1. Seems to me there is a cruelty to animals charge in there somewhere. I’m picturing a whole lot of squirrels with their paws over their ears.

   Good grief, what do those women do for a living?

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2. $4K? I need to think Career 3.0. I’m finishing 1.0 OccupationalSafety and OperationalRiskManagement; 2.0 is defensive shooting/CCW instruction. Now getting $4K/ea. to encourage women to scream and beat on the ground with sticks……. Sounds like pure profit to me! Good observation on the intimate relations; I try to avoid the psychotic ones.

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3. They’re training these women to be angry and act out on it. That isn’t healthy for them or those around them.
   .
   I’m so old I remember when adults were expected to control their emotions.

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   1. Uh, Rob….aren’t you ASSUMING that they identify as adults?

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      1. Well, I identify them as adult, and that’s all that matters to me.

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         1. You, sir, are generous.

4. Just curious …. Did you inquire as to your wife’s thoughts on this before posting?

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   1. She would gone to that forest and start beating the shit out of them with a bamboo cane for being idiots

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5. The big problem is that rage and anger don’t get “better” when encouraged like this. They snowball. It’s important to separate anger from arousal/aggression. Arousal and aggression develop a positive feedback loop that can result in horrible behaviors. The classic examples are atrocities in war, but they occur in mob violence and similar events throughout history. “Therapies” like this that encourage aggression and arousal are counterproductive. They validate aggressive and hostile action when anger and make anger a justification for violence.
   .
   These are not techniques of emotional regulation, but of dysregulation. In one common taxonomy, there are four primary strategies for emotional regulation:
   .
   Suppression strategies: Where you try to tamp it down and ignore it. Often this involves avoiding thinking about whatever made you angry. In some studies this is associated with increased psychosomatic illness (ulcers, high blood pressure, etc), increased cancer risk, and other things. There are some theories that suggest that there is a risk of “exploding,” where repressed feelings boil over. This was one of the reasons for the development of cathartic methods (discussed below) with the idea that if you “get it out” it won’t boil over.
   .
   Acceptance strategies: Where you “experience ” and “accept” anger without trying to control it. This is not really catharsis strategy, but instead an attempt to allow one to examine and deal with anger without actually suppressing it.
   .
   Reappraisal strategies: Where you attempt to place whatever made you mad into some sort of context that allows you rise above it. It’s the “the best revenge is a well-lived life” approach.
   .
   Rumination/catharsis strategies: These are strategies where you vent or engage in aggressive actions (e.g. hitting a punching bag).
   .
   Of these, in some clinical studies, suppression strategies, acceptance strategies, and reappraisal strategies all decreased anger. Suppression strategies had the least benefit, acceptance slightly better, and reappraisal worked best.
   .
   There are a lot of variations on these, of course, as well as combined approaches. Some focus more on mental state, other focus more on physiologic response. Back in the day, I got a lot of benefit from biofeedback methods, with the idea that if you control the physiologic response, the mental response will follow. though that doesn’t seem to be popular now.
   .
   Rumination/catharsis strategy studies almost uniformly are shown to be counterproductive. As one author noted in a punching bag study:
   .

   Does venting anger extinguish or feed the flame? The results from the present research show that venting to
   reduce anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire—it only feeds the flame. By fueling aggressive thoughts and
   feelings, venting also increases aggressive responding. People who walloped the punching bag while thinking
   about the person who had provoked them were the most angry and the most aggressive in the present experi-
   ment. Venting did not lead to a more positive mood either.
   …
   Catharsis theory predicts that venting anger should get rid of it and should therefore reduce subsequent
   aggression. The present findings, as well as previous findings, directly contradict catharsis theory (e.g.,
   Bushman et al., 1999; Geen & Quanty, 1977). For reducing anger and aggression, the worst possible advice to
   give people is to tell them to imagine their provocateur’s face on a pillow or punching bag as they wallop it, yet this
   is precisely what many pop psychologists advise people to do. If followed, such advice will only make people
   angrier and more aggressive.
   .
   Bushman, B.J., 2002. Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 28(6), pp.724-731.
   .
   That is not to say that anger doesn’t have it’s uses. Anger decreases problem solving ability, interpersonal communications, and empathy. However, it does have its uses. Anger increases success in some competitive events (angry subjects often do better at computer games that involve simulated combat), and can be useful in some necessary confrontations. So, in general, anger needs to be managed, not destroyed. I subjectively feed my anger in some situations in order to get the energy benefits.
   .
   However, catharsis therapy is the worst of all possible worlds, and turns angry people into decompensated angry people who are either terminally ineffectual or become violent. In my opinion, of course. This is a Karenwaffe training camp.

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   1. Just curious, what are your thoughts on the various CISD approaches that are in common use today?
      (The wife spent a few years sitting on a state level CISD steering board some 25-ish years ago. Just as a volunteer FF/EMT rep, although she had taken some college level psych courses before then.)

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      1. The literature is mixed. Some studies suggest it has benefits, while others show harm. A recent large metanalysis that reviewed 24 studies found no clear consensus about benefit. The concluded:

         While four of the controlled studies included in the meta-analysis found a statistically significant positive effect of psychologicaldebriefing, with only one finding a significant negative effect (Grundlingh et al., 2017), the overall synthesis did not find consistent and substantive evidence that psychological debriefing helps to prevent or reduce PTSD symptoms following a work-related PTE.

         Stileman, H.M. and Jones, C.A., 2023. Revisiting the debriefing debate: does psychological debriefing reduce PTSD symptomology following work-related trauma? A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, p.1248924.

         I don’t have any personal experience with it, so I can only go by the literature. The results are not unexpected for a short term therapy — different people react differently to stress, and things like stress reaction (which is very different than anger management stuff) can be idiosyncratic. Thus, what works for one person may not work for another. It’s primary benefit my simply be the demonstration of institutional support.

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   2. So much of modern pop psychology seems intent on making things worse. This “anger therapy”, “trigger warnings”, mutilation for what’s really routine teen angst, and wallowing in self-declared grievances (aka “wound collecting”). It’s like pop culture decided to experiment with seeing how many sociopaths it could make.

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      1. Consider that a lot of this comes to us via TikTok, which is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Is it any surprise that we see floods of propaganda aimed at damaging young Americans?
         The CCP has hedged its bets numerous ways — the WuFlu, fentanyl, TikTok…. all aimed at the same goal.

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6. most “liberal “ women you would have to be good and drunk to even entertain the thought of taking them to bed… between the “Im sniffing shiite” attitude and their looks … ??.. and remember- these are the ones who scream toxic masculinity with every other breath…

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7. The individual that leads (and gets paid for) the sessions claims to be a witch. Her name is Mia Magik…

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8. Well, I guess paying money for a silent retreat is now passe…

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9. I find that a $5 box of freedom seeds sent downrange (my groupings are getting tighter. Progress is in progress) does wonders for my peace of mind. But then I go cold when I’m really angry, not loud and poundy-with-sticky.

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