Why We Get Mad - by Ryan Martin (Paperback)

About the Book

This is THE book on anger, the first book to explain exactly why we get mad, what anger really is - and how to cope with and use it. Often confused with hostility and violence, anger is fundamentally different from these aggressive behaviours and in fact can be a healthy and powerful force in our lives.Aimed at anyone who as ever felt their anger is a problem for them or their loved ones, as well as those who have to deal with angry people in their lives, this is the first book to take an all-round view on our often difficult experiences of anger. It explains exactly what anger is, why we get angry, how our anger might be hurting us as well as those around us and how we can manage our anger and use it to fuel positive change in our lives. Anger is an emotion. It is associated with the desire to lash out at the person or thing one feels provoked the anger. It arises in situations that are perceived to be unpleasant, the result of someone else, blameworthy, and punishable. It is exacerbated when one feels the situation is so terrible, one simply cannot cope with it. Anger is, however, fundamentally different from aggression which is a behaviour where there is an intent to harm. This book shows how to differentiate good anger from bad anger, and reframe anger from being a problematic experience in our lives to being a fuel that energizes us to solve problems, confront injustice, create art, music, or poetry, and more. Drawing on the author's own experience growing up with an angry parent as well as a wide range of case studies and research studies, this book offers a variety of teaching tools to help people develop a better understanding of their anger, how it might be hurting them, and how they can actually use it for good.

Book Synopsis

This is THE book on anger, the first book to explain exactly why we get mad, what anger really is - and how to cope with and use it. Often confused with hostility and violence, anger is fundamentally different from these aggressive behaviours and in fact can be a healthy and powerful force in our lives.

What is anger? Who is allowed to be angry? How can we manage our anger? How can we use it? It might seem like a day doesn't go by without some troubling explosion of anger, whether we're shouting at the kids, or the TV, or the driver ahead who's slowing us down. In this book, the first of its kind, Dr. Ryan Martin draws on 20 years plus of research, as well as his own childhood experience of an angry parent, to take an all-round view on this often-challenging emotion. It explains exactly what anger is, why we get angry, how our anger hurts us as well as those around us, and how we can manage our anger and even channel it into positive change. It also explores how race and gender shape society's perceptions of who is allowed to get angry.

Dr. Martin offers questionnaires, emotion logs, control techniques and many other tools to help readers understand better what pushes their buttons and what to do with angry feelings when they arise. It shows how to differentiate good anger from bad anger, and reframe anger from being a necessarily problematic experience in our lives to being a fuel that energizes us to solve problems, release our creativity and confront injustice.

About the Author

Dr. Ryan Martin is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Psychology Today and on BBC Radio, and his much-viewed TED talk is entitled "Why We Get Mad - and Why It's Healthy". Find out more at: www.alltheragescience.com