These are some common patterns of thinking that occur in anger and will increase anger. Cognitive therapy is designed to help challenge unhelpful thoughts. These thoughts are known as cognitive distortions.

Mind Reading

Often people with anger problems think they know what other people are thinking. They jump to conclusions about other peoples thoughts, actions and intentions. Then they act on those conclusions and often ignore it when other people try to correct their faulty assumptions. Mind reading is believing that you know what someone else thinks or why they act as they do. It is a very common cause of anger and relationship conflict.

Catastrophizing

This is the exaggeration of how bad things are and always imagining the worst in a situation. If your mind immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusion then you are catastrophizing. The result is that you feel bad about yourself and stressed about life in general. Minor setback are seen as 'the last straw'. Mistakes are seen as 'failures'. It can make you very pessimistic encourage a habit of always looking at the negative in every situation, ignoring the positive. The answer is to notice those thoughts and then make a realistic assessment of the situation.

Emotional Reasoning

This is when people believe that whatever they feel is a fact. Feelings are NOT facts. Emotions are important, but they do not tell you the full truth. Emotional reasoning would be: I feel betrayed, so I have been betrayed. I feel like a failure, so I am a failure. I feel like people don't like me, so that means people do not like me. This type of thinking makes a life very chaotic. If you only act on feelings then we can create a lot of problems in our relationships and our workplace.

Learning to recognize these common thinking distortions will help you to manage anger and develop better anger control. There are many online anger management classes and counselors that can assist you to address stinkin' thinkin' and start living a calmer life.