– How Anger is a Type of Enmeshment in Individual Counseling

ADDRESSING ANGER AS ENMESHMENT THROUGH INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE, TN

Anger isn’t always addressed in individual therapy, but it usually comes up during some point of the treatment process.  Anger is a pretty universal emotion experienced by most people throughout their life, whether expressed in their own lives or they have felt the affects of it by someone they love.   We have discussed anger in detail in previous articles on these blog posts.  Suffice it to say: Anger is prevalent, and anger is complicated.

In this article about anger in individual counseling in Nashville, TN, we are going to look at it through the lens of enmeshment.  Enmeshment is a concept that basically means we are overly effected by the emotions of a loved one.  We should and will always be effected by those we love.  It’s part of the connection and intensity of love.  But there comes a point where our stability as an individual person becomes too impacted by a loved one.  When we start to notice that our ability to stay calm within ourselves is too dependent on the well-being of another, then it becomes helpful to step back and take an accounting of how and why we are letting ourselves get this ungrounded.  A helpful concept for this terminology of being “ungrounded” is enmeshment.

People seek out individual psychotherapy in Nashville for a multitude of reasons, but usually, most people’s dissatisfaction with life comes down to a frustrating or disappointing relationship.  This is not always the case, and I am in no way stating that a disappointing relationship is the root cause of all dissatisfaction in life.  But there is adequate research to indicate that difficult relationships account for much of our troubles in life.  My assertion here is that a person’s level of anger could be attributed to a degree of enmeshment that is ultimately tied to another individual.

In individual counseling, I have found over and over again that ultimately people don’t like to be angry.  Even those people who express anger as their predominant emotion, when they are honest with themselves, they usually don’t enjoy being angry.  So, the question arises: Why is a person continually angry if they don’t want to be angry?

One of the ways of dealing with anger in individual therapy is to help the individual consider that their anger reveals an entanglement with another person that is much stronger than they ever believed possible.  For instance, your boyfriend tells you he can’t come over this evening, because he’s getting together with his friends again.  You blow your lid!  You yell at him, “How could you do this again?  We had plans and you blew me off.  I’m so mad at you,” and you slam the phone down.  Now, you sit in your room and storm and brew for the rest of the evening.  Basically, your night is ruined.  This pattern happens over and over again.  Not the same exact events, but you get let down by your boyfriend and you become very angry and are unable to enjoy the rest your day.  Most people would agree that they would not want another person to have this much power over them.  Yet, this pattern is repeated by millions of people each and every day.  Our anger can be a sign of enmeshment with another person, if we are open to it.

Individual counseling can open a new door to the devastating effects of anger if we allow ourselves to consider not only how much we are hurt, but also how enmeshed we have become.  There is no easy way past anger.  Anger is an important emotion, if we allow ourselves the space to process what it is trying to say.  Most people just want it to go away, or either want their loved one to change based on it.  Neither one of these wishes ever really comes true.  And if this relationship ends without addressing the underlying enmeshment involved with the anger, then this pattern is simply going to follow that person to the next relationships.