My many posts on
anger have distinguished the natural function of the emotion - to protect something of value - from anger problems - the recurring experience of anger that makes one act against one's best interests.
The issue of anger problems is not a simplistic distinction between primary and secondary emotions, which is just a straw-man argument. No one wants a life without any anger or the ability to protect the self and that which we value from attack. The point is that anger problems pervert the natural function of anger by making us devalue that which we value. Anger problems, unlike the occasional experience of natural (primary anger), are not about self-defense or existential rights, they are about protecting fragile egos and enforcing a sense of entitlement. They are not about protecting the self or loved ones; they are about temporarily enhancing a threatened sense of self (through the artificial confidence of adrenalin) by devaluing others, usually loved ones.
The discussion of primary and secondary emotion is pointless in regard to anger problems. Anger is a primary response to threat. But the construction of what constitutes a threat is a function of analysis of sensory variation, along with cognitive operations, including attribution of blame and belief that one is a victim. In that sense - the only one relevant to anger problems - anger is secondary to the construction of what is a threat. Those with anger problems mistake their partners - and most people who disagree with them - for saber tooth tigers. The prospect of fear and shame makes them feel so vulnerable that they are likely to make such gross mistakes. The more they avoid fear and shame, the greater their perceived vulnerability and their need for protective anger.
The sensible psychotherapeutic inquiry is not about the anger, but this: "What made it seem that your wife was a saber tooth tiger?" Once the adrenalin wears off, the client will not feel shame because he got angry or because the therapist thinks he should; he will feel shame because he regarded his wife as a saber tooth tiger. He does not need help for the anger; he needs help for the perverted construction of reality that caused him to violate his deepest values.
Dr. Diamond is correct that anger mobilizes the organism to fight. In so doing, it activates every muscle group and organ of the body. During the arousal of any kind of anger, perspectives become narrow and rigid - you cannot see anyone's point of view but your own or see anyone as a person independent of your emotional reaction to him. Only the threatening aspects of a problem are perceived and those are amplified and magnified. You can recall little besides information learned or experienced when you were angry, eliminating the possibility of mitigating context. Anger is self-validating - if I'm angry at you, you must be doing something wrong. All thought processes are dedicated to justifying the anger, not to questioning it. The compelling behavioral motivations of anger are to control or neutralize the perceived threat, and if that fails, to warn-threaten-intimidate the perceived threat, and if that fails, to inflict injury on the feelings or body of the perceived threat - in short, to undermine its capacity to threaten. The solutions that angry people come up with in their impaired cognitive states are the equivalent of turning off a lamp with a rock. Dr. Diamond thinks this state, in defense of a fragile ego, is "healthy, appropriate, and natural."
Dr. Diamond states that most clients in psychotherapy suffer from anger phobia and that they more readily experience shame. If that were so, we would have evidence of increasing humility rather than escalating anger. There would be a cottage industry of court-ordered shame management classes. Aggressive driving laws would be rewritten to control those who feel so badly about themselves that they can't drive up to the speed limit. People would be hurt if someone thought they were angry instead of just losers. We would not see kids killing each other because they are "dissed," and there would be no mottoes like, "Death before dishonor."
I have personally seen hundreds of spouses and children who have suffered, due to therapists who "validated" the anger and rage of clients. People with anger problems use the authority of therapists who urge them to get in touch with their anger as justification for enforcing their sense of entitlement. Therapists who work with angry clients should do follow-up evaluations for at least a year with the families of their clients. This would produce empirical and ethical reality checks more scientifically illuminating than references to Adam and Eve.
Dr. Diamond's validation view of anger seems like a resurrection of the 19th Century steam-engine model, where the pressure of anger has to be let off like a steam engine lets off steam. The more scientific view is that neurons that fire together wire together, i.e., the more you express anger (even when you don't get it validated by an expert), the more often you will get angry.
In contrast, as soon as the angry client is compassionately led to the unadulterated experience of whatever shame or fear drives his anger, the anger immediately dissipates, because it is no longer necessary. Fear and shame carry natural motivations to become safe and to be true to one's deeper values, respectively. Acting on these motivations reduces ego vulnerability and, consequently, the need for anger, while increasing self-compassion and compassion for others. With simple emotional regulation skill - the ability to hold onto self-value and value for others under stress - the client is freed from the self-obsessed prison of problem anger. His experience of anger is then allowed to return to its natural, primary function of protecting that which he most values.
