AVP Britain > what people say

AVP workshops are fun, positive and empowering.

These are comments from our participants:

'Through the programme I learned communication with my family and friends I never thought existed.... I learned trust again.'

'Friends asked me why I attended an AVP workshop, since I didn't seem like a violent person. A lot of violence I carry is directed towards myself in the form of self-criticism. AVP is helping me see that and is helping me change.'

'If there is such a thing as a miraculous change, then I can truthfully say that it was through AVP that I began to grow from a person filled with hate, anger and despair into a person who believes that he too is responsible for the protection, enrichment and preservation of humanity.'

'After the course I can walk away from someone who wants me to do something that I don't want to do. I can talk to them adult to adult, and take my own power.'

'The AVP course I attended can only be described as a really wonderful experience. I feel I have started a new phase of my life, with a fuller understanding of my own and others' needs. I can heartily recommend AVP to everyone. The courses are excellent value.'

'I didn't expect it to be what it was. I thought it would be like three days in college. But I was really thankful that I did it because it was the best three days I have had in the last ten years. I really enjoyed it. It was like everybody had a bond. We was all talking, really communicating. I've never experienced anything like it before.'

'It was good to examine my feelings without letting them get to the point of being distressing.'

'I enjoyed the mixture of action, movement, fun and seriousness.'

'The honesty and mutual support enabled us to dig deeply.'

'I built a defensive wall around myself, but AVP showed me that I can talk to someone, that it is really alright to let my feelings out and show people how I really feel. I think when the course finishes people will find they have a different outlook on life. Don't take my word for it, try it for yourself.'

All the rage

WE ALL know the feeling. It's been a long day at the office, the children are arguing when we get home, and when we get to the supermarket to do the weekly shop, some woman with an overloaded trolley is trying to push into the queue in front of us. Suddenly, out of nowhere, we want to explode with pent-up anger.

It's not only Victor Meldrew who had a short fuse. Naomi Campbell's tantrums have often resulted in all the wrong kinds of publicity - most recently when she blew her top after being made to wait outside members-only London boutique Voyage and was banned from the shop.

We all feel that way occasionally because of the stresses and strains of modern life, and often the anger we experience is out of all proportion to the `offence' committed by the unwary person who happens to have crossed our path at the wrong moment.

Road rage, air rage, telephone rage, trolley rage and queue rage - our language is rich in terms to express those moments when ordinary people suddenly go berserk for seemingly trivial reasons.

Anger, like most other feelings, is a healthy and normal emotion. But Sybil Evans, a specialist in conflict resolution and co-author of a new book on anger management, says unless we can learn to channel it positively it can lead to problems.

"Increasing anger is a symptom of modern life, " she says. "We have more roles and tasks in our lives and literally have a time famine. There aren't enough hours in the day for everything so we're impatient, tense and more aggressive.

"Learning how to deal with anger is a vital 21st century survival skill. We all know there is a connection between stress, headaches, backaches and heart attacks. We spend enormous sums dealing with these illnesses and yet some of them could be alleviated by dealing with anger, one of the biggest causes of stress and tension."

So how do we learn to `deal' with anger?

Sybil believes we all have 'hot buttons' - emotional triggers that, when pushed, make us explode outwardly or inwardly.

Recognising our personal hot buttons is a first step to dealing with anger, she says. "List the things that are guaranteed to irritate you. You may have a lot of 'junk in your trunk' from the past which makes you angry or irritable without your realising."

Common triggers, Sybil says, can be people not responding to you, challenging your competence, giving unsolicited advice, not appreciating you or being downright condescending.

Her advice is to turn off such triggers by taking stock of your life - and also to assess whether you are exercising or relaxing enough. Try relaxation tech­niques such as meditating before fac­ing a potentially stressful situation, she suggests. Try to become more tol­erant, less demanding and realise that you cannot "control out" all of life's wrinkles.

If you do get involved in confrontations with strangers - such as irate drivers she advises being polite and turning the other cheek. "Strangers react better when you imply that you know they didn't intend to offend you. Don't ever blame them or tell them they're wrong because that sets them up for fury. Always retain your dignity and niceness."

Pauline Buchanan, co-ordinator of the Alternatives To Violence project in York, has similar advice. She says we have to learn to use anger in a positive way, rather than letting it control us.

"How many times do we rise to the bait, get cross, and afterwards feel almost physically sick and disgusted with ourselves?" she asks.

The key is to understand where our anger is coming from, she says and to recognise that it's often the result of a pattern of things happening in our lives. The person who has sparked our feelings of anger may often not be really to blame. "It could be something that's happened before, or it could be that that person is reminding us of something from the past, and we're responding in exactly the same way we did back then," she says. Its important to change the way we respond in such situations, says Pauline. And to do that, respect is vital.

She gives an example of someone standing in a busy, bad-tempered ticket queue. "If you go up to an already harassed member of staff and say 'I want to know this now, and it's all your fault', that's a very different response to saying 'I know you must be tired and I'm sorry I've got to ask you but...' Even though they are strangers, if you respect them you will get a lot more back."

• Alternatives to Violence runs courses to help break the cycles of anger and violence that can destroy working and personal relationships.
• Hot Buttons - How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down by Sybil Edwards and Sherry Suib Cohen is published by Piatkus, price £12.99.