Transcription
For the most part, when people are angry, I tell them to cut it out. Okay, let's start with that. Then I point out to them the impact it has on me and that I don't like it. So that's one thing I do. So then we work on actually getting the behavior to change.
So clients who call get angry on the phone, we take phone calls. I tell them, I don't like this when you're angry. It makes me not want to talk to you. So in effect, cut it out. That's the one thing.
The other is to uh look at what's the function of anger. Now, you know, to be honest with you, a lot of times anger makes total sense. I mean, anger is justified a lot of the time. People have every good reason to be angry. Clients call me, they want me to talk to them longer. I don't want to talk to them longer or I can't. They get angry. That that makes sense. You know, it it's blocking their goals, blocking what they want.
The problem is not effective to be angry most of the time. Sometimes it's very effective to be angry, but a lot of the time it's not. For many of my clients, uh, anger functions to avoid sadness. And for many of my clients, the amount of sadness they would have if they ever experienced it really is indeed overwhelming.
This isn't always the case that the function of anger is to avoid sadness. Anger often is fits the facts. What happened to them? Anybody would be angry about the problem with anger and particularly um some of the expressions of anger is that it's not effective. When it's not effective, DBT is very straightforward. It just says this is not effective, so stop it. A client's getting ready to throw something at me, which we've had, I say, cut it out. Stop it. Put it down.