Anger Immunization

Cadet Vessel, Company H2, discusses his English assignment on anger immunization. He was inspired by James Baldwin's anger in "Stranger in the Village" and wanted to find ways to control anger in a positive manner. He researched cognitive behavioral therapy, medication, and a combination of both as solutions. He suggests implementing these therapies in elementary schools to prevent anger issues in adults. Uncontrolled anger can have negative consequences, such as damaging relationships and health. Over a quarter of adult Americans struggle with anger control. Anger triggers vary from person to person and can stem from childhood experiences. Anger management therapies aim to address the root cause and channel anger into non-destructive outlets. Teaching these strategies to children can help prevent anger issues in adulthood. Hey guys, it's Cadet Vessel, Company H2. My name is Dan, plus bring the pen. Today we're going to be talking about the paper that I wrote for my English assignment called anger immunization. So you might be wondering, how did I get this idea? So in class, as I'm sure you guys all know, we had to read Stranger in the Village by James Baldwin. Now, first time I read this, I'm going to be honest, didn't really like it or understand it. I thought it was pretty boring. But as we went over it more in depth in class and continued to learn about it, I dove deeper into it. And one of the things that I found really interesting is that in Stranger in the Village, James Baldwin, he shares his anger about how black people are treated in America. And completely justified anger. At the time, right after World War II, 1950s, early 1950s, black people were treated terribly in America. There's still Jim Crow laws, there's still segregation, and Cadet rewrites the anger. But the one thing that stood out to me is it seemed like his anger was inhibiting the enjoyment of his life. And racism should not detract from anyone's life. Like, everybody deserves to be happy no matter what race they are. So I was thinking, what if there was a way for James Baldwin to figure out how to be happy despite his poor treatment in America? So I started researching different ways that people can control their anger. So I came up with this research question. How can someone properly control specific emotional responses that seem to be uncontrollable by definition? Rage, rashness, and desire for revenge. What's important in this is I said properly control. What do I mean by properly control? I mean, control these emotions and use them in a positive way. So for James Baldwin, something that it seems like he did with his paper, but he could have done other ways too, is use that anger, use that rage in a productive way and then still be able to enjoy his life and not be bitter the whole time. So properly control is to avoid negative consequences that can arise from emotions such as anger. So I started looking into this and I found three main camps that people were in. People were saying you should use therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and group therapies to treat anger issues. I saw other people saying that you should use like melanin drugs. Now, there weren't really a whole lot of studies saying just use drugs and not use cognitive behavioral therapy, but there were studies that supported the use of drugs and didn't mention cognitive behavioral therapy. And the third one is that you should use a mixture of the two. But I was thinking, you've got these three different therapies or solutions to this type of anger, but they're all a reaction. You want to be proactive. Like, what if people learn strategies earlier in life so that way they don't have to backtrack and fix the consequences of their anger and mistakes? So that led me to my hypothesis. Cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as other therapies, should be implemented in elementary schools to prevent anger issues and the negative effects in adults. Now, when I did my research, I found that this actually worked very well or that this would work well, because the first thing I did in writing my paper is I wanted to make sure my audience knew that this was an issue that needed to be solved. So I set out to prove that uncontrolled anger has negative consequences, and it definitely does, because if you don't control your anger properly, it can not only harm your relationships with your family and friends, it can also get you in trouble with the law, it can maybe make you lose your job, and it can also increase your risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease and heart failure. So it can harm you both physically and mentally and emotionally and financially. So being able to control your anger is a very useful tool for adults. But, all right, some people have trouble controlling their anger, so what? There's not a whole lot of people, or is there? Actually, over a quarter of adult Americans have said that they themselves have difficulty controlling their anger, according to the American Psychological Association. So after that, I started thinking, all right, so we know that anger is a problem, but now we need to dive deeper into what can cause anger. If we know what can cause anger, then we can know how to deal with it. So anger is caused by a person's interpretation and reaction to the world around them, and because people interpret and react to different situations differently, causes of anger vary from person to person. For example, something that would make one person very angry might just not bother somebody else at all. So these triggers that trigger someone to become angry can stem from a lot of places, including their childhood, because if someone grows up and they see their parents lash out with uncontrolled anger, they're going to grow up and they're going to think that that's okay, too. Their experiences also affect their ability to control their anger. For example, according to a study I saw on anger.org, if you've experienced bullying, abuse, trauma as a child, and you weren't able to safely deal with that situation and deal with that anger as an adult, those same triggers, you're still going to have those feelings, which can cause it to be much more difficult for you to keep control of yourself. So now we know that anger is a problem. It can harm people. It's not just a problem that affects a small amount of people. It affects a lot of people in varying capacities. It's not like everybody needs to go to anger management, but for example, this happens to me sometimes. I'll be driving. Not recently. I haven't driven in a while. Thanks, West Point. But I've been driving and somebody will cut me off. And it's really not a big deal at all, right, because I'm at a stop sign. Some old lady cuts me off. And it costs me like 12 seconds, so it's no big deal. But somehow I'm still just very angry. And I was thinking, like, when I was writing this too, how can I help myself with that? And that's where we get to anger management therapies and why they should be used in schools. Anger management therapies such as like group therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, they focus on looking at what caused you to perceive that anger and trying and finding a way to deal with that, with the root cause, and a way to channel that anger into something non-destructive. And this would work very well in schools because young kids, according to Current Direction Psychological Sciences, a study that I found, very young children are prodigious learners and they're especially good at learning about causes. Preschoolers, toddlers, and even infants construct everyday casual therapies about objects, living things, and minds. The mind is what you want to focus on. They can understand how their minds work, how other people's minds work, which will help them figure out, make the most use of these therapies. And this is especially helpful because a lot of things that cause anger issues in adults stem from childhood. So if we can cancel out these things in childhood, then we'll have, A, adults that do not have the experiences as a child that made them unable to control their anger. Plus, they will also be equipped with different tools and strategies to deal with their anger in a safe, productive manner. This was important to me because, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes small things will just make me angry. For example, my roommate, Brewster. Like, sometimes I'll be trying to go to bed and he'll be doing his work. He's doing nothing wrong. It just makes me angry sometimes. And I think about that and I realize that I need to do something more productive than that. Thank you guys for listening. This episode of Dan's Tunes was brought to you by Shadow Reg Legends. Appreciate it.