We have all met people who seem to be bursting with anger all the time. As soon as something goes wrong, their anger floods out of all proportion to the incident. They are like a dam holding back a huge volume at great effort to the discomfort of those about them, but mostly to themselves.

Anger has a value and a proper purpose in the human as in all animals. It stimulates him to act to protect and fight for his dignity and personal territory. If I come out and find some children letting down the air pressure in my car tyres, I would be angry and stimulated to tell them so. This would be a reasonable reaction, but if I took a stick and beat them unmercifully, it would be an unreasonable reaction.

Where does the backlog of unreasonable anger come from? How does a person accumulate such a dam of nebulous aggressive anger? Sometimes a person can feel acute anger all over again at an incident which happened years before. Anger has a quality of being able to be stored up if it has not been adequately expressed at the time of the original situation. This is what we call repressed anger. It can commence way back in early childhood and build up over the years. It can start as a three-year-old who is afraid of the loss of his mother's love, or much earlier; continue to accumulate during school years, right through to adult life and even old age.

For some reason my father used to feel that it was his Job to buy the footwear for his two boys. He was not content to leave the Job to my mother, it was far too important for a woman to attend to! He seemed to think that only a man and more particularly himself, could make sure that shoes were of good quality and fitted without cramping the feet. He used to say that feet needed freedom to move and grow. Yet he did not seem to realise that I likewise needed freedom to express my occasional and reasonable anger. He seemed to feel that anger was bordering on the indecent and should be pushed down, or bottled up. Swear words were just not allowed in our home. Even words like 'gosh' were not allowed because they were supposed to be a corruption of the word God and that would be a blasphemy to take the name of the Lord in vain. Today I enjoy occasional relief of anger in the use of swear words.

Children are live, thrusting, vital, experimenting persons in need of freedom to move and grow. But what do we do? We cramp their expression, "Don't do that." "Do as you are told." "Shut up." Large numbers of parents stifle and punish children for expressions of anger. My wife used to recall how she was smacked by her father when she was a little girl, At thirty she could still feel strong anger. She did not deserve to be punished. It was not her fault- It was unjust and she never got a chance to put that right. She was made to repress it and the anger remained with her for years until she was able to deal with it-

We feel angry when we are tricked, robbed, deprived or ridiculed. All of these things have to do with our sense of justice and dignity. Child or adult, we place great value on fair play, especially when applied to ourselves. We can also feel angry at the unjust acts of persons or governments half way round the world.

I think it condenses down to being angry on one or more of four levels:

Impingement on my dignity.

Impingement on my possessions.

Impingement on my achievements.

Impingement on my sense of fair play.

Repression of anger occurs when we are forced to accept impingement in any of these ways but can do nothing about it and cannot deal with the emotions generated. The sense of injustice continues to rankle. The incident gradually sinks below conscious level but when recalled by memory or similar situation can relive the emotional fire of the first experience.

How can we deal with this volatile emotional state which has a habit of releasing adrenalin into our system with amazing rapidity? First we can deal with the current angers as they arrive by avoiding repressing them. Anger should be released immediately, when it happens and as cleanly as possible. We can usually do this in a socially acceptable manner without loss of dignity. It is often enough, simply to express our feelings sincerely, openly and orally by stating something like this, "That conclusion or action makes me feel angry. I think it is totally unjust." Or, "I feel angered at your suggestion."

In giving voice to our feelings, we help to relieve them. It is surprising how a word statement alone can have a calming power on our own feelings and a steadying influence on the perpetrator of the injustice. He also does not like social disapproval and may mitigate the matter or seek further reason. By stating one's own feelings rather than attacking his, we avoid challenging his dignity and putting him on the offensive. Bv stating our own sense of justice we are appealing to his while establishing our own position and bringing it into the open.

Parents should be very careful not to build up repressed anger in the children. They should look past their own, to the child's emotional feelings. Look at things from the child's point of view- The frustrated parent who shouts to the child "Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about" is in danger of building up repressed anger in the child.

Children should be encouraged to express themselves in word statements when they feel angry or that an injustice has been done to them, and given an opportunity to give their reasons for the statement. There is nothing wrong for a child to say to parent or teacher "I feel angry because I think it is not fair." He is merely making a statement of fact. The sense of fairness is very strong in children. It is surprising how much they are amenable to statements of justice. From this point of view, children have not had as much opportunity of being messed up as adults and their innate sense of justice is often sound and quick.

There are times when we are caught in difficult situations where we are unable for some reason to state our anger. Sometimes we can relieve this by energetic physical activity. We can get rid of that adrenalin by chopping some fire wood, digging the garden or punching a pillow, thus using up animal stimulation meant for action or flight.

I remember when I was about seven-years-old, overhearing my mother advising some other woman to "show her baby just who was boss." She advised that if you want to have an obedient child and a peaceful life you should break the child's will before he is two.

In spite of being so young I was completely shocked by this abhorrent philosophy. The sudden emotion I felt was violent and varied. A long forgotten picture which was more distant than a memory came to mind. I saw myself on a floor somewhere and someone was standing over me with a strap in hand. I knew that someone was my mother and she had tried to break my will. I knew she had not succeeded in doing so. But I hated her for trying- In that instant I rejected her love for me and knew that I would only be obedient in so far as it suited my purpose, even if I had to deceive her in doing so.

I was only seven-years-old and had not heard of psychology but instinctively knew I had to give active expression to my anger. I wanted to put physical distance between us, so I went for a long walk down the road swearing and cursing at her with every rude word in my small vocabulary. The hot anger gradually died down and was replaced by a determination to be my own boss. Nobody was ever going to break my will!

Repressed anger is harder to deal with. Often it expresses itself as a great nebulous collection of feelings of impingements which have been endured in the past. The person has lived with them so long, he does not remember what it is like to be without them. Nor is he fully aware of the energy being used to hold back the flood of anger. He gets called a bad tempered so and so, or is referred to as touchy or sullen. Not a comfortable situation for his acquaintances but a much sadder state for the sufferer himself.

Repressed anger is an unsatisfied wish, often unconscious, to hit back for past injustices. It is this unsatisfied wish which is the core and force of the problem.

Anger calls for action against the cause of the anger. But action was impossible at the time, now it is too late. Time has put the cause of injustice out of reach, or, perhaps in some other way, it is impossible to get at it. So the sufferer is left with a stop-go situation. A wish to express anger and an inability to make the appropriate expression to the right object of that anger. Hence his fine control can easily swing too far and demonstrate itself in over reaction to the current threat.

Anger can very easily be carried from one situation to another. An impingement on one's dignity at work can make a man morose for hours or days. Often it is the wife or family who bears the brunt of the attack. Of course this is trying to relieve the problem while creating another unfair one for the people we should be caring for most. So it is worth being careful to always relate the anger to its real cause otherwise we can end up like the old lady in the nursery rhyme who swallowed a fly and ended up swallowing a horse. She died, of course.

What can a person do to rid himself of this uncomfortable repressed, searing anger. First must come the willingness to change. If he finds it useful to stage anger to achieve his ends or as a help in lending enough courage or force to his demands upon others he will be unlikely to want to change. So we must assume that he realises that he has more to gain in friendship and personal comfort for himself and family by being rid of his smouldering anger.

It is the wish to hit back which should be dealt with and this is what must be given away before peace can come. It must be looked at realistically. The past is beyond reach. The present is a situation standing on its own merits. It is often helpful to be able to talk about it to someone trustworthy. Care should be taken that talking does not become like a cracked record repeating itself over and over again. If the desire to change is real and the person sees the futility of anger the wish to hit back can be given away. It requires a positive thinking act of determination to give away the desire to hit hack, but it can be done.