Why We Get Mad

This is THE book on anger, the first book to explain exactly why we get mad, what anger really is - and how to cope with and use it. Often confused with hostility and violence, anger is fundamentally different from these aggressive behaviours and in fact can be a healthy and powerful force in our lives.

Aimed at anyone who as ever felt their anger is a problem for them or their loved ones, as well as those who have to deal with angry people in their lives, this is the first book to take an all-round view on our often difficult experiences of anger. It explains exactly what anger is, why we get angry, how our anger might be hurting us as well as those around us and how we can manage our anger and use it to fuel positive change in our lives.

Anger is an emotion. It is associated with the desire to lash out at the person or thing one feels provoked the anger. It arises in situations that are perceived to be unpleasant, the result of someone else, blameworthy, and punishable. It is exacerbated when one feels the situation is so terrible, one simply cannot cope with it. Anger is, however, fundamentally different from aggression which is a behaviour where there is an intent to harm.

This book shows how to differentiate good anger from bad anger, and reframe anger from being a problematic experience in our lives to being a fuel that energizes us to solve problems, confront injustice, create art, music, or poetry, and more. Drawing on the author's own experience growing up with an angry parent as well as a wide range of case studies and research studies, this book offers a variety of teaching tools to help people develop a better understanding of their anger, how it might be hurting them, and how they can actually use it for good.

About the Author

Dr Ryan Martin is Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. In his work in anger, he draws on over 20 years of research, teaching and clinical experience.

His work has been featured in the New York Times, Psychology Today, on NPR's Invisibilia podcast and on BBC Radio's The Digital Human. His TED talk Why We Get Mad has been viewed more than 2.25 million times since June 2019.