Anger by Choice Book Essay by Danielle

Anger is a Choice by Tim LaHaye and Bob Phillips discusses all the different types of anger and the many ways in which it affects our lives.  This was a very interesting book with a unique way of providing a lot of useful information. This book explains how a lot of people’s lives in one way or another can be affected by anger, which is shown to be a very deceiving emotion.  The book gives the reader a chance to see themselves in each scenario.

Most people don’t realize how much anger affects them in their daily lives.  Anger is involved in 80-90% of all counseling that people are involved in.  Anger is one of the main reasons for divorce and often involves arguments, fighting over visitation rights, child support and/or alimony payments.  Anger has even caused parents to go as far as kidnapping their own children just to spite their ex so they cannot see them.  A big problem in second marriages are children from the first marriage.  Many times it is over how the children are educated and disciplined.  Studies show that 80% of couples who verbally abuse each other end up in a physical altercations.  Each year two million women are beaten by their husbands.  Approximately 40% of all women murdered were killed by their husbands.  One study also showed that male abusers were not out of control while abusing.  Their heart rates even decreased while they were emotionally upset.  The study also showed that men get violent on purpose to produce fear and control their wives.  More children have been alienated from abusive parents because of their violence than anything else.  The discouraging part about this is that the children will most likely continue the cycle of violence when they grow up.  For example, during the adolescent years the violence appears as “misbehaving” or experimenting with drugs and or alcohol.  And eventually when they become adults they continue the same pattern by abusing their own spouses, girlfriends or children.  Its not surprising that anger is not limited to husbands and wives.  A lot of children wish that their parents were dead and some have gone so far as, “divorcing” themselves from their parents.  Some of their anger comes from the abuse they have received at the hands of their parents.  Almost one million children a year suffer from child abuse.  It can be emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.  Sadly more than five children a day die at the hands of their own parents or caregivers.  The two primary times family arguments occur, are a half hour before everyone leaves in the morning and a half hour before dinner.  In the morning the pressure of leaving on time is a major factor.  In the evening everyone is tired, hungry and irritable.

            Suicide is now the tenth leading cause of death in the United States.  {Among college students, it is the second leading cause of death; among high school kids it’s the third leading cause of death; and among people age 25-45 years old it’s the fourth leading cause of death.}  The United States Department of Health and Human Services reports that over twenty thousand people die annually from suicide that equals one suicide every twenty minutes.  For every person who succeeds in suicide there are five to ten times as many people who attempt suicide and fail.  There are over two million people alive today who have attempted suicide.  Those who have attempted suicide, at least once, failed.  Suicide is proven to be an “acceptable” practice for escaping everyday problems in life.  Most people who attempt suicide have a great deal of anger and feel as though they have no other option than suicide.  Emotions can change very rapidly.  Many counselors believe that more people restrain their anger than express it.  Anger that is expressed can hurt other people but can help whoever is holding it in.  Most people who express anger usually don’t express it in a constructive manner.  However, when people are willing to make an effort to change, anger can be expressed appropriately.

            Many of our emotions have a component of anger to them.  Like depression, it usually involves anger somewhere – that is depression is cause by something other than chemical or biological changes in a person.  {Even in people who are susceptible to depression, there is usually something that triggers the depressive process.} Depression at any phase of its development, includes a component of anger whether its visible or not, whether its conscious or unconscious.  This anger is directed toward the person who is expected to provide love but who disappoints.  At different phases, the anger may arouse a wish to irritate, to hurt, or to destroy, depending upon the degree of pain, which the person is suffering.

            Some parents treat their children with severe hostility.  In such cases as

these, the child develops a childish pattern in his relationship with his parents, and

 subsequently as an adult will end up having to deal with a strong depressive

 behaviors.  Overt hostility from parent to child seems in humane and perverse, but

 we know the numbers of such instances are very high.  It is now named ‘battered

 child syndrome’.  Parents who show hostility toward their children may have dealt

 with intense anger against their own parents.  Through this they figured out some

 defensive maneuver to contain that anger, such as reactive affection, loyalty or

 subservience to the hated person, which in turn leads the individual to deal with

 overwhelming anger.