Anger Management for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Clients (DHHS Publication No. (SMA) 02-3662)
by Ephrem Fernandez
Category: Psychology

The last several years have seen a significant increase in research on anger and its clinical treatment. As a result, anger management has become the topic of many self-help books, but there is currently no book that brings together for practitioners and scholars the diversity of therapies used to treat anger in various populations. Treatments for Anger in Specific Populations provides information and instruction on empirically supported interventions for anger in various clinical contexts, including substance abuse, PTSD, the intellectually disabled, borderline personality disorder, children and adolescents, and others. Ten chapters focus on specific populations, while two additional chapters discuss gender and culturally sensitive considerations in anger treatment. An introductory chapter by the volume editor, Ephrem Fernandez, outlines the main therapeutic approaches to anger, summarizing the boundaries between adaptive and maladaptive anger and providing a rationale for tailoring anger treatments to specific populations. For each population-specific chapter, authors provide theoretical background and literature review, followed by findings on the efficacy of each treatment. Each treatment evaluated is also clearly described in terms of clinical procedure. Further, each chapter contains a clinical case vignette illustrating the application of particular treatments to particular clients. Where appropriate, discussions of emerging and as-yet untested therapies are included. Treatments for Anger in Specific Populations is a resource to be treasured by clinicians who work regularly with anger problems and anger disorders, and the volume's careful balance of research review with important information about treatment application will also render it useful to scientists interested in anger.