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Hand Tools : Family Anger

Do you like a good mystery? I do! My favorite mystery-solver is Sherlock Holmes. In my humble opinion, all other detectives and mysteries are just variations on Conan Doyles famous character. 

Understanding our anger can take real detective work too! In this lesson of the anger management ecourse, we are going to have a some fun and find the roots of our anger and aggression with the help of a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. Today he is going to solve your anger problems!

You can solve your anger problems with an anger management seminar or workshop. Get a free initial consult for your organization. Click here.

"Eliminating the Impossible": A Sherlockian Adventure in Anger Management 

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains is the truth."

- Sherlock Homes 

A sudden knock at the semi-open door jolted the man sitting behind an oak desk. The tall, blonde hair women who had knocked on the door thought the man at the desk might have been asleep, so still had he been sitting, his head bend forward. As he got up to answer the knock, the women realized that he had been reading a book. A very thick, old looking book.

"May I help you," the man asked in a high nasal voice? He stood just under six feet, looked in his mid-forties, and had a pair of reading glasses propped up on his roman looking nose. The most sticking feature though was his eyes. They had a strange light to them, as if everything was taken in and categorized. Looking briefly at the nameplate on the door, she asked: 
"Are you Doctor Holmes?" "Yes," he said in a bemused manner, a slight curl in the corner of his lip. "And you must be Ms. Watson."

Trying not to look surprised, she replied, "Yes, but how..." In answer he raised his hand to stop her and then swept his arm into the room inviting her into his office. Once they had settled in the chairs he had arranged under a side window, the early morning light streaming over them, he stated, 
"Elementary, my dear Watson."

"Pardon me?" she said. 

"I said that it is elementary, my dear. You started to ask how I knew your name. I also received a call from you last week, two times I believe, to set a meeting with me but you did not specify a time and I did not return your call. You a very compulsive individual, I must say, or at the least, very 
desperate." 

She started to take offense at his words but before she could 
cough up a response, he continued, "I say desperate because you walked by my office from the North parking lot, which is the longest but most discrete way of getting here. I know a grass lawn because you have fresh grass stains on your shoes and you have to cross a freshly watered lawn to get here. You are not used to coming to others for help since you are an executive of a very large financial consulting firm here in town. The fact that you called me personally tells me that this is a very important meeting and to handle the details yourself suggests the need for utmost discretion. I only take clients by word of mouth and that means that you had to do some searching 
before finding me. Most of my work is with executives and corporations who have difficulty managing anger or need to resolve conflict disputes but since you did not hire me to come to your office and have come to mine, I assume you this is of a more personal manner. Therefore, you feel very desperate."

Ms. Watson was shocked beyond words. She didn't have a response but finally said, "Well, that may be true but this is not really that big a deal." 

Look her directly in the eyes, he stated, "On the contrary, anger is a very big deal and I would guess that for you to come to my office means that this is a huge problem for you, in your personal and professional life. How many times have you been married? I assume you are now going through a divorce. Don't speak! You see, it is elementary again, dear Watson, you are wearing your wedding band on your right hand suggesting that 
you been have recently separated or divorced but are not yet ready to accept the situation. Very natural reaction, feeling grief and loss over this divorce and probably a big source of your anger I would guess. 

"The rest is mere statistics. Most people have a gone through at least one divorce in their lives, sad as it is. And having a problem with anger, at least of the venting kind, tends to destroy relationships with family and coworkers. I might say that your anger has served you well in life, helping you get to the top, struggling against your male counterparts, making you tough and all that. But that has alienated you from your loved ones and your staff. People follow you because they fear you, not really respect you as you would like to think. That is until they finally leave."

He sat back, not smugly, but with the quiet confidence of someone who has seen this kind of thing many times before. She hung her head in acceptance of his words. Her anger had helped her in life, up to now. Without raising her head, she told him 
that as the oldest child of a powerful father-executive she had sought his affection, only to get his lectures about life and business. She wanted to please him and had followed in his footsteps only to have him die of a sudden heart attack in his early fifties. That had crushed her emotionally but she 
was unable to grief the loss as she had to immediately take over his entire business. She felt she had to live up to his expectations, even now, years after his death.

Uncontrollably she told the rest of her story. Her anger had become a curse. She had alienated family, friends, and her employees by her sudden rages. The funny thing was 
that it always seemed to get results. People did what she wanted. Now she wondered what all this hard work was for if she had no one to share it with. She didn't feel any satisfaction from the business. She desperately wanted to restore her lost marriage and reunite with an estranged daughter who was hiding at college from an angry mother. Finally, she ended the story with the statement: "You seem to be more of a detective than a psychiatrist Doctor Holmes.” 

Setting forward in his chair he replied, "Actually, I come from a long line of detectives. My great, great grandfather being perhaps the most famous. Perhaps you heard of him? Sherlock Holmes? I am named after him. I have found that much of his ideas have proven very useful in working with the human mystery 
of emotions, anger in particular." As he said this he gestured to the thick book he had been reading before her knock on the door. On closer view, Watson saw that it was journal. It must have been the journal of this Sherlock Holmes, the doctors distant relative.

"Everything you have said is true. I am desperate for help. My anger has stopped being my ticket to success as an executive and has alienated my most important relationships,” Ms. Watson blurted out. 

“My doctor says that all this rage is not good for my heart. My father died of a heart attack and I am beginning to think that anger was the cause of that as well. I don't want to end up just like him," Watson said, surprised at how easily she was able to talk about these personal things. She rarely admitted the thoughts to herself let alone speak them out loud to another person. Strangely, she felt better talking about them.

Dr. Holmes look compassionately at her and said: "My great, greta grandfather once said that there is no brand of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. And so, we shall do the same to help you manage your anger and life." 

Pausing to see if he had Watson's attention, he went on to state: "The first step to understanding your anger is as elementary as A-B-C. A is your activating experience or the event that causes you to feel angry. B is your belief of perception about the activating event or experience. And C is your emotional and behavioral consequences of your anger." Pausing and placing his fingers tips together in a pyramid form, he watched her over the top of his hands and asked, "Tell me of a recent experience with anger with an employee?"

Thankful he didn't ask about her recent divorce – a painful memory. She paused a moment and then said: “One of my vice-presidents turned in a report that was a complete mess and I let him know clearly that any junior level assistant could have better than what he gave me. I made him stay late and redo it. Completely unacceptable work from a VP!" Her voice rang with righteous indignation as she related the incident. 

"What was the consequences of your actions?" Dr. Holmes asked softly.

"Well, I got the report back the way he should have done it 
in the first place," retorted Watson. 

"No, I mean what was the consequences of your actions on your relationship with your vice president and how did it make you feel?" replied Dr. Holmes.

"Well, I never really thought about it that way," said Watson. "But I didn't really see him much for the rest of the week and he was rather quiet in the weekly staff meeting. But I got my report back the way I wanted it. And, as for my feelings, well I was angry and disgusted that he would dare turn in a report that way. Why when my father was around, he would never 
tolerate that kind of workmanship and no one would dare give him anything less."

"I see," said Holmes quietly. "Most people feel that events, such as you just described, cause us to feel angry. We rationalize our actions, however destructive, by moralizing thoughts such as ‘It should be this way or it must be that way.’ I call that the 'You Gun.' The index finger sticking out firing away at the other person. The thumb stuck up in the air, moralizing and justifying our outbursts. And the other three fingers in the palm of hand pointing back at us. Those three fingers suggest that we are three times more responsible for the problem than the other person." 

Taking a deep breath, he went on, "The truth is that our beliefs, rational or irrational, cause us to be angry. It is not the actions of the other person or situation. I see this is hard for you to grasp. It usually is for most people. Let me explain. Another person might not have seen this vice presidents behavior as a sign of disrespect or an act as incompetence, as you did. The feeling and response of this other person would be quite different from your rage. They might have had compassion on the V.P. or explored what might have caused such errors on the report, out of curiosity. Different beliefs about a situation lead to different emotional consequences.” 

He could see she was absorbing what he was trying to say. He went on: “It is a matter of deduction to see that your V.P. is now avoiding you out of fear of your anger. Research suggests that he will be a much less creative person for fear of making a mistake and do only what he needs to do to please you and no more. Hardly a quality desired from a top level manager."

Watson was quiet, so Holmes continued: "Another irrational belief that you hold is awfulizing. When this person turned in his report, you told yourself how awful it was that he treat you this way. How awful that things didn't turn out the way you felt they should. This justifies your tantrums and rages at other people based on how you perceive them to be treating you." 

Watson sat pondering what he was saying. To be truthful she was having a tough time understanding the difference between the event making her angry and her beliefs that produced the emotion. "So what do you suggest doctor?"

"We go down the alphabet. D is for detecting your irrational thoughts. Detectives look for clues to solve the mystery. We look for the mental clues or irrational thoughts that you are saying to yourself to determine the cause of your anger. Retrace your mental footsteps to the point just before your outburst and ask yourself what were you thinking. That will tell you the 
source of your anger and what you need to change."

"That will tell me why I get so angry?" said Watson, still very confused. She had never thought about how her beliefs and perceptions might be causing her anger. She did know many other executives who did not have a problem with anger and still got high quality work from their staff. Perhaps Dr. Holmes spoke the truth. 

"When you eliminate all other factors, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," declared Holmes, as if reading her mind.

"So, I guess there must be an E in this elementary exercise," said Watson, suddenly getting an insight into the processes of anger and their actual causes. 

"Ah, Watson, you are becoming a bit of a detective already. You are definitely on the road to mental health. Yes, there is an E. It stands for the new emotional consequences that come from forming new beliefs about a situation. My great, great grandfather was a man of facts. And the fact is that there is more than one way to perceive a situation. Take your vice president as an example. What other reason might there be for his incomplete report other than disrespect and laziness?" asked Holmes.

"I heard someone say his wife was having trouble with her pregnancy and he could have been preoccupied. My dear! I made him stay late when she probably needed his help at home with his other children. How could I?" Watson lamented.

"Exactly! And now you feel guilt, sadness, compassion...anything but the rage you felt then. Now you can see how your perceptions and beliefs control your feelings and not the situation itself. If you had used a little detective work at the time, you would have been able to deduce this and had a different reaction and possibly a more loyal employee too." Holmes voice rose to fevered pitch. Sitting back down in his chair like a deflated balloon, he said, "And now, it is time for us to stop. I believe Watson that you have come to understand something your father did not know and went to an early grave as a result. I pray that you use this lesson to guard your own health and relationships."

"Thank you, Dr. Holmes, you have been a great help. I never thought of my anger in such a way but you are right. When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains is the truth. And the truth is that I have let my false beliefs about others determine my emotions."

*In part 2, Dr. Holmes helps Ms. Watson learn how to fight her past and overcome old hurts and fears increasing her ability to manage anger! 

Click here for part 2.

**You can do the same now by subscribing to our online AngerToolbox newsletter. You will get more articles and resources on how to stop the destructive influences of anger and aggression in your life. Click here to join.

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