Important to Teach Empathy Skills in Anger Program

A core tool in the Century Anger Management model of anger management is that of developing more empathy - the skill of seeing and experiencing the world from the perspective of other people. Since it is so important, it is crucial to ask how an anger management professional can best teach this skill to participants? 

We have found that the trainer should start by simply making participants more aware of the concept that increased empathy can decrease anger because it is more difficult to stay angry at someone after you understand where they are coming from and how they are seeing things.

We then find it very effective to explain empathy by use of example or metaphor. We teach our trainers how to use these examples effectively with clients and then encourage trainers to develop their own stock of examples and applications. Story-telling is an extremely effective way to teach empathy because people remember stories much longer than lecture material.

Finally, we teach trainers to have participants rate themselves on empathy skills so they can identify areas of weakness which would need to be developed and practiced between sessions.