Responding Therapeutically to Patient Anger

Patient expression of anger toward the psychotherapist is a stressful and prevalent phenomenon in the course of psychological treatment. Responding skillfully to a client's anger constitutes a major technical and interpersonal hurdle for psychotherapists, and explicit training in this area is rare. Responding Therapeutically to Patient Anger is designed to help fill this gap by presenting selected scenes of distinguished psychologists facing client expressions of anger. (Anger is used in the general and descriptive meaning of a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism.)

Designed for clinical training, this video is appropriate for workshops or individual study for the professional development of practicing clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, counselors, and graduate psychology students.

This video features clients portrayed by actors on the basis of actual case material. The therapists were not briefed in advance on the nature of the scenario being acted out, and therefore their responses are spontaneous and unrehearsed.

This material was prepared by the developers of the APA Psychotherapy Video Series: John C. Norcross, Donald K. Freedheim, Julia Frank-McNeil, Gary R. VandenBos, and Margaret M. Schlegel. Grateful acknowledgement is made to all the participants in the series from which these vignettes were culled.

APA Videos

• Psychotherapy of Children With Conduct Disorders Using Games and Stories
  Richard A. Gardner
• Working With Anger
  Lorne Korman

APA Books

• Road Rage: Assessment and Treatment of the Angry, Aggressive Driver
  Tara E. Galovski, Loretta S. Malta, and Edward B. Blanchard
• Therapy With Difficult Clients: Using the Precursors Model to Awaken Change
  Fred J. Hanna
• What Therapists Don't Talk About and Why: Understanding Taboos That Hurt Us and Our Clients
  Kenneth S. Pope, Janet L. Sonne, and Beverly Greene