Kate Gosselin, of "Jon and Kate Plus 8" fame is rumored to be starting anger management classes. Supposedly, Kate had become so difficult to work with because of her random angry outbursts that her agent told her that she would need to take anger management classes and get a better grip on herself or no one would hire her.

Ok, I'll admit that I watched the show a few times. I honestly had never heard of them or the show until last summer when things started to disintegrate real fast and they were all over the media. And on the three shows I saw it did seem that Kate was constantly on edge and she did totally lose control of her anger at least once.

I don't know if Kate needed anger management classes before having 8 kids, but I could see the stress she was under on the show and I actually remember thinking at the time that she could probably use anger management classes.

Anger is a protective response to a perceived hurt or threat and lets face it, there are very few things in life more stressful, exhausting and threatening than being a parent to 8 kids. We have a dog and two cats and have a hard enough time managing them, I can't even imagine what it must be like to have all those kids!

One of the misperceptions about anger management classes is that they are focused on techniques such as count to ten, take a time out, etc... and while I think those are important parts of any anger management class, they are really only superficial solutions that don't effectively deal with the anger problems in most situations.

To be really effective an anger management class should help you figure out how to look at the things that anger you in a different light. Most of the things that make people angry are about the story they tell themselves about what happened. If you change the story you change the way you react. Our stories are usually based on what happened to us in the past. The way someone who grew up being picked on in New York City is likely to be very different than the one someone who was the prom queen in a small town in Texas. Once you begin to understand the pattern of stories you tell yourself and why you tell them, it becomes very easy to change them and not get angry. This is why my anger management class looks at anger from four different angles - biology, history, mental shortcuts and how to deal with challenging people or situations.