Anger Triggers 1
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Anger Triggers and Sublimation Tools
Josefine Leventhal-Noble
Therapeutic Programming
Julie Scheffel
Anger Triggers and Sublimation Tools
Josefine Leventhal-Noble
Anger Triggers, Sublimation Tools
GOAL:
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For the client to identify anger triggers.
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For the client to identify sublimation tools.
RESOURCES:
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Magazine clippings of people and places and things showing angry settings, expressions
or situations as well as clippings of sublimation activities like running, writing, thinking,
walking etc.
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4 glue sticks
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A writing board (Title= Anger trigger points on one side and Title= Sublimation tools on
the other.)
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1 felt pen, 4 blue ink pens, and 4 red ink pens. (For extra personal color choices only.)
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4 journals
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18 Styrofoam cups (Cup Stacking Game, Wayne Godinet)
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A stopwatch
ACTIVITY RATIONAL:
The layout, design and format of this activity plan is based on the “Kelso Write Up
Sample from eLearn.”
This program is a stepping stone tool designed to aid the late adolescent in recognizing
and then managing anger and its trigger points. Teenagers, of this age group, often have
difficulty distinguishing between feelings of frustration and feelings of personal violation as well
as simple triggers which escalate their emotions. As a result they miss possible anger cues thus
resulting in an escalation of violent behavior or withdrawn emotion on their part.
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In his work at the Anger Management Institute, James Baker (1979) states that, “when
confronted with fear […] animals and humans responses are to fight or to avoid it […] to go into
‘fight or flight’, ‘violence or silence,’ or ‘gun or run,’ mode. They engage in the conflict or they
withdraw” (p. 5). This program teaches the young adolescent how to identify anger triggers and
how to then sublimate-or channel- those emotions into a more productive, social act. In his
article “Action on Anger: Diffuse the Anger Triggers,” Baker states that “experts advise us that it
is much better to express anger rather than bottle it up […] they point out that suppressing anger
can adversely affect our physical health” (p.2).
While anger triggers are cues or signals which flag a particular emotion and which, if not
addressed or attended to properly, can escalate into displays of rage, introverted silence and even
violence; and while all of these responses “impede personal happiness, reduce social skills,
increase stress and make processing information harder” (Anger Institute “Anger in the Work
Place Seminar” para. 1), sublimation, on the other hand, is “the process whereby a primitive
asocial impulse is transformed into a socially productive act” (Susan Pratt, “Sublimation”).
Recognizing these triggers and then being able to utilize effective sublimation techniques is
critical to the teen in managing anger. Prior to implementing proper Anger Trigger discovery and
Sublimation Skill Techniques teens must first be given an understanding of what constitutes an
Anger Trigger. Through the use of discussion and the use of magazine clippings that express
different settings, faces, situations and items associated with anger triggers the teen will then
gain a clearer understanding of what anger triggers are. In this section, the CYW will focus
attention on feelings, and personal experiences, as well as personal events associated with
triggers.
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Understanding what these points can be, the client will then be given a journal, a pen,
and a glue stick to select a picture most similar to a trigger point and anger moment they can
recall and then they will write about that moment and how they felt before, during and after it.
These moments, as well as the feelings and emotions the client felt, will then be discussed along
with the journal recording and how that made them feel. Taking the journal home with them will
then aid the client in recording possible future trigger moments they may encounter or witness in
the week to follow. Having their journals with them will also allow them to record what they
would do or could have done to stop an escalation. Triggers are everywhere in everyday life and
can arise for a variety of reasons so providing the client with a set of steps to look for and to
engage in will encourage the client to realise that triggers and anger escalations are often
manageable if not entirely avoidable through sublimation-or in this case journaling.
METHOD:
Engagement Activity: CYW will welcome the clients and ask them to take a seat around a table.
On the table there will be several stacks of Styrofoam cups and a stop watch. The clients will be
asked to think of ideas to build a tower using all of the cups with the goal, initially, of not
allowing the tower to fall down; then one by one, the clients will be asked to introduce
something subtle which will cause the tower to be at risk of falling or even, possibly, collapsing
altogether. Here the stop watch will be utilized as an added factor in creating a stress level on the
tower by adding speed to the activity. After a few attempts at assembling the tower and keeping
it stable, despite height, time and exterior element factors, the clients will be asked to give some
ideas of what the noticeable cues were that the tower was about to fall? The goals of the session
will then be shared with the clients by saying:
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“Today we have seen how fragile a tower can become the higher we stack things on it and the
more we add outside stresses to it. We also saw how small effects on that tower like breath or
even the shaking of the table can cause what seemed stable, to collapse. Well, today we are going
to learn what we can look out for when we are trying to keep a situation or an emotion from
getting so high that it collapses or erupts. CYW will now remove the cups and clear the table
adding the writing board and also laying out the magazine clippings. The clients will then be
directed to look through the magazine clippings and to take some of the pictures that they think
relate to situations that look like emotional or physical or environmental collapses which may be
about to happen or may have already taken place.
SKILL BUILDING ACTIVITY:
Have the magazine clippings, the writing board and the marker on the table. Have the journals
set out and next to the CYW, but out of the distracting line of vision of the clients. Focus the
discussion, now, on the pictures and settings thereby allowing the client to point out situations
which look like moments of emotional or social collapse and then allow clients to articulate what
they feel or see as the trigger or cue of the collapse coming or having taken place.
Write these on the Writing Board. Return to the topic of the cups and the stacking higher
and higher until a collapse occurred and then re-address the moments with the cups where the
client added stress to the already faltering tower. Next, go around the circle and ask the clients if
they can think of a time when they saw or experienced, within their emotions or within a
situation, a rising elevator ride or a fragile tower experience. Ask them how it rose higher and
how it was affected by some other forces until there was a collapse or explosion.
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Refer to these as “triggers.” Next, ask the clients to think of ways that the scene or the
person or the emotion or event in the clippings may have been returned to a more stable state or
even been held at that state. Have the clients look through the second stack of clippings to locate
things that they think might have been done to stop the collapse or to stop the situation from
occurring as it is seen to be occurring in the pictures. Refer back to the tower and ask what could
have been done to stop the tower’s collapse. Write these down on the “sublimation,” side of the
Writing Board. Refer back to the clippings to find pictures of different activities, besides
journaling, that the client can engage in to sublimate. Call these “sublimation activities.”
At this point, hand out a journal and have clients record how they felt at that time and
what they think they saw that could have warned them before the situation or their temper
became escalated. Ask the clients to record what they felt they could have done to stop the
escalation. Ask questions like:
1. When do you think you saw your tower/emotions getting unstable?
2. What did you see that was a cue that things were escalating?
3. What did you feel as your anger was escalating?
4. How could you have sublimated this moment or event?
5. What can you do next time to stop this escalation effect?
6. Who might you talk to help remind you to look for the triggers?
COOL DOWN: Once the clients have shared their journal experience, the CYW will now
explain how the expression of the client’s written event, and his/her emotional connection to it,
made him or her feel.
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In this way, the CYW can then explain the use of journaling as a “sublimation activity”
for when the client’s anger seems to be rising and the tower of the client’s emotions are getting
fragile to the point of collapse or eruption. The CYW can now ask specific questions about
tracking the triggers and looking for the cues that signal when a collapse or eruption may be at
hand. The CYW can ask:
1. When do we know that our anger is getting too high to be stable?
2. Give me an example of a “trigger point” or an “escalation cue” that we can remember
from today’s session.
3. Tell me how can we know that our anger level is rising?
4. What can we look for to tell us that our anger is rising?
5. How can we stop this “tower collapse” or this “elevator ride” upward?
6. Name some sublimation activities we can use besides journaling.
List, by checking off the Writing Board, all the ways that the client can “sublimate,” or stop the
escalation times, then congratulate the client on their input and on their sharing of personal
experiences and briefly paraphrase the goals achieved.
ACTION PLAN:
After the final summarization the CYW will inform the clients that their challenge next
week, and before the next session, will be to watch out for a time, event or place where they saw
or experienced a situation where their anger was rising and triggers were being flagged. Have
them record the event in their journal, recording how they felt before, during and after.
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Inform the clients that they will have the opportunity to talk about these next week and
that their successes will be celebrated in the session with something special in the form of a
group reward being given to them. Then in order to engage them in areas where they can look for
these events during the week the CYW will ask the clients questions like:
1. “Where would you see some moment that could turn from a stable time to a
collapsed or escalated one?
2. Could you see something like this happen on television? In a hockey game?
3. How could you turn this escalation around?
4. What could you do for a sublimation activity?
GOAL MEASUREMENTS:
For the client to identify anger triggers, the clients will verbally express examples of
triggers and will also pick out “clipping” examples of these triggers. The clients will list, and
have recorded on the Writing Board, these triggers and may also later add to their journals a
selection of pictures depicting these triggers. The clients will also list emotions or feelings that
are associated with these triggers. These will also be written on the Writing Board. 2.) For the
client to sublimate, or come up with and discuss different ways of sublimating. The client will
also, in his or her journal, list ways of how sublimation can be achieved.
The client will, as well, pick from the clippings and add, to his or her journal, examples
of other sublimation activities besides journaling. Having the client take the sublimation tool
home to record and address triggers as well as sublimation exercises through the following week
will also help to solidify the goals for the client.
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SUITABILTY/AGE GROUP MODIFICATIONS:
Age 5-7: This program can be made suitable for 5-7 year olds by using larger and simpler
pictures which depict anger triggers and sublimation activities.
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The word “trigger” could be replaced with the word “Red flags,” or something the clients
would be better able to relate to and the word sublimation could be replaced with “Happy
Face” activities. These two flags, a red one and a happy face one, can be added to the list
of resources as a sight tool for this age group.
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Instead of journals, large blank booklets can replace these. Glue sticks can still be used so
that clients can select and glue, into their books, pictures that show “Red flags” and
activities to manage these and their anger.
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Markers would be replaced with crayons and would be used for drawing, if the client
wished to draw examples of “red flag” moments and sublimation activities or “happy
face” moments.
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The cup stacking engagement activity can be changed to large blocks with the children
moving about the floor to stack the blocks and, in so doing, be better able to expel excess
energy from being seated too long within the activity.
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The stop watch can be exchanged for a whistle where the whistle would be sounded to
denote increase in pace of the block stacking.
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Safety modifications would not be an issue.
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Stickers can be given out as encouragement for the next week activity.
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The action plan can be modified by having the client simply be instructed to look for and
recall times when they saw their temper was rising and to recall also what they used to
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control their temper trigger. The client can be encouraged to draw it in their journals for
next week’s session. Crayons would be provided instead of markers.
AGE 8-10: Clients would use journals and add pictures with glue sticks. Pictures would again be
modified to accommodate their age and the triggers associated with that age. Sublimation
pictures would also be modified to be age appropriate as well. Word associations would be used
along with the pictures and the clients could use their markers to record these.
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Cup stacking game could be replaced with dominos and the children could be encouraged
to kneel on their chairs to engage closer at the table with the domino tower.
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Clients would be given a less formal book than a journal but more sophisticated than a
large, blank booklet. An Art booklet can be provided wherein the clients will draw or
glue pictures of events which show triggers and sublimation activities.
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Clients would be encouraged through the week to record events where they noted triggers
and used sublimating activities even if it was just the Art Booklet drawing and be told
that the next week they would have a “Smarty Break.”
AGE 11-13: This group would concentrate more on writing concepts of triggers and be
encouraged to engage more with each other in the ideas of what triggers might be. Pictures
would be adapted to accommodate their age with themes that deal with popular shows or styles
of the day and events that show trigger points within these areas.
●Journals would be more decorative having pictures or themes on them in order to illicit an
interest in picking up- to write in- a journal which they may feel an affiliation to because of a
particular picture on the cover. The pens would also be more attractive and geared toward the
age and taste.
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Clients would be given the choice of a journal, although there would only be two types to
choose from, and each type would be in doubles to make certain that if all the clients
chose the same journal there would be enough and so no escalating of emotions could
occur.
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Clients would be given a goal to look forward to in the next week’s session for having
looked at and recorded examples of triggers or times they used the journal or engaged in
another sublimating activity. An ice cream “Time” could be suggested.
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ACTIVITY ANALYSIS:
1. Prescriptiveness: The execution of the tasks is not complex and requires limited
structure. Clients can record any anger event or anger trigger and are free to
write or use pictures to describe the moment, or moments, adding sub-headings
if they wish.
2. Controls Required: The CYW will control the direction and course of the
discussion while leaving ample occasion for the clients to engage in
conversation and expression of feelings regarding the discussion. Clients will be
free to add their ideas of “trigger” situations and cues beyond what the magazine
pictures offer or afford. If discussion should begin to escalate, the CYW will
redirect the conversation through appropriate associations back toward the
magazine clippings saying,” What a great example you’ve given of a picture that
looks like this one.” Or, “So, what you’re saying would be an example of this
type of trigger or anger escalator?” Or, “What picture might you select then that
would be an example of what you could use to manage or re-direct that anger?”
3. Physical Movement: This will be minimal and require fine motor skills, in
writing, and gluing pictures. Cognitive skills will also be utilized as memory and
attention will be engaged.
4. Competency Requirements: Clients will need to be aware of the differences
between anger triggers and the difficulties and dangers in ignoring these.
5. Amount of Competition: There is no competition; although clients may feel
compelled to out express a time when their anger escalated to dangerous
proportions.
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6. Interaction Provided By Activity: This will be a high level interaction as the
clients will be asked to select anger trigger pictures and share with the group
examples of these triggers. Clients will also, as a group, provide examples of
sublimation activities, picking out from the clippings references to these.
Journaling will be low interaction as the clients will do this part independently.
7. Rewards within The Activity:
a. Intrinsic- The Client will feel a sense of relief once he discovers that both
anger triggers as well as anger escalation can be traced and managed if
not altogether avoided.
b. Extrinsic- Client may discover a sense of companionship and acceptance
seeing that others in the group have experienced anger escalation and
that he or she is not alone in having missed the cues to stopping this
escalation. Client may also feel relief that he or she can now watch for
triggers in order to avoid such moments and this will make the client
happier, build his confidence and give them hope, allowing him or her to
feel less ostracized by society since he/she sees that others have
struggled as he/she has.
8. Degree of Structure: Medium to high. The Elevator/Cup stacking Game as well
as the Brainstorming to locate “triggers” from their past experiences as well as
the recounting of these experiences will demand concentration and recall.
Journaling will also require a set time to accomplish the task and then also to
facilitate a discussion afterward.
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9. Disadvantages: Memory recall of situations and events which were times of
escalated anger may create a negative emotional or psychological response and
trigger an escalation of anger within the session itself. The client may not wish
to engage in the memory exercise due to painful memories or simply bad
experiences. The client may not wish to journal or may have an aversion to this
kind of emotional expression. The client may become aggressive or
unmanageable.
10. Advantages: For the client to now understand that escalation is like an elevator
rising slowly upward and that, just like the stack of cups, it can then get less
manageable the higher it rises so too with anger triggers can this happen. Each
level reached becoming a level closer to collapse, thus, requires and ability and
effort to recognise these triggers and then manage them through a sublimation
act and, in this, then, the client can successfully manage the moment.
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