Online Questionnaire: "How Do You Cope With Destructive Anger?"

Instructions: Coping with our own anger is often a difficult task. We may respond in ways we think are good, like venting to a friend, only to find we feel just as bad as ever, perhaps even worse. Sometimes it's difficult even to know if what we're feeling is constructive or destructive anger.

If you're curious about your own response to anger, check out http://www.coping.org/ and take its questionnaire. Scroll down the page and click on the link "Tools for Anger Workout." From there, click on "Stop Self-Destructive Anger Responses," and then finally, "A Self-Assessment on Self-Destructive Responses To Anger."

What did you learn from your responses? Are you coping in healthy ways? Chapter Eleven points out that one way to tell the difference between constructive and destructive anger is to pay attention to two things: intensity and duration. Hopefully this questionnaire helped you determine if you are having inappropriately intense responses to anger, or if the duration is much longer that you'd like it to be.

In summary: Destructive anger sometimes gets the best of us, but the text points out some ways to control it so that those occasions are few and far between. First, re-frame self-talk so that you process events in a less hostile way. Second, speak and listen non-defensively. Break the cycle of anger breeding more and more anger. Third, deliberately calm yourself. Remember, you have a choice in how you respond to maddening situations. Lastly, change your focus. Distract yourself, disengage, or simply remove yourself from an anger-producing situation. Once you are feeling calm again, you can set about going back to step two, speaking and listening non-defensively. By paying attention to our anger and dealing with it constructively, we can break old patterns and learn to manage one of life's most difficult emotions in a new and more competent way.