Lesson 11 - Anger Management Flashcards
What did Novaco (1975) suggest?
Novaco suggests that cognitive factors trigger emotional arousal which precedes/comes before aggressive acts. His argument, is that in some people, anger is too quick to surface, especially in situations that are perceived as threatening, when, in reality, they are not (hostile attribution bias).
What is Anger Management?
Anger Management is a form of cognitive behavioural therapy which is where an individual is taught how to recognise when they are losing control, and are encouraged to develop techniques which bring about conflict-resolution without resorting to violence.
What are the 3 phases of anger management?
Cognitive preparation
Skill acquisition
Application practice
What is Cognitive Preparation? (3)
The offender learns too identify the trigger for their anger.
The offender reflects on events which they have become angry.
The offender considers if the way that they interpreted a situation was rational.
What is the therapist’s role in Cognitive preparation?
The therapist’s role is to help the offender re-define the situation as non-threatening. For example, someone might be staring at the individual who will perceive this as threatening when in reality, the person may just be lost in thought which the individual is taught to recognise.
What is Skill Acquisition?
This is where offenders are introduced to a range of skills and techniques to help them handle anger-provoking situations more rationally?
What are 3 techniques which help individuals handle anger-provoking situations more rationally? (State and explain)
Cognitive techniques (positive self-talk to encourage calmness). Behavioural techniques (assertiveness training to communicate more effectively). Physiological techniques (methods of relaxation and meditation).
What is Application Practice?
Application practice is where the offender is given the opportunity to apply and practise the skills learnt in the skill acquisition phase in a carefully monitored environment. Role play is often used to re-enact scenarios in the offender’s past where they have reacted violently to a situation. The offender must take this very seriously and the therapist must not be scared to ‘wind up’ the offender to really see if they have taken on board the skills they have learnt. Successfully using techniques in the role-play will result in positive reinforcement from the therapist.
What are 2 advantages 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 which must be addressed through the use of all these elements.
+ Unlike behaviour modification which only touches on the superficial surface behaviour, anger management really tries to get to the root cause of offending behaviour.
What are 3 disadvantages of Anger Management?
- The assumption that anger causes offending my be false. For example, financial crime is not motivated by anger. Furthermore, Harold Shipman murdered 215 of his patients during his time working as a GP and his motivation was not anger, but to alleviate his patients off their suffering.
- The success of anger management depends on the commitment of the offenders participating. For example, in the Application Practice stage, offenders must take the role-playing seriously. However, many prisoners can be uncooperative and apathetic meaning that the approach will not successfully get to the root cause of offending and rehabilitate the offender.
- Anger management programmes are very expensive to run as highly trained specialists are needed to carry them out. Many prisons do not have available resources to run such programmes.
