New Harbinger Publications: Your book is written specifically for men. Can you tell us how men’s and women’s anger differ?

C. Peter Bankart: Men’s anger is distinctive from women’s anger in at least two respects. The most important difference is that the culture we live in treats men’s anger as normative. Boys learn early on that displays of anger are considered manly and are exceptionally effective in covering up a huge range of emotional feelings. A man may go through several relationships and untold suffering before it occurs to him that being angry all the time is not a sign of his advanced masculinity but evidence of a serious (perhaps literal) hole in the middle of his heart. We can also distinguish men’s anger by its eliciting conditions. Men use anger to defend against any challenges to their position within the social hierarchy. Anger, not reason or persuasion, is a man’s most likely response to having his authority challenged, especially by anyone in a subordinate position. In the first place anger often produces compliance from the subordinate, and then the anger serves to reassert the dominant man’s control over the situation. Especially among boys and young men this is shown in high relief over the issue of “respect.” Boys and men are extremely vigilant that they are not being disrespected by their peers and competitors. Anger is the way that he publicly establishes dominance over others and asserts control over the situation. The result, of course, is ever increasing social and emotional isolation—but, then, men are told that this is a normal condition for them. I honestly don’t think that many women could live with the persistent and pervasive isolation that most angry men experience as a cost of being a “successful” man.

NHP: Do you think that men’s anger is more disruptive than women’s?

CPB: I think it is for several reasons. Anger is extremely corrosive of men’s health, for example. Anger is bad for women’s health too, but men complicate the negative health effects of anger by the behaviors that they engage in when they experience anger. Angry men tend to self-medicate their bad feelings with large quantities of alcohol. They take dangerous risks such as driving aggressively and having unprotected sex. They get into more physical fights, and they turn their backs on their most important sources of social and emotional support. Men’s anger, because it often is associated with physical threats and verbal aggression, is more disruptive in the workplace. An angry man will have significant trouble with his supervisors and coworkers, so his anger will threaten his economic security as well. Men’s anger is also disruptive because of how closely associated it is with men’s depression. Chronic anger, because it exhausts both the man’s biology and his social support system, results in chronic depression that in almost every case will go undiagnosed and thus untreated. Finally, chronic anger in men erects a huge barrier against the development of healthy self-esteem. It does this by blocking virtually every avenue that men travel in the development their self-worth as men. It eliminates healthy competition, close interpersonal relationships, intimate sexual relationships, respect at work, and the joys of close mentoring relationships. In short, anger blocks just about everything in life that is fun and brings meaning and joy to a man’s daily life.

NHP: Are there common events in a man’s childhood or adolescence that can predispose him to be an angry adult?

CPB: I devote an important section in Freeing Your Angry Mind to this question; I call that section “How to Raise a Depressed, Angry Boy.” The key ingredients here are a group of psychological attributes that are all included in typical masculine socialization of boys into manhood. They include factors such as rigid perfectionism—nothing is ever good enough if it is not completely perfect, even the first time it is attempted; unrelenting self-criticism—especially about things that he has no control over such as his physical size or social awkwardness; self-blaming rumination—never letting go of disappointments and failures; no access to problem solving skills—“real men don’t ask for help or directions!”; self-awareness phobia—real men don’t introspect, talk about feelings, or show weakness; and finally, a prohibition about experiencing any self-acceptance— how unmanly to believe in yourself and take pride in just being a good person!

NHP: You wrote this book in a very conversational, often times frank tone. What effect did you want this to produce in your readers?

CPB: Angry men are in trouble, and often in life-threateningly deep trouble. There is no point in talking with them unless you speak plainly, speak the truth, and are completely honest. There are a ton of psychological studies about how men and women interact with their closest and oldest friends. The differences between men and women are profound in this respect. When men are talking with their best friends they are direct, they give their honest opinions, and they offer straightforward advice. This is how I interact with the men I counsel, and this is the voice I brought to the book. But men bring another quality to their intimate conversations too; they tell jokes and they laugh. So I also tell some funny stories in the book. I hope to give men the courage they need to “stand-down” from the rock cliff of their anger and just hang out and think pretty deeply about some really important issues and challenges in their lives.

NHP: What advice would you give to someone close to an angry man if he or she wanted to help that person recognize his anger and get help?

CPB: I think you probably have to say something like the following (and you probably have to say it more than once and in different ways): “I love you, and I care about you. But your anger is destroying this relationship, and I can not live with it any longer. You are being eaten up from the inside, and you are going to die alone if you don’t do something to turn your life around. I understand how unfair much of your life has been, but I refuse to feel sorry for you. I love you and want to do everything I can to help you; but you need to decide what is important to you and then you have to live your life every day as if that day was going to be your last.”

NHP: What resources are available to help men deal with anger? Can you suggest any way “reformed” angry men can help other with anger make the change?

CPB: There are literally thousands of such groups—but almost none of them are called “Anger Management Support.” Any place where men get together to make the world a slightly better place, any group that exists to help and teach kids, make the community safer, protect women from violence, create things of beauty, preserve the environment, worship God and nurture spiritual well being—is an anger-management support group. This is the central message of Freeing the Angry Mind: anger is not just an emotion to be managed, it is a poison that has to be neutralized. Anger has to be replaced by all the things that make life worthwhile—love, laughter, commitment, generosity, idealism, hope, spirituality, genuine friendship, taking responsibility for the planet and all of the creatures on it, especially the little-kid creatures and the teenage men creatures. As for the “reformed” guy, as I suggest in the last chapter of the book, his job is to find another angry guy and show him the way. Get past his righteous defenses, and show him (not tell him) the alternative.

NHP: On average, how long does it take for men to begin benefiting from the exercises described in Freeing Your Angry Mind?

CPB: My answer may surprise you. The answer is almost immediately! In my experience the benefits of this approach are either obvious virtually instantaneously, or the person is “not ready” to make the change. Let me give you a concrete example. One of the first things I do with men who come to me to work on their anger is ask them to think of some small, spontaneous, loving thing they can do that very day to make someone who loves them have a tiny moment of joy. A man who looks at me and says, “What the hell are you talking about? Do you think I’m a sucker?” is NOT ready for this program. The man who smiles and says, “Ok, I’ve got it!” has taken the first step. And when he reports back to me that he did it—usually with a big smile on his face, I tell him, “Great, now do something like it again, but this time do it anonymously, and pay attention to the joy that doing this act brings to your heart.” Of course, I didn’t invent this! There is a phenomenon in Zen Buddhism that has been known about for hundreds of years called Beginner’s Mind. A person’s first glimpse of enlightenment, for example experiencing the deep joy of being able to make someone else just a tiny bit happier, is Beginner’s Mind. You can spend the rest of your life perfecting it and deepening it, and writing books about it, but the critical moment of true enlightenment is right then and there, in your heart. Men who catch a glimmer of Beginner’s Mind as they work through these exercises (and laugh at the jokes and begin the process of healing themselves) will find themselves hooked on the process. As the sage once observed, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

NHP: Based on your experience as a counselor, what is the most effective way men who make progress dealing with their anger can hold onto the positive changes they’ve made?

CPB: What a great question! And this really is central to the established science that informs the book. The best way to prevent relapse is to relapse! Most men with anger problems spend their efforts on avoiding the things that make them angry. Wrong! The best thing to do is to search them out, practice your skills, and congratulate yourself on how profoundly different your world can be when you are paying attention to what you are doing. I’m not saying that you immediately call up the person who most infuriates you, but I am saying that your anger is a sort of dragon in you that needs to be taken out for walks in the real world on a regular basis to make sure it stays tamed and under your mindful control. It’s pretty obvious that there is no shortage of assholes in the world. You can’t really hide from them or ignore them forever—for one thing they are out there looking for a target just like you. But here’s the good part. When you encounter one of these anger provoking persons, you just practice your mindful skills, smile at the person, and say, Thank you. You have been my teacher today. You not only win, you leave him or her profoundly confused by what just happened!