Don't think of this as just another site to find information on career counseling and resume advice. We also provide weekly and monthly columns that offer tips and tricks on how to cope and succeed in an ever changing job world.

Are you hot under the collar?
by: Deborah Gantos

Tips to help you squash your anger in the workplace.

 Tip #1:  Use techniques from the expert, Albert Ellis, called “Rational Emotive Therapy,”or “RET”

Summer is here and the temperatures are hot and so are tempers. With situations such as disgruntled employees going “postal” on the rise, we need to be more aware of anger in our workplace and in our surroundings and know that if left untreated, it can turn deadly. People with anger issues don’t necessarily have a mental illness; however, they do need to learn to retrain their mind on how they react and feel about something that is upsetting them.  Albert Ellis, who was a theorist for Rational Emotive Therapy, otherwise known as RET, believed in a cognitive approach towards people who suffered from verbally and physically expressing excessive or violent anger. 

His theory consisted of:

A. an event occurs     B. person thinks about the event     C. person reacts to the event.

Example: a coworker criticizes or belittles you in front of your employer.  How do you process this experience?  Anger management comes into play when someone is able to change their physical and emotional reaction to the event that was upsetting.  This is called “reframing”.