Modeling a Nondefensive and Empathic Acceptance of Group Resistance in a School-Based Anger Management Group with Urban Adolescents

They are a unique clinical population not only because they are adolescents, but because many of them come from high-risk environments where extreme emotional reactivity is the norm. Gangs are prevalent in their urban neighborhoods. Some have seen family members shot in the street. When they come to school, some of them are ready and eager to learn, and appear to have made sense of the trauma that is part of their daily existence. Others, however, come laden with firmly set defenses and seem more ready to fight than to learn.