Crack in the Matrix Solutions

Robert L. (Bob) Benefield, Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at East Texas Baptist University, was selected to present a workshop to the participants of the 19^th Annual International Conference on Parent Education and Parenting held at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas on March 16-18.  The 2011 International Conference focused on issues that most affect families in an ever changing world.  Dr. Benefield’s workshop was entitled “Creative Anger Awareness Training for Parents: Becoming a role model and facilitator for anger management in children and adolescents.”  This experiential workshop focused on the training program described in detail in Benefield’s book, Planning with Purpose:  Anger and Happiness as Avenues to Awareness.  This program includes learning strategies to increase the likelihood of persons making wiser choices regarding destructive violent behaviors by promoting an awareness of competing alternative responses such as breathing techniques, consequence analysis, thought replacement, and prayer.  For more details or copies of the paper, contact rbenefield@etbu.edu.

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CREATIVE ANGER AWARENESS TRAINING FOR PARENTS

(Becoming a role model and facilitator for anger management in children)

This experiential workshop will be an introduction to the Creative Anger Awareness Training program described in the book, Planning with Purpose: Anger and Happiness as Avenues to Awareness.  This workshop will teach the application of two basic types of planning skills:  finite and infinite.  Finite or “use-your-brain” planning includes traditional behavior management strategies for self-control of behavior.  Infinite or “heart and soul” planning emphasizes increased receptive skills such as listening and seeking an awareness of one’s purpose in life.  In short, this workshop will assist parents in developing the learning skills necessary to reduce their own destructive anger and/or to assist their children in learning strategies designed to assist in recognizing and reducing their episodes of destructive anger.  A learning guide (handout) will be provided to participants based on increasing anger awareness (recognizing and applying anger cues and triggers) and including illustrations on how to create effective individual interventions.

For over three decades I have served as a consultant to public education, universities, hospitals, prisons, and other institutions to establish self-management programs for persons who wanted to stop their anger-based violent behavior. I have discovered that persons who use violent behavior in their personal relationships (and who are described as “having anger management problems”) can benefit from self-management psychology which includes the belief that God (or one’s Higher Self) will help those who make deliberate choices to stop violent, destructive behavior. In a nutshell, self-management psychology may be viewed as a program for promoting good choices (nonviolent, creative behaviors) over evil choices (violent, destructive behaviors). During the process of transformation from destructive to creative, self-management participants learn to collect and maintain data on their anger episodes, experiment with interventions designed to reduce destructive violence, and are invited to seek help from God (or Higher Power or Higher Self) as a potential ally for personal growth and rage reduction. 

The self-management model used in these programs is based on the assumption that participants have the choice to stop the violent behaviors that they have used frequently in the past.  Using self-management strategies, changes in awareness occur regarding situations associated with violent behavior.  Specifically, participants become aware of the cues (bodily sensations and thoughts) and triggers (actions of others) associated with their anger behaviors.  Participants also create an anger management plan which includes specific interventions (stop-deep breathing-consequence thinking-seek God) designed to increase nonviolent alternative behaviors and creative problem-solving.  Both cognitive rehearsal and role-play (behavior rehearsal) are utilized to facilitate the application of the anger management plan.  With training the exact cues and triggers that once resulted in (uncontrollable?) violent anger outbursts now become signals to:  1) Stop and 2) Ask God (or their Higher Power/Self) for help.

The distinguishing feature of this self-management program is the inclusion of the additional component: seeking God’s help to change.  This additional component suggests that behavior change can be facilitated by the participants becoming aware of the Source (of non-contingent acceptance and unlimited creative alternatives to violence).  This Source may be conceptualized as God, Higher Power, Higher Self, Creative Source, or by other labels, depending upon the participants’ personal faith and religious background.    Furthermore, this additional feature increases the likelihood of students maintaining the behavior changes established during the training program and persisting in the new choices required for a nonviolent life style.

First, participants must use their self-management skills to stop and think before reacting in habitually violent ways. Then, they are more likely to try “God-inspired” nonviolent choices in situations where violent behaviors were highly probable in the past.  Thus, participants not only begin to have a new awareness regarding the potential for new choices in potentially violent situations, but they also begin to recognize, value, and (in a sense) tap the Infinite Source of creative (nonviolent) ideas that is available with the commitment to a nonviolence lifestyle.  Thus, the nonviolent lifestyle is a result of assuming personal responsibility for choices in behavior.  The essence of this program is to provide experiential exercises that assist persons in making the choices to stop violent behavior and the choice to surrender to a higher power.

Robert L. Benefield, PhD

Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice

East Texas Baptist University

903-923-2089

rbenefield@etbu.edu

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