EMDR for anger management difficulties

EMDR offers a gentle, compassionate way to explore the roots of anger and help you respond to life’s challenges with greater ease and choice. Rather than seeing anger as something to simply control or suppress, we work together to understand the deeper experiences that may be fuelling your emotional reactions.

In our sessions, we’d begin by gently exploring the earlier moments in your life that may have shaped how you experience and express anger today. These might be times when you felt humiliated, betrayed, or deeply wronged in some way. There’s no judgement here, these experiences were real, and your anger made sense in those moments, through the use of bilateral stimulation (such as following my fingers with your eyes, or holding gentle pulsers), we can help ease the emotional intensity that’s been stored with these memories, allowing you to see them from a new perspective.

As we work through these memories together, you might discover other feelings living beneath your anger, perhaps fear, shame, or vulnerability. This is a normal and important part of the process. Whilst you hold the original memory in mind and follow the bilateral stimulation, you’ll likely notice that the physical sensations that usually come with anger: the tightness, the heat, the racing thoughts begin to settle. Your body’s automatic urge to fight or defend starts to soften, giving you more space to choose how you’d like to respond in a new way during difficult moments.

As we continue, we’ll work on building new, kinder beliefs about yourself and your ability to cope: “I can stay calm and stand up for myself” rather than “I’m losing control.” We might also imagine challenging situations together whilst using the bilateral stimulation, helping your mind and body practise responding in ways that feel more aligned with who you want to be. This strengthens your ability to stay steady during conflict and reduces the likelihood of returning to old patterns.

For many people whose anger is connected to traumatic experiences, EMDR works not only with clear memories but also with the sensations and feelings held deep in your body, the ones that keep you on high alert even when there’s no immediate danger. Processing these allows you to step out of old emotional patterns whilst still honouring your right to feel and express yourself assertively when needed. The approach brings together body awareness, new ways of thinking, and memory healing in one supportive process.

By the later stages of our work together, many people find they have access to a wider range of emotions, anger becomes just one feeling amongst many, rather than the only response available to you. The ability to pause, notice what you’re feeling, and respond thoughtfully emerges naturally as the old emotional pain loses its grip. This isn’t about forcing yourself to behave differently, it’s about feeling different from the inside out.

What This Might Mean for You:

• We’ll explore the early experiences that may be connected to how you experience anger today
• Gentle bilateral stimulation helps ease the physical tension and arousal that comes with anger-related memories
• You may discover other feelings, like shame or fear that have been hidden beneath your anger
• Together, we’ll build new, compassionate beliefs to replace automatic assumptions about threat
• Physical sensations like tension or heat can be eased directly during our sessions
• You’ll have the chance to practise responding calmly to imagined difficulties in a safe, supported space
• EMDR helps soften your body’s automatic fight or flight response, reducing impulsive reactions
• Old anger patterns connected to trauma can be gently dismantled and reprocessed
• Over time, staying regulated begins to feel natural rather than something you have to force

Anger becomes a normal, manageable feeling that sits comfortably alongside all your other emotions