A great article in today's Wall Street Journal about the how many employers are turning to anger management experts to deal with problems in their offices. Interesting, the
anger management classes are similar to those offered on this site and even include
court ordered anger management classes. Some excerpts from the article are below:
Scream at the boss? Snap at a colleague? Throw your cell phone into your @#$%%&* computer monitor? If so, you may find yourself headed to anger-management classes, which have become an all-purpose antidote for fit-throwing celebrities, chair-throwing coaches, vandals, road ragers, delinquent teens, disruptive airline passengers, and obstreperous employees.
Demand for such programs is coming from courts seeking alternatives to jail sentences and companies hoping to avoid lawsuits and office blowups. Aware that high-pressure jobs can make for hot tempers, some professions offer pre-emptive anger management. A few state bar associations now require "civility" training for lawyers renewing their licenses. And as of last year, hospitals must have programs for "disruptive" physicians as a condition of accreditation.
Programs run the gamut from $300-an-hour private therapists to one-day intensive seminars, weekly group sessions or online courses with no human interaction. Many advertise that they satisfy court requirements—even if all they offer is six CDs and a certificate of completion.
Professional anger-management trainers say that in most cases anger isn't an illness but a normal human emotion that causes problems when it flares too hot, too often. They believe people can learn to manage their anger with practical skills.
"I don't want everybody who calls up for anger management to be assumed to have a mental illness," says Ian Shaffer, chief medical officer for MHN, a subsidiary of Health Net Inc., which runs employee-assistance programs for companies, including anger management. MHN's anger-management program takes the form of conference calls. After an individual evaluation, employees whose jobs are on the line because of anger issues are told to call an 800 number for a 90-minute group discussion with a facilitator twice a week for six sessions. All participants are anonymous. MHN says one in-house study found that three-fourths of the employees whose jobs were in jeopardy were in good standing after completing the program.
How can they tell if the employees aren't working at the computer or filing their nails during the sessions? "We can't—but we can tell if you're participating or progressing," says Dr. Shaffer, a psychiatrist. "People can sandbag you—bright people know what to say to make it sound like they are progressing," he says. "But at the end of the day, we go back and ask your supervisor if you're better."
Most anger-management programs stress "emotional intelligence"—the idea that understanding why you are frustrated or annoyed or upset, and finding a calm, constructive means to get your way, is far more effective than losing your temper.