Anger Management

At Naples Integrated Recovery, anger isn’t treated as a problem to suppress — it’s understood as information.
Anger shows up when something important feels threatened: our boundaries, values, dignity, or sense of safety.
When that energy is ignored or misdirected, it can turn into reactivity, guilt, or burnout.
Our work is about learning how to listen to anger’s message without letting it take control.

The Model: Integration Over Suppression

Our 16-session framework blends Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and mindfulness-based neuroregulation.
The process is structured yet deeply personal — you’ll learn practical skills for the moment your body begins to heat up, while also understanding why those reactions developed in the first place.

This dual focus allows for both behavioral change and emotional healing.

Phase 1 — Awareness and Safety

The first sessions focus on building awareness:

  • Identifying triggers and early warning signs in the body

  • Understanding how anger interacts with grief, shame, and fear

  • Learning short-term regulation tools (breathwork, grounding, STOP skill, pacing)

We start by stabilizing the system before exploring deeper emotional material.

Phase 2 — Regulation and Communication

Once you can pause, you learn to redirect the energy of anger:

  • Applying DBT emotion-regulation skills (TIP, Cope Ahead, Opposite Action)

  • Practicing assertive communication (DEAR MAN, GIVE/FAST)

  • Setting healthy boundaries without guilt or aggression

  • Reconnecting anger with its original protective purpose

This phase focuses on rebuilding trust between mind and body — responding instead of reacting.

Phase 3 — Insight and Integration

Here we shift toward internal understanding:

  • Using IFS parts mapping to identify which parts carry anger, shame, or fear

  • Learning to lead those parts from Self — calm, compassionate authority

  • Understanding the link between unresolved loss, unmet needs, and reactivity

  • Transforming “I’m angry” into “something in me is asking for protection or truth”

Anger becomes a signal, not a threat.

Phase 4 — Maintenance and Self-Leadership

The final sessions consolidate the work into a personal system of ongoing self-leadership:

  • Building relapse-prevention and maintenance plans

  • Practicing skills in real-time through role-play and journaling

  • Creating personalized regulation routines (daily check-ins, emotional temperature scales)

  • Reframing relapse as data, not failure

By the end of the program, clients report greater emotional control, healthier communication, and a deeper sense of agency.
They don’t just “manage” anger — they understand it.

Clinical Foundations

  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): teaches mindfulness, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS): helps clients understand the “parts” that react protectively when hurt or threatened

  • Neurobiological Regulation: based on Polyvagal Theory and current affective neuroscience

  • Values-Based Living: transforming anger’s energy into direction and purpose

Together, these methods move clients from reactivity to relational presence.

For Court, Probation, or Personal Growth

This structured 16-session course meets the standards for court-ordered or workplace anger management, but most participants join voluntarily — not because they’re “angry people,” but because they’re ready to lead themselves differently.


You’ll leave with practical skills and a framework you can apply for life.

Key Idea

“Anger isn’t the enemy. Losing leadership when anger shows up is the problem.
When you can listen to anger without becoming it, you gain clarity, strength, and peace.”

Read more about how we treat anger at Naples Integrated Recovery - a few articles on the psychology of anger, the neuroscience of forgiveness as a real intervention, and how to sit with uncomfortable emotions in a crazy world.

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