Reaching the Boy Inside the Angry Man: Men and Healing Anger

By Daniel P. David, PhD

Men struggle with anger, yet anger is a vital part of a man's emotional life. When anger gushes like a geyser from the place of a man's wounds, and the pain is potent enough to send him into rage, although he may feel it, he may remain oblivious to what sparked his anger. In spite of anger's destructiveness, it is valuable for men to consider the healing side of anger as it tends to point to their deeper wounds.

Many men are unaware of their emotional wounds and struggle with the allusive mystery of why they are so angry. Robert Bly, the author of Iron John, wrote, "The savage man is wounded and prefers not to examine it," which says a lot about how men, starting from early boyhood, compartmentalize or stuff away their painful experiences and negative feelings into some forgotten realm of their unconscious minds. Emotionally wounded boys grow up to be wounded men because the wounded boy remains lost wandering somewhere within these realms of the man's unconscious mind. Bly rightfully pointed to the dilemma facing every man who has not worked through the wounds of his boyhood -something is lost in every boy that they must reclaim later through their personal lifelong inner and outer quests. Anger is a reminder that the man's quest to find the wounded boy and to help heal him is still unfinished.

Where does the angry man begin to look to heal his wounds? Men spend inordinate amounts of life struggling to understand the reason behind their anger, because they forgot the place where they hid their wounds. If it was easy to find and heal the wounded boy lost within and to resolve the anger, men would no doubt line up for the miracle elixir. However, easy remedies would only serve to diminish and render a man impotent, because the quest to heal his wounds, which is the source of his anger, is what gives birth to his strength of character -much like the quest for the Holy Grail.

Using the images of an expansive dark forest or a deep ominous cave, men must be willing to journey within and face their past hurts, failings, misdeeds, trauma, shame, guilt, victimization and helplessness in order to reach the place of their wounds. For example, in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker had to enter a deep dark cavern to battle and kill his own Darth Vader only to reveal that behind his slain mortal enemy's helmet appeared his own face. The lesson here is that men who battle with others are often battling themselves in an attempt to resolve their secret pain, inner discord, shame and guilt that emanate from their toxic wounds.

Our prisons are full of men who tried to heal their wounds through drugs, alcohol, and violence, and yet they never found release. Young men carry their wounds into the streets, other men bury themselves in their work, while some men seek to heal their wounds through religion, only to mask it with good deeds and use their dogma to hurt others. The only way to heal the wounds is actually to face the wounds, and that takes an act of courage that few men dare to muster. However, as the caterpillar must push itself out of the bindings of its cocoon in order to gain strength to fly, so must a man do the work of healing his wounds in order to be free from anger, there are no easy short cuts.

Love, forgiveness, acceptance are powerful remedies that are often rendered ineffective, because they are rarely applied to the actual wound, since few men know where their original wounds are hidden. Therefore, being mindful that anger acts like a road sign that points a man to where the wounds lay hidden, and that by following anger back through the memories, emotions, and experiences of the boy within the man is how the wounds are uncovered and healing can begin.

The boy found wandering in the unconscious forest of the mind is lost and scared, and is often still raging at the perpetrators of his wounds so many years later into manhood. The boy knows where the wounds are hidden, but he needs to feel safe journeying back through the deep emotional pain to the event or events that wounded him. Working with a therapist at this point can be very helpful. Therapy is a "witnessing profession," which gives power to the inner boy to know that his wounds are being validated and affirmed by an objective and caring observer-guide.

It is important to remember that there is hope and healing for men with anger. Therapists often use "inner-child therapy" as an approach to reaching the boy within the angry man in order to heal his "rejected, shamed-self." Ultimately, connecting with the inner boy and healing the wounds is the most effective method for dealing with anger issues in men.

For additional information about how to help men with anger problems, please visit: http://www.innermanpsychology.com. Daniel P. David, PhD was educated in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the University of Oxford (England), and he has successfully helped men of all ages to experience positive changes in their lives for more than 25 years.

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