The Value Of Anger

And how it is weaponized against the estranged

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“The truth about rage is that it only dissolves when it is really heard and understood, without reservation.” — Carl Rogers, founder of humanistic psychology

We have all probably heard of rage rooms - “recreational” places outfitted with tools, breakables and protective gear that offer safe, controlled outlets for the release of suppressed anger, stress and frustration. 

The existence of these rooms says a lot about how society views anger: dangerous, explosive, requiring containment. With some sources citing that the majority of visits to rage rooms tend to be women, it also says a lot about the cultural controls around who gets to freely express anger and who does not. 

There is another group of individuals who experience intense societal inhibitions from the expression of anger: children. Add to that the adult children in dysfunctional families where their anger was taboo and so remains that way within the dynamic in adulthood.

Yet, without allowing anger’s expression, and without models of what healthy anger expression is and what should be expected by the other party in holding space in the receiving of it, there can only be maladaption on both sides of the dynamic - the one maladaption formed by the existing dysfunction in the other. 

This lack of agency or freedom to express anger is often most poignantly experienced within the parent/child dynamic. Societally, children are an oppressed class with strict expectations of tolerable behaviors and lack of understanding or allowance of developmentally appropriate emotional expression. Children are often expected to somehow have better innate emotional regulation skills than the parents who demonstrate inability to do so themselves.

When experienced in early childhood, the prohibition on anger impedes not only the ability to develop healthy and authentic self expression but becomes compounded internalized anger with nowhere to go. 

As cited in an article on CPTSDFoundation.org,  “The expression of healthy anger by children in a dysfunctional home is forbidden and even dangerous. These children will grow up with unexpressed anger seething below the surface and haunting their adult lives.”

Credit: Karli Crispin, author

When that anger derives from the pain of being continually mistreated, unseen, abused and/or neglected within a dysfunctional family dynamic - and every attempt to voice the anger over that mistreatment is ignored or results in taunting, ridicule, invalidation or escalation - the suppression of that anger becomes a core survival mechanism until it can no longer be recognized for what it is - a vital, necessary and informative emotion. 

“Anger’s core message is a concise and potent no, said as forcefully as the moment demands” yet “many of us have learned to minimize our anger to the point that we don’t even know what it looks like.” Gabor Mate, The Myth of Normal 

As noted in the opening quote from Carl Rogers, the way to dispel anger is for the person experiencing it to feel fully seen, heard and understood. For the anger to have full expression with confidence there will be a productive response by the receiver. Whether for its expression within a momentary relational rupture, or as in the case of ongoing dysfunction within a family dynamic, where there is at some point an acknowledgement and validation with meaningful and appropriate response to meet the moment.

Where the person rightfully angered by the situation or their mistreatment feels that they matter enough for recognition to be made and action to be taken.

To not feel seen, heard or understood in one’s anger over mistreatment initially serves to amplify it. To have that experience occur consistently and repeatedly amounts to soul crushing abuse. 

Policing anger, however, whether that be from a parent to a child or the estranged parent community to the estranged adult child community, is an act of silencing and avoiding what is uncomfortable to those doing the policing. It is about the lack of capacity to process or face the anger being expressed and the unwillingness to self-reflect about their accountability in their role as the source or component of that anger. 

It is a reflection of their shame as well as their lack of emotional intelligence or maturity to receive vital feedback about the dynamics they have established within the relationship or their inability to atone for what they manifested in the family system.

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Be it the angry daughter or angry son who ultimately removed themselves from the chaos of a family system adamantly resistant to hearing them, the fact remains that anger is a vital part of both self preservation and of the healing process.

Per author and clinical psychologist Harriet Lerner, “Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to. Just as physical pain tells us to take our hand off of the hot stove, the pain of our anger preserves the very integrity of our self. Our anger can motivate us to say ‘no’ to the ways in which we are denied by others and ‘yes’ to the dictates of our inner self.”

The initial value of anger is the recognition of violation. Of the pain that results. The realization of mistreatment or injustice. The knowledge and understanding that you deserve better than what you are receiving. 

From the point of recognition, anger is a motivator to action. Within the dysfunctional family dynamic, it can be the signal to do the inner work either with or without the support of a therapist to understand why the family experience has been so continuously painful and infuriatingly invalidating. To set boundaries to try to preserve the relationship. To process the trauma that has been experienced. And, eventually, for the empowerment to say no more. 

But anger is threatening to those who want to maintain control and refuse to do their own inner work. Suppressing anger in those whom they are harming allows them to continue to do so. If they can trigger guilt or if the cultural mandates of forgiveness and “moving on” for the sake of family are adhered to, there is nothing demanded of them and they can maintain the status quo. 

“Your anger reveals that you are not healed,” says the estranged parent in social media forums attempting to mischaracterize statements of truth as anger in an effort to weaponize it against the estranged adult child community. 

The reality is that “not allowing anger in relationships [or conversations] is very gaslight-y and emotionally abusive,” as noted by therapist and social media creator Kate Gray (who goes by Codependency Kate on TikTok). It is among the reasons why the estrangement becomes necessary - because no action will be taken, no relational improvements made,  if anger cannot be expressed and recognized as valid. The harm that is being perpetuated will never meet its catalyst for change. 

Weaponizing anger as an attempt to cast aspersions and minimize the courage of the estranged adult child either in having taken action or in speaking their truths about estrangement -whether their own or estrangement overall - is an act of reactive defensiveness by a party unwilling to take accountability in any forum. 

Identifying and expressing anger as a result of having made the unwanted but necessary decision to sever the most fundamental of all human relationships is an integral component of healing those core wounds. We need to “name it to tame it,” as coined by neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel. 

Doing so in the moment is one thing - it is the skill of emotional regulation that many emotionally immature parents were incapable of modeling or teaching - doing so after compounded years of forced suppression is yet another.

Denying the anger - and the intensity of that compounded anger - is counterproductive to the ability to be able to release those emotional charges.

For the estranged adult child, the anger is not only from the pain and irreparable wounds of having to have made the nearly impossible choice to walk away from what were supposed to be unequivocal bonds of support and safety yet were anything but. There is also the anger from recognizing a society that prefers to look upon them as the villains versus examining the harmful cultural dictates around parenting and family that perpetuate emotional immaturity and family dysfunction and thus is part of the larger systemic problem that seems insurmountable to change.

That is a lot to be justifiably angry about.

While sources say rage rooms first emerged in Japan in the early 2000s, the recognition of the therapeutic release of anger goes back at least to the 1980’s and the concept of “silent abreaction” coined by psychologist Helen Watkins. 

Silent abreaction is a technique involving the perceptual or experiential smashing of an object - an “anger rock” - along with guided hypnotic visualization to “discharge anger that was buried - sapping emotional energy - since childhood when the traumatized patient was unable to express anger.”

There has long been understanding that buried anger cannot stay buried. Unreleased anger can lead to a host of health issues from chronic stress and anxiety to hypertension, digestive issues and cardiovascular problems.  

Explosive techniques are not the only way to release suppressed anger or other intense emotions. Guided breathwork is another powerful methodology as well. It is a process through which the nervous system can be stimulated to identify the suppressed emotions and then gently trigger a controlled and supported release. Finding a practitioner who is certified in breathwork modalities can help start that journey and exploration of expression.

Whatever the method, whatever the venue, among the many things that estranged adult children are reclaiming is our anger and the need - as well as the right - for its full and unadulterated expression. For as long and as loudly as it needs to be expressed. For nothing changes - whether in individual relationships nor in societal conversations - without a catalyst.

Credit: Dr. Nicole LePera @the.holistic.psychologist