Is Anger Truly a Secondary Emotion?
Many people who have been in therapy before or consumed any sort of wellness media have heard the phrase “anger is a secondary emotion.” To many, that feels invalidating. Their anger is hot and valid and simmering. It’s protective and safe. Anger is a master of many trades. It is true in its own form and also a mask for other emotions that feel more vulnerable like sadness or disappointment, loneliness or hopelessness. This is when the other lovely therapist saying comes in “two things can be true.” We can be incredibly angry and frustrated and irritated and at the same time hold a lot of hurt and vulnerability. Oftentimes, we miss the other emotions because anger takes the driver’s seat. Anger confronts. Anger is loud and anger protects. Anger makes itself known and feels actionable while sadness, grief, and insecurity are quiet beasts that keep to themselves.
What is Intellectualizing and What Does it Have to Do with Anger?
Intellectualizing is the act of thinking through your emotions rather than truly feeling them. When you grow up in a household that is emotionally avoidant or does not allow for the expression of emotion safely, many people unconsciously turn to intellectualizing. You might know why you are the way you are and be able to explain why you act and feel certain ways. Or you might be able to rationalize a lot of situations but then leave and feel confused or unsettled after. This is completely normal and also perpetuated by American culture. Our culture emphasizes productivity, efficiency, and not letting emotions “get in the way.” Over generations, that attitude has deemed emotions less important in our society and people don't understand them as well.
When people come into my office I see an intersection between intellectualizing and anger. I think often in our world anger is a safe emotion. It's a very tangible emotion and people understand anger because there's a lot of things to be angry about. Sometimes anger is the only emotion we allow ourselves to express. This makes anger generalize to all situations where we feel strong emotion. Eventually, any time we feel any overwhelming emotion we automatically assume that it's anger. That's why we’ve given stereotypes of this emotion across many salient identities. Men have “anger issues” and women are “Karens.” Not many other emotions have their own stereotypes in society. Instead of being authentic and vulnerable, we as a society have turned to anger as the only safe emotion to communicate openly.
Anger is often the big brother or sister of emotions. It protects all the other emotions. And it protects us from having to share scary things like loneliness and hopelessness and insecurities. We meet wrongdoing with anger and we don't acknowledge the sadness that usually comes along with it. We think of all the reasons we should be angry rather than acknowledging all the reasons we should also be sad or disappointed. We don’t hold those more blue emotions with the same time and effort. It can be intimidating or confusing to not lead with anger when we've done it for most of our lives and see those around us leading with it. It’s a scary thing. And the road gets bumpier and more nebulous. One thing I’ve noticed with clients that walk into my door is that when people let go of the anger and acknowledge all of the emotion that's also held underneath, that leads to a period of grief. All the sadness that wasn't able to be let through during those years of letting anger rule bubbles into unavoidable despair for a short period. There’s a wave of sensitivity and rawness when we stop using intellect to justify our emotions and just let ourselves feel more readily and authentically. We can acknowledge anger as its own emotion but also its role as the protector and gatekeeper of all other emotions.
Signs You Might Feel More Emotions than You Realize
Thought Patterns that tell me as a therapist you intellectualize and avoid emotions:
“I know why I am the way I am”
“My anger is completely justified”
“I don’t really have a lot of big emotions”
You know you are very self-aware
Perfectionism
Behavioral Patterns that tell me as a therapist you intellectualize and avoid emotions:
You’re body freaks out when you talk about emotions (i.e., excessive sweating, heart racing, stomach dropping)
High-achieving and ambitious in your career but not in other areas of your life
You are an automatic problem-solver/”fixer”
Emotional Patterns that tell me as a therapist you intellectualize and avoid emotions:
A persistent sense of loneliness
Avoiding emotional conversations
Feeling as if no one can understand what you’re going through
Feeling confused about how you feel
Difficulty identifying emotions
Relational Patterns that tell me as a therapist you intellectualize and avoid emotions:
A family that was emotionally avoidant
A family growing up that didn’t talk about emotions, ignored, villainized or made fun of emotions
Long-term relationships that still feel surface-level
Only entering short-term relationships because they just feel “easier”
Conflicts become very analytical
Difficulty being taken care of/receiving care
Holding Multiple Emotions at Once
We don’t want to demonize intellectualizing. At one point this was your only tool and it’s likely gotten you a long way. However, the key to fully processing emotions is recognizing that you can hold them all at once - knowing that you can hold anger and sadness and vulnerability and insecurity all on an even playing field. Trusting that when you stop leading with anger, you can handle the grief and all the emotions that are going to come up after. Feeling empowered that those feelings are valid and authentically you in a way that the anger was more of a mask.
First, you have to get good at noticing your anger. Sometimes when anger is so present in our lives we don't even realize that it's there. Recognizing the anger and asking yourself what else am I feeling? This is when I have clients save a picture of the emotions wheel on their phone and when they notice anger come up, they also look at the wheel and identify other emotions that may be coming up with it as well. When different emotions feel right, jotting down a couple sentences or journaling on the emotions and how they’ve shown up in your life. When people do this, they come a lot better and identify emotions outside of anger.
Second, we start managing the anger and all the other emotions. Some of that management is communicating with people in your life, setting boundaries, making actionable steps, or finding peace with those emotions in therapy. When people notice loneliness coming up that's masked by anger, that's when we start to find the person a community. When someone in my office notices disappointment being masked by anger, that's when we reach out to loved ones and express our disappointment and set boundaries or have hard conversations. When people come in feeling hopeless but masking it with anger, we explore the origins of that hopelessness and find places to gain a little joy and sow seeds of hope in their life.
Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Emotions Fully
A lot of people hate the phrase “where do you feel that in your body?” or “are you really feeling your emotions?” It sounds ambiguous and gatekeep-y. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s a little true. While these can be incredibly irritating, if you are someone who intellectualizes - knowing how to feel your emotions and where you feel them in your body are part of truly processing emotions so that you don't hold on to them in perpetuity. You have to consider these questions. Get really humble and honest with yourself and try to feel something that’s not anger. Sink into it and embrace it. Not every emotion has to be felt in the body but every emotion needs to be felt and given time in the spotlight to be digested. When we don't let our emotions fully process they show up in other ways. For some people illness and for others it is mental health disorders, relationship problems, parenting struggles, or school/career stress.
Ways to feel and embrace emotions more thoroughly:
Riding the wave - emotions are temporary states but we are really good at jumping off the surfboard and “waiting for the next wave.” The more you embrace the hard emotions, ride the wave, let it crest, and let it crash into the beach, the more readily you can feel them and move on.
Picking that emotion and journaling on it - journal about memories associated with it, other emotions connected, who has evoked that emotion in you, why it feels so powerful, keep the central focus on that emotion not the context of why you’re feeling it. Get rid of any distractions and keep writing until you feel like you cannot write anymore.
Creating a ritual - when we have made it a habit to avoid our emotions, sometimes we have to be very intentional about unlearning. Creating a ritual where you put a specific playlist/song on or going on a drive and letting your mind wander. Letting your brain go where it needs to go and gently bringing it back to the emotion until it reaches a closing. This helps your brain work through the big emotions and the heaviness without prompting it to do anything or trying to problem-solve our way through something that cannot be changed.
Focusing on the area of your body that feels like it carries the most stress or tension - feeling the sensations and tightness there, sitting with the discomfort and reflecting on what the pain is telling you. Asking that area of your body what it needs from you - rest, movement, heat, comfort? Noticing what relieves the stress there and being mindful when tension comes back up.
Talking through it out loud - this can be alone or with a loved one. but naming the emotion and talking through the feelings of it, where you feel in your body other times you felt it telling that emotion that you receive it and are not afraid of it. not explaining why you have the emotion or justifying it but just getting used to having it around rather than avoiding it
Many people ask me, “How do I know if I processed my emotions?” That's a gut feeling, only you can tell if you’ve felt an emotion. My rule of thumb is that when you can think about a situation that brought up strong emotions and feel a sense of resolve about the situation then you’ve probably processed the emotions. When the unrest has disappeared and you feel a sense of calm, you’ve likely processed the emotion. That doesn’t mean it’s never going to come up again but you’re moving in the right direction.
When Therapy Can Help
Your emotions are never going to go away. You can't think your way out of them and when avoiding them, they usually catch up to you in one way or another. My job is to help you get better at more readily processing your emotions and sitting with them even if the memory is tied to those emotions that are traumatic or aversive. Therapy can help you get better at processing the emotions even when you're self aware but you have to find the therapist that will push you. Therapists who use EMDR, brainspotting, expressive therapies, or somatic experiencing can be wonderful options but finding a therapist who you feel like truly understands and pushes you is the best modality.
About My Therapy Practice
At Campsen Wellness, we help clients work through hard emotions and manage overwhelm without avoidance. We want you to feel grounded and empowered. Reach out today for in-person sessions in Lutherville-Timonium or virtually across the state of Maryland.
You can check out my other blogs or schedule a consultation call with me here!
