Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. When a girl is abused during childhood, she may not experience anger, only helplessness or numbness. Only later may the emotion of anger surface. Little is known about anger cognitions or behaviors as they occur across the years of the healing trajectory from childhood maltreatment. Data for the present secondary analysis were derived from a large narrative study of women thriving in adulthood despite childhood abuse.
The purpose of this analysis was to examine the phenomenon of anger and its role in the recovery process of 6 midlife women. The 6 cases were purposefully selected because their interviews contained rich descriptions of anger experiences. Because each woman was interviewed 3 times over a 6β12 month period, 18 transcripts were available for in-depth examination. A typology was constructed, depicting 5 types of anger.
Anger ranged from nonproductive, self-castigating behavior to empowering, righteous anger that enabled women to protect themselves from further abuse and to advocate for abused children. Anger is a universally experienced and complex emotion. Researchers have categorized different types of anger, as well as numerous forms of anger expression and suppression e. The consequences of anger and its various dysfunctional manifestations can have a profound impact on the individual who experiences the emotion, as well as those in contact with that person.
Historically, there have been conflicting views on what is adaptive versus maladaptive anger, as well as how clinicians can best address it in a therapeutic and health-promoting way. Despite the publication of several otherwise excellent books e. The present study was prompted by a gap in the literature about anger of women who have experienced childhood maltreatment.
This unique sample of 44 women had achieved remarkable success in life, despite egregious childhood abuse. The first author, an anger researcher, had observed some vivid anger stories in the narratives, and decided to return to the data to explore these more fully. Before turning to the results of the data analysis, a brief review of anger literature is necessary to provide a background. De Rivera theorized that anger involves a perception of a challenge to what ought to exist and an impulse to remove that challenge.
