Lesson 11: Anger management

Question 1

What are the stages of anger management?

Answer 1

Stage 1 - Cognitive preparation

Stage 2 - Skill acquisition

Stage 3 - Application practice and role play

Question 2

Stage 1 of anger management

Answer 2

Cognitive preparation

• Offender identifies triggers for their anger
• They reflect on past events that triggered anger
• They consider if the way that they interpreted those events was rational
• For example. an offender may interpret someone looking at them as threatening (hostile attribution bias) when they just glanced at them

Question 3

Stage 2 of anger management

Answer 3

Skill acquisition

• Offender is introduced to a range of techniques and skills to handle situations more rationally
• Could be cognitive such as positive self talk
• Could be behavioural such as assertiveness training to communicate more effectively
• Could be **physiological* such as relaxation techniques

Question 4

Stage 3 of anger management

Answer 4

Application practice and role play

• Offender is given the opportunity to practice the skills they have learnt in a carefully monitored environment
• Offender takes this seriously and sees the scenario as real
• The therapist will intentionally wind up the offender to see how they deal with it
• Met with positive reinforcement from the therapist.

Question 5

Strengths of anger management

Answer 5

• It is a multidisciplinary approach which acknowledges that offending is a complex social and psychological behaviour any attempt to address it must include all of these different elements.
• Tries to get to the root cause of offending behaviour, rather than focusing on superficial surface behaviour that behaviour modification or possibly custodial sentencing might do.

Question 6

Weaknesses of anger management

Answer 6

• It is expensive to run as they require a highly trained specialist who is used to dealing with violent offenders and many prisons do not have access to these resources, compared to token economy which can be done with less training
• The success of anger management is based on the commitment of those who participate, and this can be a problem if they are uncooperative