Much work with anger aims to focus it, to direct it toward specific obstacles, more in keeping with the original biological functioning. The blind rage of violence contains a large element of fear. It is like an animal lashing out blindly in panic. Frightening or dangerous as the situation may be, the person, like an animal in panic, needs to be reassured, calmed, and focused. The danger is unfortunately increased if measures to calm a person are perceived as an intrusion, or even an attack. EFA may aim at times to calm a person, but can only be effective if the anger is accepted. A focused outburst of rage may have to precede the calm. And it may have to be focused at the helper. An understanding of the function of the eyes in the expression of anger is necessary.

Another paradox is that anger directed toward you is, in a sense, a gift. On a personal note, I remember being moved when a therapist once said to me "Give me your anger," when I had been bursting with resentment. I was moved, but also angry, and I certainly 'gave' it. I hurt the other person with what I said, but respected him for having been able to take it. Of course, it hurts to receive anger. It may provoke grief or anger in you. But ask yourself: would you really prefer to have a person you like in a long-lasting state of repressed resentment, sulkiness, or spite, or would you prefer to live through those few painful minutes of receiving the full force of his or her rage? If anger is not violent or too frequent, it is something to be grateful for. Again, it removes an obstacle to the contact between two people.

Some signs of distress when acute anger is being blocked are:

A: Before the explosion

—Fixed respiratory inflation. This is the look of imminent explosion, when the breathing is held, the shoulders pulled back, the neck stiffened. The person may even physically move back or lean back in the chair if sitting down, in an attitude that is the reverse of any angry lunging forward. All this may be under control, but when combined with some of the following other signs of "clamping down" in the face and hands, or with increasing redness of the face, a spring forward in rage is imminent.

—Clenching of the fists, perhaps alternating with unclenching.

—Increasing clamping of the jaw. 'Working' of the jaw as if chewing.

—Reddening of the face, along with a puffy look.

—A scowl of the forehead that increases and then becomes rigid.

—Increased immobility and tension of the musculature.

B. During the explosion

—Agitation, pacing, wild flashing of the eyes, and wild gestures while talking incessantly. This is an intrusion of 'flight' reactions into the basic anger 'fight' reaction, and if allowed to run its course may at least discharge the accumulated tension. Usually it alternates with wild lashing out, either verbally or physically, which EFA may help focus.

—Intrusion of the 'fright' expression on the face: eyebrows raised and eyes opened wide. This often accompanies attempts to convince or persuade or deny that the person is really upset by the situation. It may be a cover for fear.

—Misplaced violence. Random destruction of objects or striking out at other people. Anger directed at anything that happens to be in the way.

Provocation

Anger may provoke anger, and a heated confrontation between two people may end up clearing away a common obstacle in the form of a misunderstanding or accumulated resentment. But often, within intimate relationships, and occasionally in the work context, one person may consistently provoke another. The provoker very often has a problem with the expression of his or her own anger. Provocation is often masochistic. Reich refuted Freud's original theory of masochism as a desire for pain, by pointing out that no living organism really seeks unpleasure. Rather, the masochist is the prey of an unbearable tension for which he or she is unable to find release except through the action of another person. It is like a balloon about to burst that has to seek to be exploded by a pinprick from an outside source. The unbearable tension of the masochist most often contains rage that is blocked and cannot be released. The masochist whines and complains and provokes a person whose rage is more free flowing until that person can no longer stand the provocation and explodes, releasing the tension that has built up in the masochist. Many battered spouses, in particular, report a sensation of relief after being abused.

Without being fullblown masochists, most of us have experienced the sensation of unbearable tension in circumstances where our rage cannot burst out. Think, for example, of how you would behave after two hours in a line up for a plane departure. Most likely, circumstances would not permit an outburst of rage, but your complaints would be insistent and ultimately infuriating to anyone around you. Any person who has grown up in circumstances of constant humiliation, feeling crushed and impotent as if in a perpetual line up, will tend to develop a character structure in which rage is suppressed and replaced by provocative behavior.

A way of identifying your more subtle provocation of anger in others is to examine carefully the last time someone exploded in anger at you. The first question you might ask yourself is: was I angry before he or she showed anger? If you were, but did not show it, what were you in fact showing? Were you making any 'digs,' were you whining, were you pretending not to understand something, were you suffering? Were you 'feeding' the other person's anger with new material, facts, or insights that added fuel to the flames? Were you 'rubbing it in,' emphasizing the other person's humiliation in a case where he or she felt abused by someone else? (A sense of impotence or humiliation is further fuel for anger.) What was the expression on your face?

This is not to say that you must always accept responsibility for another person's anger. But since anger is part of an emotional dialogue, it may help to examine your own role in the dialogue before you become indignant at another person's anger. A final question: do you feel secretly relieved when the other person finally does explode? If so, you are passing to that person the responsibility for releasing your tension. Most of us do this at times.

Contact (1): Words

In the case of third-party anger, the most important gift you can offer is acceptance. When the anger is distressing, and the person is sounding off verbally or making restless signs of imminent explosion, an attempt to calm the person and make the anger go away will play into a sense of impotence that may be fueling it. The person may calm down but bottle up resentment, some of which may become displaced against you. Instead, accept. 'Sympathize,' in the sense of 'feeling with' (which is what 'sympathy' originally meant in Greek). Mobilize some of your own anger at the situation he or she is describing, without, of course, letting it take more space. This way you help the person feel that the anger is legitimate—which it is, emotionally, no matter what 'reason' might say. Reason can only have space after the emotions have been allowed some discharge.

Use words sparingly, but use them to help the person focus the anger. In words, as in gesture, the tendency is for anxiety to become mixed in and for the anger to take off in the direction of incoherent, generalized rage for which the whole world is held responsible. You can focus with words by referring to detail, or asking specific questions: what did the third party say? Did he or she really say that? Does this situation really mean this? And so on. What is sometimes casually referred to as 'the enormity of the situation' is what pushes a person toward panic and thus blind anger. EFA aims to reduce the situation to manageable, less frightening proportions. Help the person focus on detail, using the data he or she has already provided. It may be one or two specific details in the third party's behavior, a vicious phrase or insulting gesture, that really rankle beneath the anger. But caution: Some final detail now remembered may prove to be 'the last straw' and increase at a quantum rate the enormity of the situation.

It is not provocation to make a deliberate attempt to spark a person's anger if they are stuck in a sulk or a state of morose resentment. Some people, usually when in their childhood the expression of anger has been forbidden and monopolized by parents or other family members, lack permission to let anger out. Instead, they turn the anger inward, let it consume them, and become increasingly depressed. If you live with such a person, the whole atmosphere stagnates with a sense of pressure as the person seems to contract away from contact with the world under the burden of unexpressed anger. It is tempting to react to this with your own anger, which may prove to be the needed spark of permission, but may on the other hand add to the person's burdened feeling that the world is against him or her. It is best to confront the person before your own anger builds, and encourage him or her verbally to get angry. 'Doesn't the situation make you feel mad inside?', and so on. But don't nag them with this.