ABSTRACT
Children may want the short-term effects of anger but not realize the long-term destruction that prolonged and dysfunctional anger actually offers. Bereaved children may have healthy anger as well as unhealthy anger. When a bereaved child has an unhealthy anger that is functioning as a secondary emotion, the child is usually connecting a destructive magical thought to his or her anger which provides a power-based catalyst to continue the expression of his or her dysfunctional angry behavior. Much of children’s dysfunctional anger founded in the process of mourning is a signal that a primary emotion exists. A primitive plan of treatment is a concrete thinking child’s attempt to develop methods to help him or her feel better. The ability to conclude that primary emotions exist and are often demonstrated via anger requires abstract reasoning. Children who think concretely and those with developing abstraction are often very immature in their abstract abilities.
