Gently Avoid

A New Way to Cope with Anger

It is common that clients will seek out DBT to get help in anger management. Currently, I have one DBT Skills Group where a majority of the group members are wanting to work on this. One popular coping skill I have been talking about to help with this and decrease the tendency to have anger outbursts is the Opposite Action to Anger. Opposite Action is the Emotion Regulation skill we use when we need to act opposite to our current emotions because the emotion we feel is out of proportion, does not match the actual scenario, or it is just not effective to act out on this emotion.

In terms of anger, most of my clients would agree that even though they feel justified in their anger, there are just times when it is not effective to act out on their anger as it damages their feelings of integrity or it is just not effective.

However, the natural action urge to anger is to:

• lash out and fight back

• defend yourself

• over-talk to prove to the other person you are right

• verbally berate someone

Therefore, acting opposite to anger using the Opposite Action skill would mean:

• saying something nice rather than mean or attacking

• putting yourself in the other person's shoes rather than blaming

• gently avoiding

There is a lot of wisdom in the Gently Avoid option. Because like I said, most people want to just lash out and fight back. However, what I have been teaching my group members is that the Gently Avoid is a really great option when:

1.) You know you are getting very emotionally dysregulated and you are vulnerable to losing your self-respect if you attempt to open up your mouth.

2.) Even if you speak up, the other person does not want to listen or care what you have to say anyways (so you are like wasting your breath).

3.) You want to put your energy in more productive places and choose to move on instead of focusing on what you think the other person needs to hear from you.

My clients are finding their Wise Mind (the whole goal of DBT) more effectively by utilizing this version of Opposite Action to Anger. It helps them to maintain their feelings of self-respect, ruminate less on the person who triggered them, and find a sense of empowerment.

What tends to be your natural response when triggered by anger?

How could this option of Gently Avoiding help you? Who would you need to use it with?