Well I know anger definitely hinders me if I try to keep it all bottled up!
I'm still figuring out how to get it out in a useful way; lots of physical activity seems to be the best bet for me but sometimes writing/journalling is what I need to do most.

The problem for me is that the people who I'm angriest at are either dead or simply not available/not listening to me, so trying to say what I need to say to people like that would just be futile or probably end up being even more damaging to me. Infuriating, but I know that all I can do about it is try to turn it to some kind of creative use instead. Which reminds me, I've got a second novel that I really need to crack on with lol!

By "powerful method," I mean that it's designed to trigger strong emotions. It's not light journaling, it's something that gets our mind into some new and very emotional places it hasn't been before.

So if someone attempts this it would be a good idea to have a therapy appt. scheduled soon after?

I purposefully attempt the tougher assignments just prior to therapy, so I have someone to pick up the pieces. The way I decide if it is going to be a tough assignment for me to engage in is by how much time it takes me to get started, how much time I linger over points I am trying to make, and how emotional I get while writing. In every assignment where I get quite emotional, each time I have found that I had huge stuck points that, in divulging information - or discovering it, I was quite beaten up by the work.

I can't attempt tis right now, but I want to. I can't do it now because my emotions are too dark and I am struggling with other issues that would cloud the work, and might put me in a dangerous, unsettled place emotionally. (Hey, that I recognize that, and don't do a thing that might be unsafe for me - maybe that means I am using my wise-mind in a good way. Yay for me Dr. Chandler!)

I journaled about it, but I didn't post publicly because my computer died in the parking lot while I was working from my car....but, I want you all to know that I will be okay. I DO struggle in the Spring, much more so than any other time of the year. I have felt myself on a time-line, of sorts. When I feel time is running out, and then I add to it the pressure I have placed on myself for healing to take place, well, I am admitting to a thing my therapist pointed out to me (can't hide anything from that man), I m all the way on, or shut down - gray is not a very good color for me.

I will have to work on communication of my needs, and be more forceful about my feeling that I deserve this time...plus, balancing and timing. I think I can choose more wisely and not upset him so much. But, I will not pull away from a significant aid to my recovery - this forum. I get as much help, perhaps the most help, from answering posts, interacting with others' journals, and messaging. I want to continue to do that.

Matt suggested that I go back to the beginning of RAR, to the posts that are written there....I was kind of a Lone Ranger here at the beginning....dived in right away....plunged 'full steam ahead' through much of the work in the beginning. Hmmmmm, maybe THAT is what Dr. Chandler means. But, I did read, and re-read the work I did on my anger with the female rapist, and I AM PROUD OF THAT WORK. I am proud of the anger I was able to display, and of the fact that anger didn't invade my spirit as I feared it would.

So Matt, in regard to your question here, anger has certainly aided me, but it was extremely difficult to find the anger, because of the words they used, and their attempts to confuse and confound me. I was a child. I thought like a child. In my home, children were not allowed anger. My exposure to anger as a child certainly hindered my ability to display any righteous anger as an adult, but, that day, in the office of Dr. Chandler, screaming at a picture of the female rapist - I found anger. I displayed anger. I screamed - and IT WAS GOOD!