Overcoming Destructive Anger: Strategies That Work

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Dr. Maurice Pickard speaks with psychologist Dr. Bernard Golden, an anger management specialist and author of Overcoming Destructive Anger: Strategies That Work. Dr. Golden draws on both compassion-focused therapy―a model for change that encompasses and expands on cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and practices in compassion and self-compassion―and theories of emotional intelligence to offer concrete tools for turning destructive anger into healthy anger. This in turn can have positive health effects on a range of disease states, from cardiovascular disease to diabetes to depression. Bernard Golden, PhD has been a practicing psychologist for almost forty years. He specializes in working with children, teens and adults on anger management issues, utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness techniques and practices in compassion and self-compassion. Dr. Golden is the author of Overcoming Destructive Anger: Strategies That Work (John Hopkins University Press, 2016), which teaches readers to recognize, sit with, and move beyond the triggers that cause destructive anger. Emphasizing anger’s link to the old brain (limbic cortex) and habits of mind, Dr. Golden offers multiple strategies for engaging the “rational brain” (prefrontal cortex) to overwrite established neural pathways and form new patterns of behavior.