Instead of merely providing reassurance and attempting redirection, the client's frustration and impatience can be engaged and explored. The client thereby be taught how to communicate about anger and how to deal with conflict. Given the impatient disposition of clients with anger problems, it is advantageous for a treatment program to be clearly defined and structured, so as to minimize the frustration that can result from vague expectations regarding treatment. Moreover, the proneness to frustration and impatience that are intrinsic to the problem constellation also dictates that treatment studies be thoughtfully designed with control group conditions that do not activate anger responses. A third and very important complication in treating angry, aggressive people is that this action emotion complex has instrumental value in dealing with aversive situations.
Anger has a potentiating function, imparting a sense of mastery or control.
One can overcome constraints and dispatch unwanted others by becoming angry and acting aggressively. Persons who are so disposed are reluctant to relinquish this sense of effectiveness. Clients need to understand that learning anger control skills will mean that they will become more powerful rather than less powerful. The stress inoculation approach indeed provides new coping strategies for handling provocation in an adaptive manner. To some extent this involves skills in interpersonal communication and assertiveness, but many problems entailing anger cannot be resolved so straightforwardly.