to abuse experts, the disabled and children are the most mistreated of all by the rest of humanity. So it's going to feel like righteous anger, and I think it is.
I think most PTSD comes from dealing with malignant narcissists (MNs). They can seem 'oh so sweet' and/or helpful, or at least just normal, on the outside but really not have your best interests at heart. And that's putting it mildly.
I like that this video gives this suggestion on how to slow your roll:
Slow down, r-e-l-a-x, and ask yourself, 'What's my trigger?'
'Oh, them again!'
Then I suggest you go to your computer and type out what you're thinking about them - but don't send it to anyone, whatever you do. Print it out, burn it, and erase it.
Unless you're fighing with someone you can actually discuss things with. Then type them a letter you can email to them. Doing this will calm you down and it will give them time to respond in a better way as well.
Then tell yourself this is enough of a pity party and run down your gratitude list.
The Card Game takeaway:
No matter who's right or wrong the problem remains unsolved.
Here, I suggest setting boundaries where appropriate. Sometimes the hardest boundaries we have to set is with ourselves.
Of course if you're dealing with MNs, boundary setting won't work. Then the best thing you can do is go No Contact.
This won't resolve your triggers that lead to anger, but it will make you safer by keeping more abuse from happening.
I like this from the video:
Anger often arises because something the person values has been disrespected or disregarded.
When anger shows up it means we have to think about our values that we need to be aware of or attending to.
When angry, remember to:
Slow down, r-e-l-a-x, and ask yourself, 'What's my trigger?'
'Oh, them again!'
Yeaah I never tried to write on computer but I believe is better than wrtting by haand .
Thank you so much for these advices .
My biggest trigger not being understood . ( only with loved ones )
@@noneofyourbuizness You're right about not being understood. It's frustrating.
I'm glad you answered me so I could reread what I wrote and remind myself to do it.
People can write by hand or type, but getting it down is what can be helpful in calming you and also possibly seeing it in a new light when you reread what you wrote.
That voice is "triggering" me. I'm sorry, I can't get anything from this, that voice just irritates me