Can Anger Lead To Depression?
What's the relationship between anger and depression, and the best way to work with them?
By Jon Terrell, M.A.

When I am asked, "Can anger lead to depression?" I say yes, based on my years working with people at our emotional healing retreats, which help people work through difficult feelings such as anger, grief, and anxiety.

We often see people suffering from depression release years of pent-up anger and come alive again. At the retreats, we create a safe environment to express emotions so that people suppressing anger can finally let it out without hurting anyone.

This is often the beginning of a new journey towards ease, freedom, aliveness, and passion. Instead of constantly holding back feelings, people become free to be themselves. Participants learn that all emotions have a purpose and how to express feelings healthily.

Once anger is expressed, that angry part of us can grow and find new, healthier ways of responding to others instead of being caught up in reaction. Yes, suppressing anger can lead to depression, but as we learn to express it wisely,  anger resolves and the related depression evolves also.  Read on to learn more.

Working with Anger and Depression

Typical ways that therapists work with anger and depression include medication, physical health suggestions such as increasing exercise, and, of course, talk therapy.

While these can be helpful, the process is often hit-and-miss. What helps one person may not work for the next, and it can be a very slow process. There is a better way.

Antidepressant medications can help many people. However, research shows they don’t help everyone and can have harmful side effects. Often, several medications need to be tried to find one that is effective in relieving the symptoms of depression. Sometimes, clients end up taking several medications at the same time.

Talk therapy can be helpful, mainly if focused on training people to redirect thoughts in new positive directions. But you can spend years in therapy without getting relief from difficult emotions.

For many people, the best way to heal depression is to free up their life force caught up in old, stuck emotions. We do this safely, lovingly, and effectively at our deep emotional healing retreats. 

Depression is not always tied to anger, but if we learn at an early age to suppress our anger, it often is. When we suppress feelings, we push our life force away from our everyday awareness, which takes our awareness and energy away. We tire more quickly and are less aware, both of which are symptoms of depression.

Each person’s journey is unique. Underneath the surface of depression, people often have suppressed anger that is held within the body. Anger can be held in the clenched jaw, tight shoulders, upper arms and hands, belly, and other places. All that tension takes energy!

As we work through anger, we have more energy, and our depressed feelings can lift. When people do their anger work at our retreats, they go from exhausted and feeling heavy to feeling alive, free, and awake.

Depression can also be about suppressed grief.

Working with Anger-That Ticking Time Bomb!

Most therapists who work with anger try to “manage” it. Anger Management is a whole field. They teach techniques and strategies to keep people from damaging behaviors. These techniques include relaxation methods, ways of slowing down our emotional reactions and redirecting thoughts.

The effort is directed toward working with thoughts in different ways. If you go to your local bookstore or browse Amazon you will find almost all the books use these mental techniques. Mental techniques can be helpful but are indirect.

Instead, we work directly with anger. Anger has a lot of energy—it's big! And when it explodes, watch out!

Healing Anger And Depression:
A Better Way

While working with thoughts can be helpful, especially with those people who have trouble containing their anger, they don’t address the anger directly, like we do at our retreats. And they are not often that helpful in relieving depression. (Although some techniques can be valuable for depression as well.)

At our events, people who come to heal their anger learn to express it in a whole new, safe way. They learn why anger is valuable and discover anger's gifts, including the gifts of passion, aliveness, and vitality.

Another gift is that depression can lift as well. 

We have to prepare to get there. At our retreats, we take the time to create a safe and supportive environment for deep emotional work.

And another gift is that depression can lift as well. All that energy that was holding back anger is suddenly available! It can feel so freeing and healing to have all that energy back suddenly. And what a relief.

But to get there, we have to prepare. At our retreats, we take the time to create a safe and supportive environment for deep emotional work.

Once you feel safe enough, your stuck emotions naturally arise to be expressed if you choose.

At our retreats, we say, "All of you are welcome," especially the old, stuck, or hidden feelings we have felt were unacceptable and even wrong. They are welcome, not denied or shamed.

We create a safe, beautiful process for people to learn to express these feelings. Once stuck feelings are expressed, they evolve quickly. 

Feelings are not wrong; they tell us to pay attention to an unmet need! They are essential to our aliveness and our humanity.

What is wrong is that most of us suppress and deny our feelings, so we are caught in a bind. We project that something is wrong with us when the feelings are just a warning system telling us that things need to change.

We can blame others for our feelings, saying, for example, "You make me angry." What really makes us angry are our unresolved old suppressed feelings that their actions or behaviors invoke.

Your feelings may not have been welcomed as a child, adolescent, or adult, so they went underground. In the process, you lose a huge part of yourself. It's never too late to reclaim your life.

(These feelings often go back to early childhood! When we were toddlers, we learned about anger and its expression. Many of us experience that anger was "bad," so instead of expressing it, we pushed it underground. We may have been punished for expressing our natural feelings, which include anger, grief, and fear. We tried to banish them from awareness, hide them, or distort them. And that behavior continued throughout our lives. There is a better way!)

In my work with groups, we use the group's full support to encourage the expression of anger (and other feelings) in a way that doesn't harm anyone. As our feelings are externalized or expressed outwardly, participants feel relief-they feel lighter, more relaxed, aware, and open. 

Anger is a BIG feeling, and suppressing it, as mentioned above, can steal so much of our energy and awareness that we can feel tired and depressed. Can anger lead to depression? Yes, it can, and we can learn ways to express anger that can relieve depression safely.

[Note: Some research seems to show that “expressive” approaches that “vent” anger don't decrease anger in the long run but increase its expression in specific individuals, people who express hostility as their prime emotion.

For most people, the situation is different. Most people have suppressed many feelings, especially anger, that need to be worked through, expressed in a safe environment, and owned so they are not acting out unconsciously in relationships

Hostility comes from suppressed anger. Current research, such as that of Allan Schore at UCLA, gives credence to this approach. My work over the past 25 years with hundreds of individuals is highly encouraging--people can heal by addressing these "difficult" emotions. Suppression or unconscious expression are not the only choices!]

What Are Our Emotional Healing Retreats, and Who Can Benefit?

We offer retreats that help people work through painful, stuck feelings. In a safe, supportive, and loving environment, adults rediscover lost gifts that have been trapped in old emotions, such as grief, anger, and depression. We encourage people with all types of emotional issues to attend.

A big part of the journey is in community, where everyone learns from each other. For that reason, I do not offer this work privately.

Grief, Loss,and Other Difficult Emotions Retreats are 3-4 day events held in Massachusetts, and occasionally in Florida and California. These retreats are limited to 10-12 participants. Go here for more information.

Once a year, in the summer, we offer a longer retreat in New England, which is called Breaking Free To Emotional Wellness.

For more information about anger and depression contact Jon Terrell using the form below. 

Jon Terrell, M.A.
Star Dance Ranch, Sunderland, Massachusetts

Go From Anger and Depression To Grief, Loss and Other Difficult Emotions Retreat Page

Go to Anger Page

Go to Anger Triggers Page

Go to Fear of Intimacy Page 

See this page on the Stages of Grief

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