lesson 11 - anger management Flashcards
what is anger management
anger management is a form of cognitive behavioural therapy and has a three stage approach
what are the 3 stages of anger management
cognitive preparation
skill acquisition
application practice
what is cognitive preparation
Cognitive Preparation –The offender learns to identify the cues for their
anger (e.g. specific contexts or comments). They reflect on events in the past when they became angry. They consider if the way that they
interpreted those events was rational. The therapist’s role is to help the
offender redefine the situation as non-threatening. For example, an
offender might interpret someone looking at them as threatening, but in actual fact the person looking at them was just lost in thought.
what is skill acquisition
Skill Acquisition – The offender learns skills to manage their own
behaviour in anger-provoking situations. Techniques could be cognitive (positive self-talk to encourage calmness); behavioural (assertiveness training to communicate more effectively) or physiological (methods of relaxation and meditation)
what is application practice
The offender has role-play opportunities to practice new skills and receive feedback. They could role-play scenarios which in the past led to anger/violence. The offender must take this seriously and see the scenario as real, and the therapist has to be brave and ‘wind up’ the offender. Successful negotiation of the role play will be met with positive reinforcement from the therapist.
strength of anger management
Anger management is a multidisciplinary approach (cognitive, behavioural and social elements are included) which acknowledges that offending is a complex social and psychological behaviour, and any attempt to address it must include
these different elements.
+ Unlike behaviour modification, anger management tries to get to the root
cause of offending behaviour (the thought processes that lead to
anger/violence), rather than focusing on superficial surface behaviour.
weaknesses of anger management
The assumption that anger causes offending may be false. Many crimes, such as financial crime, are not motivated by anger. Even murder is not always motivated by anger, Harold Shipman murdered over 215 of his patients during his time working as a GP, and his motivation was to alleviate their suffering.
- Anger management programmes are expensive to run as they require a highly trained specialist who is used to dealing with violent offenders. Many prisons do not have the resources to run such programmes.
- The success of anger management is based on the commitment of those who participate, and this is a problem if patients are uncooperative or apathetic
