Getting Over Getting Mad: Positive Ways to Manage Anger in Your Most Important Relationships (Anger Management and Conflict Resolution Tips)

I highly recommend the book "Getting Over getting Mad", by Judy Ford. It explained the importance of anger in our lives and how it "is an indispensable emotion, which when used productively allows us to develop ourselves and our relationships. Its only "when anger covers up pain and fear", that it "clogs our energy, dilutes our joy, and keeps us off track, going in circles, making no headway. Instead of helping us, anger becomes self-defeating." The book has ideas for managing anger in a positive way and using it to tranform our lives.

"From losing our tempers easily to feeling a slow burn to hiding how irritated we really feel, all of us experience anger as a troubling emotion." In Getting Over Getting Mad: Positive Ways to Manage Anger in Your Most Important Relationships," Judy Ford, M.S.W., explains why we feel anger and what to do about it. A psychotherapist, consultant, and best-selling author, Ford has worked for over thirty years with children and families in a wide variety of settings. This is her eighth book. She presents her information in four major sections: dealing with anger at personal setbacks, at significant others, at children, and at colleagues. Underlying everything is the concept that we all feel anger at one time or another. It's how that anger is expressed, not the anger itself, that can create problems. Ford says that "while I know that we all have reasons to be angry, I can't think of one good reason to stay mad for very long." She distinguishes between "distorted anger, which tears families apart, and healthy anger, which keeps relationships thriving." Ford emphasizes using anger to help in personal growth and offers myriad suggestions on how to make anger work for us. She includes examples of how real people have learned to manage their anger. The key is to recognize and deal with the anger as soon as it develops, before it grows into a major disturbance. And contrary to what many people have been taught, repressing anger doesn't solve anything. Ford's suggestions and tips are practical and simple. Most involve learning to recognize exactly what you're feeling, and then delving into what created that feeling. After that, the underlying cause of the anger can be resolved. Often, just recognizing what's happening frees us from negative reactions. She says that "sarcasm, manipulation, passive-aggressive acts, physical illness, depression, rebellion, and violence all result from the ability to express anger and resolve disputes." If any of these symptoms are a part of your life, then Getting Over Getting Mad will provide the information and tools you need to turn your anger from destructive emotion to healthy growth.

As a counsellor and teacher who has studied human behaviour, one of the topics covered in my program is stress management; stress and anger often go hand-in- hand. Anger can be an emotion used to protect one from the challenges and obstacles in life he or she prefers not to deal with. Uncontrolled anger can be negative and damaging to ourselves and others, often steming from an action causing fear or hurt. Judy Ford has written an excellent book on how to deal with negative emotion in a constructive manner. Left unleashed, or supressed, anger can cause a lifetime of pain and suffering for the recipient, particularly so when the recipient is a child. Anger can also contribute to a vast array of emotional and physical problems for the individual who cannot manage his or her own anger is a positive way. "Getting Over Getting Mad" is like any other self-help book; in order for the message contained to produce results, the reader must be fully committed to improving and making long-term changes. Recognizing and accepting that one has an anger management problem is the first step, making a serious commitment to dealing with the problem is the next. Ford writes in a straight-forward, no-nonsense manner. The book provides excellent resource material and is well worth reading.

P>A new book, GETTING OVER GETTING MAD, covers four areas of life in which anger is often a problem: our relationships with ourselves, our partners, our kids and those we work with.<p>Anger is often a problem for ourselves. Few of us like ourselves after we've blown up. Yet, we are responsible for our anger. We can't blame it on someone else. Even if someone else acts foolish, that is no excuse for us becoming angry and blowing up. By learning how to handle anger within ourselves, we can deal with both ourselves, and others, much better. <p>Anger is often a destructive force in marriages and relationships. It may result in the death of loving feelings, or in abuse. We need to understand how to respond to this anger, both ours, and theirs, in safe and caring ways. <p>Anger can be destructive in parenting. Inappropriate anger is harmful and abusive to children. Explosive anger may hurt children physically, and may drive them away from us emotionally. <p>Finally, anger can affect us at work. It can turn jobs into hell. It can also destroy friendships and relationships.<p>"Getting Over Getting Mad" is the best book on anger I have read in years. It is written in the style of the Chicken Soup books, about a page per topic. I can't cover this book fairly in one column. So, for the next four weeks, I will share a few of the ideas, which are so excellently covered in this book. <p>Recognizing and understanding anger in the presence of yourself, is the only way to be in charge of anger, instead of having anger in charge of you. Getting Over Getting Mad, by Judy Ford has some excellent direction on this task, presented in a series of short, and very readable one to two page articles. Here is my understanding of a few of her ideas.<p>1.Uncover the hurt behind your anger. Anger is a shield hiding things, that you don't want to deal with. But if you face this fear, which is one of the emotions that hides under anger, you will find the courage to deal with what you really don't want to deal with. Dealing with these hurts and anxieties is the first step in understanding how to handle anger.<p>2.Frown Freely. You can express disappointment and unhappiness without losing control of anger. But if you don't deal with those things, they will eventually build up and catch up with you. There is no rule that says that you have to be or pretend to be happy all the time.<p>3. Let yourself be human and imperfect. Nobody else in the world is perfect, so why do you have to be?<p>4. See anger as a blessing. Anger can be useful and helpful is you recognize it and handle it appropriately. Using anger constructively helps clear the air and improve your relationships with others.<p>5. Get to know the little devil within. Once you accept you don't have to be perfect, then you can recognize the little devil in us all, that wants to settle a score with someone we think did us wrong. If you can learn not to take your little devil too seriously, or even laugh at it, you can be in cha

I had the opportunity to attend one of Judy Ford's workshops several years ago; recently, I once again had the pleasure to partake of her wisdom when she spoke at a local book signing. I discovered that I was not the only one who made an effort to hear Judy on more than one occasion. Others who were there let it be known that they, too, had become "Judy Ford groupies." They were vocal about the impact that Judy had made on them individually, and in their relationships. This confidence in her advice has extended to her writings as well. Her book, WONDERFUL WAYS TO LOVE A CHILD, has become a favorite gift to give whenever I have a friend who is expecting a baby. I had never been moved to write to an author or to review a book before, but when I was given an oportunity here, I just had to write a few words to express my heartfelt appreciation of Judy and her new book, GETTING OVER GETTING MAD. WOW! I discovered a lot about myself in reading through the pages. Some of it made me cringe with the realization that I could have prevented a lot of ngative and frustrating situations if only I had been able to read this book years ago. Oh well, better late than never. Judy allows the reader to accept the reality of his or her anger, (something I had never been able to do) while at the same time offering constructive and positive ways to deal with it. The book is laid out in a reader friendly format so that one can read through it all at once, or simply turn to those chapters that specifically relate to his or her needs. I do recommend reading the book cover to cover, as one will discover considerable personal insight. Judy included wonderful examples hroughout the book, as well as illustrated staements at the end of each chapter which underscore the chapter's message. This book and it's message makes you wake up and smell the coffee. Judy has even included a great resource guide in the back of the book. The best thing about GETTING OVER GETTING MAD?....It caused me to make changes in the way I deal with my anger, as well as how I deal with those who are angry with me. I can't say enough great things about this book. Its message creates an ongoing process. Just READ IT and you will be a true believer.