People seeking help with anger management issues are often reluctant because they have been trying to cope with the problem, often for many years, and they are reticent to reach out because they understandably assume that this would require an extensive deep dive all through their past history, their pains, their traumas, and their conflicts. But anger resolution approaches this differently. First, we’ll look at the experience itself and then how we can resolve it.
What Happens Before You Lose Your Temper? A Different Approach to Anger Management
Anger does not usually become a problem because someone feels angry. Anger is a normal, healthy emotion. It becomes a problem when it escalates too quickly, comes out too forcefully, damages relationships, or leaves you feeling ashamed afterwards.
If that pattern sounds familiar, this article explains a different way of working with anger — one that focuses on resolving the root cause rather than managing the symptoms. It also explains exactly who this approach is for, how the sessions work, what they cost, and when a different service would be more appropriate.
Why anger feels like it takes over
Most people with an anger problem describe the same experience: calm one moment, overwhelmed the next. By the time you notice you’re angry, the words are already out. The damage is already done.
That’s because the anger response begins in the body before it reaches conscious awareness. The stress system — specifically the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the neuroendocrine system that controls your reactions to stress — activates in response to a trigger long before you’ve had a chance to think about it. The shouting, the slammed door, the cutting remark: these are the end of the process, not the beginning.
This is why willpower alone so rarely works. You’re trying to apply a conscious brake to a process that started below conscious awareness.
Anger is often visible before it is verbal
Picture the last time you escalated. Before any words were spoken, your body had already changed. Common early signs of anger escalation include:
- Jaw tension
- Clenched fists
- Changes in breathing — faster, shallower
- Faster or louder speech
- Staring, glaring, or avoiding eye contact
- Pacing or physical agitation
- Rigid posture
- Interrupting
- A hot, tense, pressured feeling inside
- Withdrawal or sudden shutdown
These signs matter because they are the window of opportunity. Learning to recognise them — in real time, in your own body — is one part of the work. Resolving what triggers them in the first place is the other.
Why anger is not just “bad behaviour”
Disproportionate anger is rarely about the thing you’re angry at. At the deepest level, unhealthy anger usually stems from one or more of three issues: previous painful or traumatic experiences, mindset and perspective, and unprocessed emotion.
When a difficult experience is too overwhelming to process at the time, the mind stores it together with the physiological response that went with it. Every later reminder of that experience — conscious or unconscious — re-triggers a diluted echo of the original response. Over time, those echoes keep the stress system chronically activated. The result is a shorter fuse, a bigger reaction, and a person who genuinely cannot understand why they “lost it” over something small.
Many people are unsure if they have an anger problem, and there is a helpful tool to distinguish when it might be having a bigger impact on your quality of life than you expect.
The first component to consider is frequency. As we’ve touched on already, anger is a normal human emotion, and it is something that we will all feel from time to time. However, if you are feeling angry frequently, particularly if it is at a range of different small things or if it is in a particular relationship or context, this frequency is an indicator that you might benefit from some help.
The second component is proportionality. If you drop a cup and it smashes on the floor, of course this would be frustrating and even annoying, but if your response is a full-scale outburst of rage, it is highly disproportionate to the stimulus. If, however, someone was abusing a loved one, we would expect a normal response to be a much higher degree of anger. In this case, it is not just the level of anger, but it is how appropriate it is given the stimulus that preceded.
The final component is level of control. When you feel angry, are you able to stay in control of the things you say and do, or do you have verbal and/or physical outbursts where you temporarily lose control and then immediately regret what happens? This is the strongest indicator that you may benefit from getting some help.
Why traditional approaches to anger often don’t work
Anger counselling helps you understand why you have anger. But understanding why you’re angry doesn’t stop you being angry. Plenty of people can give an articulate account of their childhood and still put their fist through a door on a Tuesday evening.
Traditional anger management teaches coping strategies — counting to ten, breathing exercises, time-outs. These are useful tools, and they have their place. But they manage the symptom while leaving the cause intact. You’re still angry; you’re just containing it. Research on conventional anger management programmes has found that while they can improve behaviour in the short term, the effects often don’t hold long-term — partly because skills practised in calm, controlled settings don’t transfer reliably to real-life, high-pressure moments.
There’s a third problem: both approaches rely heavily on talking about the anger in detail. For many people — especially men, who make up the majority of anger management clients — repeatedly recounting their worst moments is a barrier to starting at all.
What Anger Resolution does differently
Anger Resolution is a 1-2-1 programme designed to resolve the root causes of excessive anger, using the Split Second Unlearning model to unlearn the excessive anger response itself.
The approach draws on:
- Split Second Unlearning (SSU) — a model of how the mind links past experiences to present-day physiological stress responses, and how that link can be deactivated. The work involves observing eye access cues to locate the subconscious source of the reaction, then resolving it — without requiring you to retell painful events in depth.
- Arousal awareness — learning to recognise the body-based signs of escalation (breathing, posture, tension, voice, attention) before anger takes over.
- Behavioural pattern analysis — mapping what happens before, during, and after your anger, so the escalation cycle becomes visible and changeable.
- Practical regulation tools — a small set of techniques practised weekly until they become second nature.
The aim is simple to state: not to help you cope with anger, but to resolve it — so the disproportionate reaction stops firing in the first place.
What happens in the sessions
This is private, personalised, one-to-one work delivered online. No previous therapy experience is required. A typical programme includes:
- An assessment of your anger patterns and triggers
- Mapping your escalation cycle and early warning signs
- Identifying and resolving the root experiences driving the excessive response, using the Split Second Unlearning model
- Building real-time arousal awareness
- Practising alternative responses and reviewing real incidents from your week
- One simple exercise to complete each week between sessions
- A personalised plan for maintaining change
Sessions last approximately 45 minutes (booked as an hour so nothing is rushed) and are most effective scheduled weekly. Programmes run from 5 to 12 weeks depending on your goals. Everything discussed is confidential.
On completion, you receive a certificate of completion and a written report outlining the content covered, your engagement with the programme, and any additional notes.
Fees and payment options
The standard 1-2-1 Anger Resolution programme is £795.
You can pay in full, or via instalments:
- 2 monthly instalments of £400, or
- 3 monthly instalments of £280
Before committing to anything, you can book a free, no-obligation introductory phone call to find out whether the programme is the right fit for you.
There is also a personal guarantee: if you show up to the sessions with an open mind, do the work, and follow one simple exercise each week, your anger will change.
There is also a more comprehensive anger management program available, which is a ten-session course usually spanning approximately three months, and this is £1,500. Payment plans are available.
Who this programme is for
- Adults who lose their temper more quickly or more intensely than they want to
- People who feel calm one moment and overwhelmed by anger the next
- People whose anger is affecting their relationship, family life, parenting, or work
- People who feel shame, guilt, or confusion after an outburst
- People who have tried counselling or anger management courses and are still angry
- People who want private, personalised 1-2-1 support rather than a generic group course
- People who have been instructed by a judge, social services, or a solicitor to complete an anger management programme, or who are involved with CAFCASS — the completion certificate and report can be used to support claims and evidence your commitment to change
Who this programme is not for
Honesty matters here, so the limits should be stated plainly:
- This is not emergency or crisis support. If you or someone else is at immediate risk of harm, contact 999 or your local emergency services first.
- This is not a substitute for safeguarding intervention. Where there is current risk of violence in a household, specialist domestic abuse services should be the first port of call.
- If anger is connected to immediate danger, the priority is safety first. The programme can follow once safety is established.
Why work with me?
My name is Danny Greeves. I work with anger because I lived it. Growing up, I had a lot of emotion and very few ways to process it. By 18 I had fractured my left hand punching through a fence; a couple of years later I fractured the right doing something similar. In 2006 my temper put me on the wrong end of a double jaw fracture and a Christmas dinner through a straw. In 2012 an alcohol-fuelled argument cost me a relationship that mattered, because of words I didn’t mean but couldn’t take back.
Anger resolution changed that. It’s why I do this work.
Professionally:
- Master’s degree in Nonverbal Behaviour, with a specialist focus on the body-based signs of emotional arousal that appear before conscious awareness
- Masters degree in Communication and Behaviour Analysis. A unique lens to analyze and resolve anger issues without having to dredge through years of past pain and problems.
- A lecturer in nonverbal behavior specialising in mental health at Evidentia University.
- An academic researcher with multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals.
- A peer reviewer of nonverbal communication literature in an international counseling journal
- Multi-award-winning therapist and coach, working 1-2-1 with private clients and with corporate clients including Google
- Author of two books on resolving trauma and anger
- Regular expert contributor on BBC Radio
Frequently asked questions
What is anger resolution, and how is it different from anger management? Anger management teaches you to cope with anger using strategies and techniques. Anger resolution works to identify and resolve the root cause of the excessive anger response, so the disproportionate reaction stops being triggered in the first place.
How do I know if I need help with anger? Common indicators: your anger causes fear in others; it’s damaging relationships; you keep apologising but the behaviour repeats; you feel out of control during episodes; or anger is affecting your work, parenting, intimacy, or self-respect.
Can it help if I only lose control occasionally? Yes. Frequency matters less than impact. If occasional episodes are causing real damage — or real shame — the underlying pattern is worth resolving.
Do I have to talk about painful past experiences in detail? No. The Split Second Unlearning approach works conversationally and does not require you to recount painful events in depth. This is one of the main reasons clients who avoided traditional therapy find this approach accessible.
Are sessions online? Yes. All sessions are delivered online, and I have been providing online sessions since 2015. It removes travel time and cost, and you get the best results from the comfort of your own home.
How many sessions will I need? Programmes range from 5 to 12 weeks depending on your goals. Most clients seeking long-term, sustainable change complete the full programme.
How much does it cost? The complete 1-2-1 programme is £795, payable in full or via 2 instalments of £400 or 3 instalments of £275. The introductory phone call is free.
Is it confidential? Yes. Everything in our sessions is confidential.
Can I use the programme for court, CAFCASS, or social services requirements? Yes. On completion you receive a certificate and a written report, which can be used to support claims and provide evidence of your commitment to change.
Is anger always obvious before an outburst? Not consciously — but it is almost always visible in the body first: jaw tension, breathing changes, posture, voice. Learning to spot these early signs in yourself is part of the programme.
How to book
The first step is a free, no-obligation introductory phone call. We’ll talk through what’s happening, what you want to change, and whether the programme is the right fit. No pressure, no commitment.
Please fill out the contact form, and I will call you back within 24 hours, Monday to Friday. Alternatively, you can call me directly.