Rendezvous with A Psychologist - How to React to an Angry Individual

There are many cases when, fair or not, everyone has to deal with an angry person. Whether we are in the right or not becomes irrelevant. It is essential to know how to react in these situations, so as not to anger the person even more and put oneself into an even more dangerous, but instead diffuse any aggression. Meet Meran Oniani, Art-Therapist, Specialist of psycho-synthesis, Practitioner of neuro-linguistic conditions and art historian.

What are the main methods of defense against a person who is acting aggressively?

There are seven major steps that will help you calm an angry individual, get them to pull themselves together and obtain help from us, which is absolutely necessary to resolve the conflict with a positive outcome.

First and foremost, you have to listen to the person. The best thing that you can do for an angry person, in general, is to listen to them. As a result of this, you will be able to find out what has caused their rage.

What is the second step then?

It is all about listening again. Having listened to them once, ask them to repeat the whole story once again. By doing so, you will enable them to realize that you take them seriously and have a wish to understand them and what may have happened to them. The person will also feel that you are not judging him/her when revealing their negative emotions.

Having listened for a second time, ask additional questions in order to totally clear the things up. It is necessary to listen to angry people maybe three, even four times, to enable them to verbalize their concerns and share their reflections and feelings with you.

You must then try to get into the shoes of the angry person and to learn what actually caused their rage. Ask yourself: how would you feel in a similar situation? Show them compassion, that you have imagined yourself in their place and can relate, at least partially, to the same feelings that they are feeling right now.

What happens subsequently?

You will have to make the angry person believe that you understand the essence of what has happened. By doing so, you will demonstrate your compassion towards them. Therefore, you should talk to them with benevolence. Even in such a case that a person misunderstands something, do not try to correct them or make things clearer by telling them that they are wrong. You will have a chance to do that later on. In the interim, show them your support, reiterate that you are not judging their rage and moreover, you totally understand the essence of their anger.

You will now hopefully be at a stage where you are able to clear up any misunderstandings with the person. This will be when, by doing so, you will not anger them further: on the contrary, you will help to rid them of the rage and irritation, and even get them to believe that you have not done anything wrong to them.

You will have to confess to your own fault(s) and correct them, or compensate for the damage you have done. If you realize that people are angry with you fairly, i.e. that it is your fault, it is high time to confess and try to correct your actions.

Maka Lomadze