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ANGER

Anger is often referred to as one of the toxic emotions.  It has been cited as a major factor in coronary disease, vascular problems and high blood pressure, in skin problems such as eczema, MS, depression and cancer.

In fact, anger is just a perfectly normal human emotion - usually a response to having our boundaries pushed or crossed.  Intrinsically, it is neither good or bad - it just is.  What causes the problems is what we choose to do with our anger.

If a child grows up in a household where anger is never shown, the child learns that their own anger isn't acceptable and so hides it.  This supression is what does the damage.  If the child sees a parent exploding with rage or exhibiting aggression (a learned response to anger rather than anger itself) they may decide that anger is frightening and again repress it.  Or they may respond in the same way as the parent - by being a 'pressure cooker' or by exhibiting aggression.

So, it is aggression rather than anger which is unacceptable; the supression of anger which may be toxic. 

Ideally, anger should be used to prompt us to take action to ensure that the same situation doesn't happen again.  We may need to set our boundaries more clearly or have a conversation with someone to tell them how their action made us feel & how we would like them to behave in future (see Confidence and Assertiveness).  Our anger has thus been released and used in a constructive way.