Nimhans to help youngsters manage anger

The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans) has designed a programme to help the youth manage anger better.

The programme, designed after a Nimhans study found no solution is available currently to help the youth with anger management, can be fine-tuned by mentors and teachers to guide their students. To test the intervention programme, designed as a ‘cognitive-behavioural skill-based training for enhancing anger control’, Nimhans chose 100 Bengaluru youths.

In the study conducted in the wider Indian context among individuals aged between 18 and 25, most male children in Tripura were found to be affected by psychological and physical violence, while female children were impacted by sexual violence.

Experts at Nimhans said physical violence was more common in the high-income families and psychological violence was widespread in the low-income groups. They found factors such as alcohol, tobacco, negative peer influence, violence within the family and academic failure could be contributing to the aggressive behaviour.

“The model has been designed to help people have better control over anger expression,” said an expert.

“We did the anger assessment a few years ago, after which we found the need to develop the module. The programme (we developed) turned out to be efficient.”

He said the institute conducted the study in a community with anger issues. Some of the people were picked to test the programme from the
study.

“This is a structured programme. Even medical professionals and counselors are aware that managing anger is an issue, but there hasn’t been a structured programme so far. This programme has an advantage as people in the health sector can use it,” he said.

How it works

The programme is a six-session group course lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. While educating people on anger, it talks about the risk factors — short-term gains and long-term consequences — monitoring anger, the relationship between thought and anger, breathing exercises, helping trainees handle negative thoughts or cognition related to anger and family, assertiveness training and problem solving.