Anger, an emotion directed at some real or imagined others in our environment, provides a constant irritant to our relations that would otherwise go smoothly.

Why are we so often possessed of a need to speak (and at times act) badly towards those we are connected to through family and work? On the roads many are gripped by a passion that inspires words and acts that at rational moments they would condemn, even if only out of self-interest. From what authority do people draw their outrage? Where ever we find people we usually find anger.

Drawing on clinical material from my group work with adolescents and psychoanalysis with adults, I’ll discuss some of these questions. The starting point is to view anger not as a problem which should be ‘controlled’ or ‘managed’, but as a symptom that requires reflection.

I hope to outline some problems such as the moral outrage of anger, intellectual midwifery and an ethical science of action, enjoyment of the group and submission to the law of the group, the role of a father in uncovering an individual ethics, and the three ‘antidotes’ to anger.

Bio

Michael Currie holds an honours degree in music performance from the Victorian College of the Arts and worked as a professional musician for ten years. He also holds a Clinical PhD in psychology and is a clinical member of the Freudian School of Melbourne.

He developed the Doing Anger Differently approach after many years of working as a family therapist, conducting therapy groups for aggressive adolescent boys in schools and practicing and studying psychoanalysis. He has been awarded a National Crime and Violence Prevention Award by the Australian Institute of Criminology for his work in using music in the treatment of aggressive adolescents.

Books

Doing Anger Differently: Helping Adolescent Boys (2008)

The Doing Anger Differently Manual: A school group therapy programme for talking about agression (2008)

(both available at Soul in the City on 28 Sept)