ABSTRACT
The topic of anger turned inward is a relatively neglected area in today’s anger management field. That was not always the situation, however. In the 1980s, for instance, popular books like Harriet Lerner’s Dance of Anger (1997) emphasized the need for people and in particular women to accept the reality of their anger and to utilize it appropriately as against “stuffing” it. Gestalt therapy (Polster and Polster, 1973), with its emphasis on ventilating one’s emotions, was exceptionally popular then as well and also served to give clients permission to express their anger. But the emphasis in anger management changed gradually from helping overly inhibited clients get angry to helping overly demonstrative clients contain their anger. A related effort to curtail domestic abuse added to this tendency. Although clients are certainly still encouraged to express their feelings (in moderation) and to take assertive actions when appropriate, the concern with anger turned inward has become so subordinate in most anger management programs that it is not even covered in the agenda.
