Controlling your anger: Anger management program designed for incarcerated men.

Anger Management

April 2021

Full Citation

Orozco, M. (2004). Controlling your anger: Anger management program designed for incarcerated men. Carlos Albizu University. Retrieved from http://ovidsp.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&PAGE=reference&D=psyc4&NEWS=N&A…

Abstract

Anger management control is considered necessary amongst the vast members of society but vital for those individuals who are incarcerated. Presently, the continued disruption caused by anger and violence in correctional settings represents a significant problem that needs to be addressed. The current proposal attempts to design and implement an anger treatment group program designed to minimize and control maladaptive angry behaviors among incarcerated men within a state correctional facility. The current program has the potential to be used in all prisons of the United States. Anger management groups (10 participants) will meet two hours and a half during 25 consecutive weeks. The CYA program will be divided into four phases as follows. Phase I, "Orientation", will include six sessions, and it is designed to teach basic concepts and techniques for cognitive change. The processes of self-observation, self-disclosure, and progressive relaxation techniques will be introduced. Participants are expected to identify key patterns of thinking that have lead to criminal behavior in the past and develop a plan to channel anger in adaptive ways. Phase II, "The Change Process", will also include six lessons. During this phase inmates will expand previously learned techniques and will be provided with additional coping and social skills, relevant to their specific cycle of thinking and behaving. Inmates will also learn and practice using alternative-to-violence thinking techniques such as learning social skills and problem solving methods. Finally, each participant will put together a plan for self-change based on their identified thinking patterns and need. Phase III, "Changing", this phase consists of a series of eight modules covering themes like victim empathy, domestic relationships, assertiveness, stress release, and health related issues. At the conclusion of Phase III, participants will develop a Relapse Prevention Plan. In this activity, inmates will utilize the self-knowledge, anger control, social and problem skills acquired in the first three phases to construct a plan for breaking old patterns of thinking and behaving and reinforcing new ones. Phase IV, "Putting Change Into Practice," will be completed over a period of five weekly sessions. This phase is devoted to self-risk management, which is organized around the Plan for Change, and Relapse Plan developed in the previous phases. The main purpose of this phase will be to support inmate's efforts for practicing cognitive interventions, new thinking patterns, prosocial skills, and effort in helping each other. Different dimensions of anger will be use to measure participant's angry behavior. The State Anger Inventory Expression (STAXI) contains four scales, ranging from low to very high. This inventory has good test-retest reliability and convergent validity (Spieberger, 1996). The STAXI will be used as part of the eligibility criteria and at the conclusion of the program. In addition to that, each participant will be responsible to document the frequency of anger responses daily. Similarly, therapists will record individual's aggressive behaviors weekly. Before and after the twenty-fifth weeks intervention, it is predicted that at the end of the program, inmates will show a decrease in anger-related behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)