B.In the second step or movement, the mental judgment appears, “I have been harmed, and I deserve to seek vengeance.”
C.In the third step or movement, someone has given approval to the judgment, and all hell breaks loose, because reason has been overturned and overpowered: anger flares forth and takes command, and vengeance is sought. At that point, it’s just too late to pull back from anger, because the mind has already “gone over the cliff” and is out of control. The temporary insanity has begun.18
HOW TO CURE ANGER
If we look at the three-step process through which anger comes into being, it becomes clear that the only way to stop anger is during the first two stages. By the time the third stage is reached, it’s too late. What makes anger management difficult is that these three movements can take place so quickly—sometimes in a flash. If you carefully study Seneca’s explanation of the three steps and compare it with your own experiences of getting angry, I think you’ll see that he’s correct about the process. But in terms of real-life experience, the three steps happen so quickly it often feels like a blur.
Thus, the most important thing we can do is slow down the process when there is the first, initial sense that anger may be coming on. The first movements of anger, Seneca explains, cannot be controlled by reason because they are instinctual feelings. However, “practice and constant watchfulness will weaken them.”19
Once the second step is reached, judgment or deliberation is in effect, which is rationality at work; as Seneca notes, only the power of rationality, or a good judgment, can erase a bad judgment.
Time and again, Seneca states that the most powerful tool for defeating anger is delay, to slow down the entire three-step process. That gives us time to intervene and rationally analyze any bad judgments:
The greatest cure for anger is delay. Ask this from anger at the start, not so it will forgive, but so it will evaluate. While its first assaults are heavy, it will retreat if forced to wait. But don’t try to destroy it all at once. If picked away at bit by bit, it will be defeated.20
He also puts it like this:
Anger arises from a belief that you have been wronged, which one should not accept lightly, at face value. You should postpone judgment even if it seems clear and evident, because some false things appear to be true. We must always allow for some time to pass: a period of time reveals the truth.21
From the earliest days of the school, the Stoics emphasized how important it is to analyze the “impressions” presented to our minds. Like Seneca did in the quotation above, they warned us not to make snap judgments because impressions can be deceiving. In fact, Epictetus said that “testing impressions is the philosopher’s single most important task, and no impression should be accepted unless it has been carefully tested.”22
How a Stoic can stop anger from developing into a full-blown negative emotion is beautifully summed up in the remark attributed to the psychologist Viktor Frankclass="underline" “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
While Viktor Frankl never actually said that, and the quote appears to be based on a passage from psychologist Rollo May, the Stoics would have endorsed both statements, whoever said them. This is the original passage from Rollo May:
Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness.23
That is why Seneca says that the greatest cure for anger is delay. Put into Stoic terms, a “stimulus” is an “impression.” We need to pause, carefully test impressions, and decide or “choose” whether they should be accepted.
Importantly, for Seneca and the Stoics, an extreme, negative emotion cannot come into being without the mind first agreeing to an impression and then accepting a false mental judgment. By pausing, it’s possible to question the impressions. It’s also possible to challenge a mental judgment or belief before it’s accepted. In terms of Stoic psychology, this is the best way to stop anger, because, as Seneca notes, anger “only acts with the mind’s approval.”24 In the end, anger can arise only when we decide it is justified.
Fortunately, the first feelings of anger are clear warning signs of impending danger, in the same way that symptoms appear before a disease, and as signs of rain appear before a storm. As Seneca advises,
The best approach is to reject the first provocations of anger at the outset, to resist its smallest beginnings, and to make every effort not to fall into it. For if it starts to lead us off course, the path back to safety is steep, since reason evaporates once anger has been let in and we’ve decided to give it any authority. It will then do whatever it wants—not what we allow it to do. The enemy, I say, must be kept away from the entrance to the city gates from the very beginning: for once it has stormed inside, it ignores every plea for restraint from those taken captive.25
As he notes in a letter, “Every negative emotion is weak at first. But it rouses itself and increases its strength as it advances. It’s more easily shut out in the beginning than driven out later.”26 If we stay strictly within the Stoic theory of the emotions, two fundamental anger management techniques stand out:
1. Take a Step Back. The best way to stop anger, in the very beginning, would be to notice the first feelings or impressions that “I have been wronged,” and to pause, take a time out, give them time to subside, and not consent to them. The American Psychological Association (APA) also recommends this technique. Psychologists today call this cognitive distancing, which can take many different forms.
Long ago, I had a girlfriend who used this technique, and it’s a good thing she did, because she was a well-trained athlete who held a fifth-degree black belt in karate. Though she was short in stature, she was extraordinarily muscular and fierce as a martial artist. Without exaggeration, she literally could have killed anyone with her bare hands.
One day we were together at my home, and I can’t recall what I said, but she felt some anger coming on because of it. At that moment she explained to me, calmly and without emotion, “I’m sorry, David, but I need to leave for a couple of hours and cool down, because if I lost my temper, you would be in extreme physical danger, and I could possibly kill you.” Like a true professional, she had trained for this moment and delivered her line without a single trace of anger, even though she felt something simmering.
Of course, I was thankful that she possessed this incredible self-awareness, and grateful she didn’t kill me. When she returned, everything was fine. She was her usual calm self. This was the only time something like that happened between us, perhaps because it put me on warning!
2. Restructure Your Beliefs. If the growing sense of anger has moved past the stage of just being a “first feeling,” it’s time to question your judgments and beliefs before concluding that revenge is justified. This is another way to take a step back before a final judgment has formed. Again, the APA recommends this technique, and I’ve even stolen the phrase “Restructure Your Beliefs” from their website, just to show how Seneca’s psychological insights are timeless.
As we’ve seen, the final step before real anger flares forth is making the judgment that “I’ve been wronged, so vengeance is justified.” So you clearly want to apply some critical thinking before allowing this judgment to take hold, and to destroy the false belief if possible. Under the heading “Cognitive Restructuring,” the APA tells us,