Anger

Customer Reviews

• A Good Companion to Lerner's The Dance of Anger.  Jul 18, 2001 (20 of 23 found this helpful)

  Carol Tavris offers some very practical advice. Apart from when the expression of anger is intended to dissolve a relationship, anger becomes effective when: (1) the anger is directed at the offending person (telling friends may increase anger); (2) the expression satisfies your need to influence the situation and/or correct an injustice; and, (3) your approach seems likely to change the other person's behavior, which means you can express yourself so they can understand your point of view and so they will cooperate with you. She takes issue with those who would encourage venting. Like Harriet Goldhor Lerner, her goal is change.

• An excellent book but many find it hard to swallow  Jul 19, 1999 (19 of 23 found this helpful)

  I first read this book about eight years ago. Though some of Ms. Tavris' analysis is suspect, the vast majority is well-founded and accurate IF YOU APPROACH IT WITH AN OPEN MIND. Unfortunately, simply implying that anger is a learned, self-controllable response provokes a very angry reaction in many people (see other reviews) that makes it hard to get the point across. Tavris has a lot to say. Unfortunately, very few people will listen.

• A serious book worth reading  Jun 22, 1997 (8 of 10 found this helpful)

  Dr. Tavris has based this book on serious research on the subject of anger. She debunks many of the pop myths about the purpose of anger and helps the reader to understand the causes of expressed anger. Her central point is that anger is a self-reinforcing mechanism that does not have healthy outcomes in itself. She explains the physiological purpose and effects of anger, pointing out that we really don't need to be angry in our lives.

  Instead she suggests various models and techniques to help understand what "sets us off" and how to manage anger. A number of situations are covered and illustrated by personal and clinical examples.

  This is not a prescription for a quick fix for quick tempers - while Dr. Tavris is sympathetic about the many reasons why we get angry, she avoids simplistic behavioral techniques as well as overly introspective ones

• A much-needed focus on anger marred by more misunderstanding  Jul 23, 1998 (34 of 50 found this helpful)

  It has been sixteen years since Carol Tavris first published this book, and she deserves credit for focusing attention on the terrific confusion in American society surrounding the phenomenon of anger. Dr. Tavris draws on her training and expertise as a social psychologist (not a clinical psychologist or psychotherapist) to presumably enhance the reader's understanding of anger: that undeniably most misunderstood human emotion. In so doing, she attempts to debunk some common assumptions about anger, e.g., that frustration causes anger. But in making her argument against the classic "frustration-aggression hypothesis," Tavris is guilty of cause-and-effect reasoning of the most simplistic, mechanistic and concrete kind. While frustration surely does not always lead to anger in the form of a reflexively automatic, knee-jerk response, and certainly not to aggressive or violent behavior, Tavris ignores the fact that different individuals have learned different ways! of dealing with frustration and anger-- which could explain some of the inconsistencies she finds in the research upon which this theory is based. For example, people who, feeling frustrated, crave ice-cream or head to the nearest multiplex may well feel angry about being frustrated, but be unaware of it; that is to say, they might be unconscious of their anger. The proper inquiry thus turns to how that specific person deals with feelings of frustration and anger--i.e., consciously or unconsciously--instead of whether frustration automatically "causes" anger, or, for that matter, whether anger "causes" aggressive behavior. The ice-cream and movies may be means of ameliorating or avoiding angry feelings rather than, as Tavris suggests, hard, scientific "evidence" that no such emotions are universal in the face of frustration. Indeed, Dr. Tavris does not seem to acknowledge the unconscious in general, leading to a rather superficial analysis and li! mited understanding on her part of the quite complex roots ! of rage and anger. This same misunderstanding of the central role of repressed anger or rage in psychopathology and "madness" in general leads her to yet another mistaken distinction between certain violent eruptions of rage and psychosis. At the same time, Tavris is right in recognizing that one can be angry--even violently enraged--and not technically "psychotic" or "insane." She also makes a valid case against the "ventilationist" mentality underlying various forms of psychotherapy, arguing that far from producing the desired effect of catharsis, rather than "exorcising the anger, . . . can inflame it." These and other well-taken points serve the purpose of pointing our inquiry in the right direction, but Tavris' conclusions fall far short of the mark. Rather than recognizing the crucial importance and vital value of anger--or even rage--to becoming a whole person, she for the most part perpetuates the demonization of this p! rimal, much-needed and potentially creative passion. She seems to take the side of society--and "adjustment" to its sometimes crushing conventions-- against the integrity of the individual, perhaps not such a surprising position for a social psychologist. However, the stifling of anger in the individual for the sake of civility leads not to social harmony and peace but instead to the destructive outbursts of anger and rage we have recently witnessed in American culture. Dr. Tavris' prescription for this so-called senseless violence is to further suppress rather than consciously comprehend and constructively redirect one's anger. It is a misguided prescription that can serve only to promote more madness, evil and continued misunderstanding of the dual-edged, daimonic nature of anger.

• Isn`t Carol Travis purposely misunderstood ?  Sep 26, 2001 (13 of 19 found this helpful)

  I have not written a book ! am not a psychologist or psychoanalyst ! and I am often a very angry person (wife and mother especially and Ms Travis has insight about this kind of problems). I went through therapy thinking I was going to discover some awful thing that had happened in my past but could not uncover anything and I have to come to terms with what is only MY problem eventually. It did make me a more open and dynamic person though and this experience for me was quite well explained by Carol Tavris` book.

  I think the angry reviews in part misunderstand what she wrote. It is not true that she "ignores the fact that different individuals have learned different ways! of dealing with frustration and anger" as the writer of another book on the subject puts it. She quite acknowledges that. She also thinks anger is useful in certain ways.

  Please read or re-read her book. It is refreshing, full of humor and yes she has some reason to criticize the ALLMIGHTY UNCONSCIOUS that unconscious shrinks interpret as they wish. Good thing that the unconscious cannot talk back !!!