This month I want to share some thoughts on anger, a first cousin to depression. Anger is present from birth. It seems at first to reflect the fact that basic needs were not immediately met. Anger develops as a response to separation from parents, and the return of parents to the young child s sphere of influence. The anger of despair arises from abandonment by the parents, for longer than the child can tolerate, or complete abandonment.
Anger begins at the beginning of life.
Anger is a part of the relationship fabric that nurtures and sustains a person. Like other emotions, traits, and talents anger and the responses to it must be experienced over and over again. Constructive expressions of anger and approaches to situations, which provoke anger, need to be learned. Learning occurs through doing, observing, and watching how it occurs in the multiplicity of life situations in the course of one s life. A person will feel wrong or bad if they feel angry feelings.