Anger at Work

Anger is a source of diminished functioning and performance at work, and can have negative consequences for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Problematic anger can cause major disruptions in the workplace and negatively influence individual performances as well as health and well-being across entire organizations. This is a particularly serious problem in high-risk occupations, where the consequences of prolonged, unhealthy anger can be devastating.

This book reveals the impact of anger on job performance and in the workplace context, with a particular focus on police, firefighters, and the military. This book aims to help researchers and practitioners distinguish healthy from unhealthy, unproductive anger and to understand its links to problems such depression, alcohol abuse, and PTSD.

Contributors examine new and useful conceptual frameworks such as moral injury, and typical risk factors and behaviors including risk-taking, irritability, hypervigilance, and chronic physiological activation. Anger is examined within individual and team contexts. Treatments and interventions, including cognitive bias modification, are presented to help clinicians and practitioners put these insights to practical use.

About the Authors

Amy B. Adler, PhD, is a research clinical psychologist and senior consultant with Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and is acting director of the Research Transition Office at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. She co-chairs the Army's Psychological Health and Resilience research program and has published more than 100 articles and co-edited six books. Dr. Adler is also an associate editor of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.

David Forbes, PhD, is the Director of Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, in the Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne. Dr. Forbes is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience in the assessment and treatment of mental health problems following trauma, and has worked in both acute crisis and continuing care settings across the community mental health system and in specialist traumatic stress services.

He is an international expert in posttraumatic stress disorder and military mental health. Dr. Forbes has published more than 110 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and sits on the editorial board of leading international journals. He is a member of many advisory committees for governments and other organizations, including the Departments of Veterans' Affairs and Defence, and the Australian Psychological Society. He has a strong track record in leading initiatives to improve outcomes for people affected by trauma through the translation of research into effective policy and practice.