Anger is an emotion of displeasure, usually regarding an act or idea of another person or organisation. Sometimes a person feels angry at him_ or herself for having acted stupidly or badly, etc.
Anger involves a sense of wrongedness, outrage, frustration, irritation, or violent conflict.
In the Christian tradition, causeless, excessive, or protracted anger is sinful (Matt. 5:22; Eph. 4:26; Col. 3:8), one of the seven deadly sins. As ascribed to God, it merely denotes his displeasure with sin and with sinners (Ps. 7:11).
Buddhism presents a quite different view on emotions like anger. Anger is defined here as: "being unable to bear the object, or the intention to cause harm to the object". Anger is seen as aversion with a stronger exaggeration, and is listed as one of the five hindrances. In Buddhism, anger is said to be a "negative emotion", in the sense that it is based on an underlying level of ignorance, and tends to lead us into actions which are harmful to ourselves and others. Although decisive action may be needed in given circumstances, when we are under the control of anger, we will often not have the clarity of mind to take the optimal action. In Buddhist psychology, anger can not only be controlled/managed, but even completely overcome if we develop our mind far enough.
The safe physical ventilation of anger is an effective way of helping our autonomic nervous system to switch back to its normal relaxed functioning state, which is commonly referred to as the ‘calm after the storm’.
At the end of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, argued that individuals are born with an innate aggressive instinct, and when this is blocked, they have a natural urge to become hostile or angry.
A century later, this view was deprecated by the American Psychological Association and the American Anthropological Association, who in 1988 reviewed the available research and concluded that people are not genetically predisposed to violence, and that violence can not be scientifically related to natural evolutionary processes.
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