One very effective way to ease and even heal depression is by releasing the enormous burden of our visceral rage. How is this done?
Anger portrayals, a technique common in accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP), are extremely therapeutic. In a nutshell, anger portrayals guide a person in identifying anger in their body. Anger typically is felt as heat, energy, and tension. Then, by noticing and staying with the physical sensations inherent in the core emotion of anger, impulses and images emerge, like a movie. Allowing the movie to unfold in real-time, the person gives themself permission to envision exactly what the anger wants to do to those who hurt them. In this way, anger comes up and out. As a result, symptoms of depression remit.
Sometimes guilty feelings make it hard to validate and fully experience anger. In the beginning, when David first started to connect with his inner rage, another guilty part of him would leap up and stop the anger from coming up.
“But they did so much for me. I’m so grateful for all the good things they did.” David said.