Finally, words are the only way to make a contract for safety if a person's anger is turned toward you, as may happen if you are intimate with the person even when the anger has been triggered by a third party or outside event. The moment this happens, if you wish this to remain an EFA situation instead of becoming an all out battle in which you become equally involved (nothing wrong with this in itself), you can try to set guidelines for the discharge of the person's anger that keep it from getting out of control. The kind of attitude you might express is: 'Look, I know you're getting angry at me, but I just don't want to get hurt. Let's set some rules.'

The best rules limit physical contact: 'You stand there and I'll stand here, then let's say what we want.' Anger expressed just out of arms' reach may be intensified by frustration, but it can work itself through, since gestures of shaking fists or growling or shouting can be made more safely. If your head is cooler than the other person's, you can set the scene. A good rule if you are frightened of the other person's anger, and they too have a frightened look, is for you not to remain standing up, but to sit down. This may seem like a frightening idea, since the person may tower over you and threaten you. You are certainly abandoning some ground in doing this, and it is a gesture of appeasement. But it makes sure that you are not felt to be threatening. If both of you are already sitting down, sit a bit lower in your chair, give the person a bit of height over you. The essence of rage reduction is fear reduction.

Contact (2): Touch, action

EFA in anger has the double function of preventing it from getting out of hand and becoming violent, and at the same time of helping it, as in any emotional discharge, express itself fully. The first part of this function, if it is to succeed, must largely do so through the kind of containment measures mentioned already-avoiding provocation, focusing attention in detail so as to reduce its range, and trying to set up a physical situation in which you are not threatening to the person and you are out of physical reach while remaining within emotional reach.

The second phase of contact with anger in EFA only applies when you consider the situation to be safe, and the danger of violence nonexistent, either because the logistic set-up prevents it, or because you have made a contract of nonviolence with a person whom you trust. If you are much stronger than the person, you can take your chances on handling any violence that may burst out, although in this case there is a risk that you use EFA techniques to bully the other person into discharging anger that might prevent you from exploiting them.

The second phase of contact, therefore, applies only where it is established that the person needs some help to let out a rage that is a burden or 'consuming.' In such cases the following measures may be used in cases of third party anger:

—If you notice the raised eyebrows and staring eyes of fear, draw the person's attention to this verbally and encourage him or her to frown. Imitate a frown, fix a point on a hard surface, such as a table, and thump it with your fist. Encourage the other person to do the same. Show them how to stick out their lower jaw. Encourage them to breathe out sharply while thumping, and to look at the spot they are thumping. Let each thump be for emphasis while having the person describe the situation that makes them angry.

—In an extension of this, give the person a rolled newspaper and encourage them to beat it against a hard object such as the back of a chair. Again, watch for a tendency for the fear expression to supervene and for focus to be lost. Encourage them to frown and look! If they are standing, encourage them to keep their feet firmly planted in one spot, with the knees unlocked. (Locked knees may be recognized, even if they are out of sight beneath clothing, by the fact that the person tends to lose balance and topple over while hitting.)

—If the anger is directed toward a particular third party, encourage the person you are helping to choke a towel. The two hands should be touching and twisting in opposite directions. Again, encourage a frown. At the same time, get the person to utter the anger in words. Again, watch for the fear expression, and guide the eyes back into a frowning focus. Many people are frightened by their own anger while choking a towel. Reassure them it is normal. (You will have tested this yourself.) After a while they will most likely throw the towel away across the room in a gesture of dismissal.

—If you notice the person grinding their teeth, ask them to bite on a towel and roar. This may be childish, but it is probably what they need to do and may lead to a substantial relief of tension. It may also make them laugh at themselves, which is hardly unhealthy, and at least means the anger is capable of being dissipated in the face of reality.

—If for one reason or another the anger becomes turned toward you, try to stage a face off, as described in the previous section, in which the ground rule is not moving the feet and not being physically aggressive. Some possible measures to increase conflict safely are:

—Arm wrestling, in the usual way while sitting down at a table, while frowning at each other.

—Facing off, feet fixed, pushing at each other, banging the palms of the hands together, yelling. Again, focus on each other's eyes.

—Get the person to push out his or her jaw against your thumb, while expressing loudly what they are angry about. Maintain a pressure with your thumb, just above the point of the chin, but do not push back strongly. Get them to push, to feel their anger lunging forward. (Some people swallow their anger, which involves pulling the jaw back. Pushing against your thumb will mobilize the anger. If the anger is only skin deep, covering hurt or grief, this may make them cry. Then help, as for Grief.)

Anger needs an obstacle. You can be that obstacle, in EFA, without engaging in the battle.

Switching

The tendency to switch from anger to the other emergency reaction, fear, has been mentioned. If the fear expression is merely creeping into a basic expression of rage and lending it a blind, undirected quality, it is best to encourage letting go of it and to fully experience the rage. But if fear seems to be getting the upper hand, and the rage weakening, let it happen (without deliberately frightening the person). Then proceed as in Fear.

Anger and grief may also alternate. Tears of anger are particularly deep if they follow a full expression of rage. The grief may reflect a real hopelessness, and a sadness at the loss of a friendship or difficulties in a relationship. The progression from a 'hard' expression of rage to a 'soft' expression of rage mixed with grief may be very satisfying to the organism—the bitter, hot anger has been flushed out and the crying that follows may be a kind of sad goodbye to unrealistic hope.

On the other hand, a switch from anger or irritation to crying and sobbing before the anger has really had a chance to develop, often reflects feelings of impotence and weakness. It is particularly common in women, who in fact experience rage just as powerfully as men but are often trained (one might say 'crushed') into expressing it in the more acceptable (for little girls) form of tears. It is not good EFA to stop a person from crying, but if the angry tears are just beginning, the rage still 'hot,' it may be worthwhile to attempt to re-focus the rage either by making a remark that intensifies it (a reference to some especially annoying detail, perhaps) or by overtly encouraging it: 'But doesn't that make you really mad?' If a man normally capable of expressing rage begins to dissolve into tears of frustration, this may open the way to underlying softness and tenderness and can be encouraged through acceptance socially as dignified tears of mourning or compassion. In general, acceptance must be the key.

Anger may be displaced into nausea and disgust. This may be emotionally valid. (Some very early childhood rage is linked to having to swallow disliked food, or it is part of a damaged oral relationship to the mother.) But if it means the person is incapable of expressing overt rage as an adult, some attempt should be made to allow the rage to surface. Biting a towel in spite of nausea, while making angry sounds, is useful.