Book Review: Rage (Part 1)
A page in the diary "Accept, Adapt and Appreciate: How?"
Written by nw4m Dec 1 2007 12:39 AM
Original title: Rage - A step by step guide to overcoming explosive anger
Author: Ronald T. Potter-Efron
Published in Canada, 2007
What is Rage?
"..excessive anger and a transformative experience marked by loss of normal awareness, a changed sense of self, and loss of behavioural control." - Chapter 1, Page 8
As I browsed through the book, 4 chapter titles caught my attention.
Chapter 4: Seething Rage, Personal Vendettas and Rampage
Chapter 6: Impotent Rage
Chapter 7: Shame-Based Rage
Chapter 8: Abandonment Rage
Among the descriptions of seething rage are: "..a long-term buildup of fury towards a specific individual or cluster of individuals". "..reactions against past insults or injuries".
The following questions were provided to help the reader gauge whether seething rages are or could become a problem for him/her.
1) Are you unable to quit thinking about past insults or injuries?
2) Does your anger about some past insult sometimes seem to grow greater over time, instead of leveling off or diminishing?
3) Do you sometimes have intense fantasies of revenge against people who have harmed you?
4) Do you hate people for what they have done to you?
5) Would people be amazed if they knew how angry you get, even though you don't show it?
6) Do you feel outraged about what people try to get away with?
7) Do you have difficulty forgiving people?
8) Do you "seethe" in anger but don't say anything to others?
9) Do you deliberately hurt people (physically or verbally) in order to pay them back for something they did to you?
10) Do you believe that any particular person (or group, organisation, or institution) is to blame for your unhappiness?
11) Do people tell you it's time to move on and quit dwelling on the past?
Six steps were discussed in the chapter and I would like to highlight and share Step 5 with you.
Step 5: Practise empathy to lessen feelings of outrage
A sense of moral outrage fuels most seething rages. The people who have harmed you seem to be evil, immoral, sinful and wicked.
Empathy is the antidote for moral outrage.
Empathy means putting yourself in the shoes of another person, so you can better understand how that person thinks and feels.
Empathy is not the same as making excuses for someone, though. People have to be held responsible for their behaviour, no matter how well you understand them or how much you feel for them.
But practising empathy pulls you out of an "I'm good and you're bad" world and into a "we're all in this together" world.
..There are basically two types of empathy.
The first kind involves trying to really understand another person's way of thinking. I call that cognitive empathy.
The idea is to think about something somebody did that you didn't like, something that could begin or add to a resentment.
Then try to put yourself in that person's place. If you were that person, what might you have been thinking at that time? What is most important to that person? What does he or she value, want, and need in life?
The second kind is emotional. What was that person feeling at the time the problem occurred? Was he or she scared? Angry? Embarrassed? Sad?
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Thanks for reading. More about Chapter 6 and 7 later. ^_^