John Rifkin–The Healing Effect of Anger in Relationships
The Healing Power of Anger
John R. Rifkin, Ph.D.
“Your Anger Can Be a Gift!” Most people either scratch their heads or laugh when I say that. They just don’t understand.
I open the introduction to my book, The Healing Power of Anger: The Unexpected Path to Love and Fulfillment, with a beautiful quote from Marge Piercy: “Life is the first gift, love is the second and understanding the third.” Anger in relationships is a perfect spot for understanding to take place.
I define anger as “the natural healing energy that the body produces in response to injury.” It is energy that is meant to fix what is hurting you. By attending to our anger, we have the chance to see where the injury has occurred and to channel the energy for healing.
I also look at anger in the context of emotionally intimate relationships. Emotional intimacy is a relationship of equals who make a commitment to honor and respect each other’s emotions. This is not the same thing as liking the other person’s emotions. Whether or not couples recognize having made the agreement to be emotionally intimate, the agreement is implicit in being in the relationship. It is easy to share the fun stuff, but genuine intimacy evolves when couples take the risk to share the strong, difficult emotions, such as anger, and walk away feeling understood.
When you understand that you have made an agreement to share what you’re feeling with your partner, you begin to see that not sharing the important emotions you feel can injure the relationship. Not sharing deprives the relationship of honesty, vitality, and completeness. In an important way, sharing your anger, as well as the underlying injury, is a gift to your partner. It gives your partner the chance to attend to what you feel.
Dr. Rifkin is a psychologist in private practice in Boulder, Colorado, former Chair of the Committee on Professional Practice of the Colorado Psychological Association and former CPA Board Member. The class he offers at Colorado Free U helps couples and individuals experience the constructive potential of anger. Leave class with new perspective on the difficult emotions and the difficult conversations.
See the next offerings of John’s class. February 10 and April 7