Why you need to feel your anger

It starts as a tightening in your chest, like a coiling spring ready to unspool. Your heart pounds steadily faster, its rhythm loud and insistent in your ears. Heat spreads across every inch of your body, igniting a flush that feels volcanic.

Muscles tense, every fibre bracing for action. Your breath quickens, shallow and sharp, fuelling your body for a fight that may never come. An electric charge surges throughout, demanding release.

Your mind becomes singular, a laser sharp focus on whatever has triggered this internal storm.

Anger — an emotion that demands attention yet is often seen as “bad” or “shameful”, especially in women or children. Social stigmas surrounding anger can lead individuals to fear judgement for expressing it. People feel ashamed or uncomfortable when they feel angry so they suppress it or try to push it away.

But in therapy, addressing and expressing feelings of deep anger and rage are essential to the healing process. In fact, recognising and integrating this emotion into one’s self-concept is essential for personal development.

“Anger serves as an important emotional checkpoint in the healing process,” explained Dr Alexandre Machado, a clinical neuropsychologist at Medcare Camali Clinic in the UAE. “It can indicate feelings of powerlessness, injustice, betrayal, or unmet needs. Anger highlights boundaries that have been violated and motivates individuals to confront unresolved issues.

“Exploring anger can help individuals seek change and assert their rights, thus promoting personal empowerment.”

For a woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity and who has lived in Dubai for the past three years, acknowledging her anger was essential to her well-being journey. She grew up in a household where emotions were often ignored or dismissed. As she got older, she started experiencing anxiety and depression, and felt disconnected from others. Turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with her pain only made things worse.

When she finally decided to go to therapy, she was ashamed for the rage she felt when exploring her past.

“I remember one session where I was talking about some traumatic experiences, and suddenly, I was just furious,” she said. “The anger was intense, and it surprised me. In the moment, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“I saw anger as something negative. I felt ashamed for getting angry, like I was regressing or becoming ‘too emotional.’ I thought anger would just keep me stuck in my pain. But my therapist helped me see that anger wasn’t the problem — it was what I did with it that mattered.”

Her therapist, Dr Bushra Khan, a transformational coach at Wellth in Dubai, worked with her to explore the emotion as a tool for healing.

“Anger may emerge during therapy when people begin to process trauma or deep-rooted feelings. It is a response to the realisation of how much you’ve suffered. It may also arise when you begin to reclaim your voice and your right to feel heard and respected.

“Allowing feelings of repressed anger to come to the surface, even in a safe, non-judgemental environment like therapy, can be overwhelming. But it’s part of the process of becoming more self-aware and confronting things that have been avoided for a long time.”

Dr Khan notes that feelings of anger can be a sign that someone is truly digging deep into their emotions. It indicates that the person is ready to confront difficult truths about themselves and their past.

“Instead of seeing it as a roadblock, it should be viewed as a breakthrough — an indication that healing is happening, and that the person is moving towards a greater self.”

But not all anger is productive.

Dr Machado differentiated healthy anger — the type that drives positive change, respects oneself and others, and leads to constructive problem-solving — from destructive anger which manifests as aggression or seeks blame and control. Healthy anger leads to growth, while destructive anger makes you feel out of control, keeps you stuck in a cycle of resentment or rage, and creates more problems.

“To know the difference, individuals can assess the outcomes of their anger: does it lead to resolution or does it result in conflict and distress?,” he said.