Is Anger Management Effective, or Just a Clever Marketing Ploy?

Andy Meisler’s article about anger management was interesting (“The Storm’s Quiet Eye,” Aug. 28). George Anderson is an astute and successful therapist-turned-businessman. Over the years I have received many mailings promoting his anger management training. Is his training program as effective as his marketing program? Sadly, I think not. To the best of my knowledge, there is no valid study that says anger management produces positive behavioral changes. Therapists take his classes because the marketplace requires them to do so.

Just as addicts are ordered to drug treatment programs, people with uncontrolled anger are ordered to anger management programs. It sounds good. Judges are happy to avoid long trials in an already overcrowded court system, defendants are more or less happy to avoid jail, and Anderson is very happy. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, although let’s not look at the efficacy of the invention.

David Amitai

Los Angeles