Dealing With Anger Management and Impulse Control

A lot of times we are faced with situations that stress us, upset us, make us angry. At home, at work, at school, on the street.
And sometimes, a lot of times, a few times, we lose control. We act, only to then regret it.

During the past couple of months I’ve been working with a 15 year old African American boy. He was admitted in the institution I work in with a diagnostic of Disruptive Behavior Disorder, Impulse Control Disorder and Learning Disability.
He had no contact with his biological mother and little to none with his father.

When my team first started working with him, he was physically aggressive towards peers and adults (specially females), had poor peer relationships and difficulties making friends.
He was very intolerant to frustration and “snapped” very easily, some times requiring physical restraints.
He used to tease and provoke others a lot and when engaging in daily social interactions, he used to approach people in a fighting stance (with his ward up), even when he just wanted to talk to people.
Managing his anger and impulses was almost impossible to him. When he became upset he exploded in tears and got blindly into fights.
9 months later, he’s willingly trying to fight this. His “fighting stance” is no more. When I pointed this to him he froze like in shock, and a couple of seconds later told me that he hadn’t realized about this.
If another client approaches him to fight or teases him, he walks away.
He goes to his room and stays there. His hands shake, one can see he is tense, he is fighting to keep it together; but he doesn’t engage in the fight.
What happened during this time? How did he change so much in so little time?

It was a matter of reinforcing his pro-social behaviors and build his self esteem. More importantly, make his ego stronger and more resistant to frustration. He needed that reassurance.
Another important thing, was to make him think. To create an instance that wasn’t there to mediate between the stimuli and the action.

Sometimes, individuals who have anger management problems also have poor insight, empathy and/or intellectual functioning.
They lack the switch to stop, think, and act accordingly.
The goal here is to create that switch and wire it to every potentially disruptive behavior.

Of course most of this anger comes from the fact that he has no contact with his parents, and it makes him feel guilty… as if he’s the one to blame for this.
Another one is fear. Due to the lack of social skills, every social interaction is a potential stressor or threat that triggers fear, and the response to fear in this case, is aggression. They are stressors because he doesn’t know how to deal with this situations.
That’s why it’s important to create a thought process that could pop in when the situation gets tense. To make the person have insight of what’s going on in his/her head at that time and put a Stop Sign where there was no speed limit. To make them think and feel about what’s going on and why they are feeling that way. It’s not easy. The impulse is too strong. But it can be defeated.

If you are reading this and feel identified with this story I have just one tip for you: THINK (in bold and underscored). Give yourself a second and think about it. Is it worthy? Are you gaining anything from acting up? Why did you react like this? What thoughts came to your mind at that moment? Did it make you remember something from your past? Are you re-living a past and maybe traumatic situation?
Make it a constant exercise. Just think about it and ask yourself the questions that you need to ask, because there’s always a reason, a cause. It’s just a matter of finding it. And that’s a very good way to start.

Image credit, Wikimedia Commons

Article by Fernando

The guy in charge of this blog - husband, Psychologist, former Manager, Blogger, Job Coach, Recruiter and Information Junkie. Yes, I am all that.

Fernando has written 237 awesome articles for us at FT Careers Blog

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