Act on Life Not on Anger The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Guide to Problem Anger Georg H. Eifert, Matthew McKay, John P. Forsyth

One in five Americans has a serious problem with anger, which can lead to domestic abuse, road rage, workplace violence, divorce, and addiction. Anger destroys friendships, business relationships, and love affairs. There are dozens of anger management programs available to angry people-good programs, filled with sound techniques. But what happens when these programs don't work? When the attempt to control and prevent anger leads only to more outbursts, more guilt, more pain? ACT on Life Not on Anger approaches anger control in a different way. Rather than trying to control angry feelings, it urges readers to break away from coping strategies and techniques for control entirely. The book makes the radical proposal that anger can be left alone, that it doesn't need to be struggled with. Most importantly, it suggests that anger doesn't need to be acted on, that it doesn't have to drive what we do as people. Instead of asking readers to struggle even harder with anger, this book helps them to drop the rope in their tug-of-war with anger using a new set of principles and techniques: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, pronounced as a single word rather than letters.) The process is simple. Readers start by learning how to accept their angry feelings as they occur, without struggling to alter or impede them in any way. Then, using techniques based in mindfulness practice, they find out how to watch their anger without identifying with it. By separating from their anger, readers discover that they are not "angry people," but beings who can choose to act in way that further who they want to be. Value-identification exercises help readers decide what matters most to them-being happier at work, preserving their families, making and keeping close friends-and then commit to short- and long-term goals that turn these values into reality. In the process, anger simply loses power over their lives-they gain the most profound control, accomplished by simply letting go.