When anger arrives before the rest of the story.

What It Looks Like

A shorter distance between pressure and reaction.

Anger may arrive as an argument, a sharp answer, impatience in traffic, a slammed door, or a silence that makes everyone in the room careful. Irritability can feel less dramatic and still shape the atmosphere of a home or workplace.

You may recognize the reaction while it is happening and still feel unable to interrupt it. Afterward there may be regret, justification, embarrassment, or renewed resolve that disappears the next time pressure rises.

Anger itself is not evidence that you are bad or dangerous. It is information. At the same time, its impact matters. Counseling gives us room to understand what the reaction protects without excusing harm or asking another person to absorb it.

What May Be Underneath

The loudest feeling is not always the first one.

Irritability often grows where exhaustion has been ignored. It can also cover grief, fear, shame, helplessness, physical pain, or the experience of being overlooked. For some people, anger is the only emotion that ever felt permitted.

Resentment may point toward a boundary that was never stated or a responsibility accepted too many times. In relationships, the same conflict may repeat because each person is arguing about the latest event while protecting an older hurt.

The body often knows the sequence before the mind does: heat, pressure, a tightened jaw, shallow breath, narrowed attention. Learning that sequence does not make anger disappear. It gives us more accurate information about when and how the pattern begins.

How We Work

Accountability without humiliation.

We look closely at triggers, interpretations, bodily signals, and consequences. Cognitive work can examine assumptions about disrespect, control, fairness, and what another person intended. Relational dialogue can slow a familiar exchange enough to hear what was not being said.

Mindfulness helps you observe activation before it takes over the whole field. This is not passive acceptance or a demand to remain calm at all times. It is practice in recognizing a state soon enough to make a more deliberate response possible.

We may also practice language for a limit, disappointment, or need before it hardens into accusation. Speaking earlier and more accurately can feel unfamiliar when anger has been the only signal strong enough to register.

Over time, the sequence can become easier to recognize: the pressure, the interpretation, the bodily surge, and the action that follows. Recognition creates room for responsibility before regret becomes the only available response.

I will be direct about harmful behavior and equally direct about the conditions around it. If anger includes immediate danger or violence, this practice is not an emergency resource. Call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room when someone is at risk.

Practical Details

A private and consistent setting.

I have 50 years of clinical practice. Sessions are 60 minutes by secure video and cost $180. Availability is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and booking is managed through Headway.

I am licensed only in North Carolina, and you must be physically present in North Carolina during the session. This is a telehealth-only practice, with no anger-management office, local address, phone line, or in-person appointment.

I do not treat addictions or eating disorders. If either is the primary concern, I refer to a specialist. A consultation can help us discuss the pattern, safety, and fit without requiring you to reduce a complicated situation to a single label.

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