Mind your anger habits: For teen (group CBT for teens with anger behavioral problems)

Abstract

Problematic anger behaviors of children and adolescents represent a significant challenge to the clinical community. Although a number of direct and indirect factors are theorized to contribute to the etiology of aggressive behavioral problems, the cognitive-behavioral model focuses on the cognitive processes that play a significant role in the generation of anger and the aggressive responses to provocation. “Mind your anger habits: for teen” manual, is based on the cognitive-behavioral conceptualization of anger and anger management problems functions, it consists of 10 group sessions for teens and 8 group sessions for their parents.

In the “Mind your anger habits: for teen”; anger is identified as a stress reaction with three response components: cognitive, physiological, and behavioral. The cognitive component is characterized by one's perception of social stimuli and provocation cues in the social context, by one's interpretation of these stimuli, by one's attributions concerning causality and/or responsibility, and by one's evaluation of oneself and the situation. This component represents a significant area for intervention with aggressive adolescents as their perceptions and attitudes serve to prompt most behavioral responses to provocation. Research on the social and cognitive processing in aggressive youth indicates that distorted interpretations, attributional biases, and deficiencies in problem solving can all influence the selection of aggressive behavior responses. Furthermore, cognitive processing patterns are likely to become more rigid over time, and as such the maladaptive aggressive behaviors prompted by dysfunctional cognitions will be maintained.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.