Participants will:

Understand anger as an everyday and a psychopathological phenomenon.

Learn a specific four-stage anger model and how it is applied in various clinical settings and cultures.

Learn specific, evidence based, cognitive-behavioral interventions for clients who have high anger.

Understand the role of specific in-session behavioral exercises and technology-based treatment advances

Agenda

8:15 a.m. Registration (continental breakfast)

9:00 The Nature of Annoyance, Anger, Aggression, Hostility, and Rage

	Anger is not aggression! Or, is it?
	Definition, diagnosis and anger
	theory for practitioners
	The benefits of anger / the tragedy of anger
	Working with clients from different cultural backgrounds. Universality and variation in anger “scripts.”

	Interpersonal and marital anger
	Workplace anger and aggression
	Parent/child anger
	Driving anger (road rage)
	Intrapersonal anger: brooding and rumination
	Anger directed towards psychotherapists and counselors
	Measurement of anger

Noon Lunch (on your own)

1:35 Interventions for the Practitioner

Cognitive, Behavioral, & Philosophical Approaches

	Pay no attention and it won’t go away
	Put on a happy face
	Stress inoculation training
	Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: Irrational Thinking and Anger Episodes
	Relaxation: the time tested “aspirin” of CBT
	“Barb” your way to anger reduction: Specifics of an evidence based, in-vivo approach
	Importance of the therapeutic alliance

2:45 Break (coffee, tea, soda, snack)

3:00 Practice Makes Better!

	Role Plays
	The “Prisoners’ Dilemma” and anger: Use in the therapist’s office
	Future oriented, virtual reality therapies for anger

4:30 Adjournment (pick up one-day certificates)

Participants will:

Better understand the effects of therapists’ anger on treatment outcomes.

Learn a comprehensive menu of strategies for managing their own anger in a therapeutic setting.

Acquire, through practice and demonstrations, new cognitive and behavioral skills for reducing their own aanger and for responding constructively to ambivalent and hostile clients.

Agenda

8:15 a.m. Registration (continental breakfast)

9:00 Common anger triggers faced by counselors: A review of sample cases

	Ambivalent and poorly motivated clients
	Hostile, critical, and angry clients
	Clients who sabotage treatment

10:00 The effects of therapists’ anger on client outcomes

	Counselors predictions and treatment outcome
	Harsh confrontation versus empathy
	Counselors’ emotional reactions & the therapeutic alliance

10:20 Break (coffee and tea)

10:35 A comprehensive menu of strategies for managing anger in a therapeutic setting

	Develop awareness of in-session anger reactions
	Foster the therapeutic alliance
	Manage physical activation and body language
	Identify, challenge, and replace anger engendering beliefs
	Develop and practice responses that strengthen the alliance and client’s commitment to change
	Learn from mistakes

Noon Lunch (on your own)

1:30 Dealing effectively with client ambivalence

	Thinking realistically about client motivation
	Responding effectively to client ambivalence
	Role-play practice demonstrations

3:00 Dealing with hostile, critical, and angry clients

	Thinking about therapist–client conflict
	De-escalating techniques for responding to hostile and critical clients
	Role-play practice demonstrations

4:30 Adjournment (pick up certificates)