section_path: Coping strategies/Therapy and behavioral strategies
section_name: Therapy and behavioral strategies
paragraph_text: Therapy and behavioral strategies
  
  According to Leland R. Beaumont, each instance of anger demands making a choice. A person can respond with hostile action, including overt violence, or they can respond with hostile inaction, such as withdrawing or stonewalling. Other options include initiating a dominance contest; harboring resentment; or working to better understand and constructively resolve the issue.
  
  According to Raymond Novaco, there are a multitude of steps that were researched in attempting to deal with this emotion. In order to manage anger the problems involved in the anger should be discussed, Novaco suggests. The situations leading to anger should be explored by the person.
  
  Conventional therapies for anger involve restructuring thoughts and beliefs to bring about a reduction in anger. These therapies often come within the schools of CBT (or cognitive behavioral therapy) like modern systems such as REBT (rational emotive behavior therapy). Research shows that people with excessive anger often harbor and act on dysfunctional attributions, assumptions and evaluations in specific situations. It has been shown that with therapy by a trained professional, individuals can bring their anger to more manageable levels. The therapy is followed by the so-called "stress inoculation" in which the clients are taught "relaxation skills to control their arousal and various cognitive controls to exercise on their attention, thoughts, images, and feelings. "Logic defeats anger, because anger, even when it's justified, can quickly become irrational." (American Psychological Association). In other words, although there may be a rational reason to get angry, the frustrated actions of the subject can become irrational. Taking deep breaths is regarded as the first step to calming down. Once the anger has subsided a little, the patient will accept that they are frustrated and move on. Lingering around the source of frustration may bring the rage back.
  
  The skills-deficit model states that poor social skills is what renders a person incapable of expressing anger in an appropriate manner. Social skills training has been found to be an effective method for reducing exaggerated anger by offering alternative coping skills to the angry individual. Research has found that persons who are prepared for aversive events find them less threatening, and excitatory reactions are significantly reduced. In a 1981 study, that used modeling, behavior rehearsal, and videotaped feedback to increase anger control skills, showed increases in anger control among aggressive youth in the study. Research conducted with youthful offenders using a social skills training program (aggression replacement training), found significant reductions in anger, and increases in anger control. Research has also found that antisocial personalities are more likely to learn avoidance tasks when the consequences involved obtaining or losing tangible rewards. Learning among antisocial personalities also occurred better when they were involved with high intensity stimulation. Social learning theory states that positive stimulation was not compatible with hostile or aggressive reactions. Anger research has also studied the effects of reducing anger among adults with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), with a social skills program approach that used a low fear and high arousal group setting. This research found that low fear messages were less provocative to the ASPD population, and high positive arousal stimulated their ability to concentrate, and subsequently learn new skills for anger reduction.
  
  A new integrative approach to anger treatment has been formulated by Fernandez (2010). Termed CBAT, for cognitive behavioral affective therapy, this treatment goes beyond conventional relaxation and reappraisal by adding cognitive and behavioral techniques and supplementing them with effective techniques to deal with the feeling of anger. The techniques are sequenced contingently in three phases of treatment: prevention, intervention, and postvention. In this way, people can be trained to deal with the onset of anger, its progression, and the residual features of anger.