Anger Management for Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Clients: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Manual (Revised 2025) (3 hours)

This manual was designed for use by clinicians who work with clients who have substance use and mental health problems co-occurring with anger management problems.  The manual describes a 12-week cognitive–behavioral anger management group treatment model. Each of the 12, 90-minute weekly sessions is described in detail with specific instructions for group leaders, tables and exhibits that illustrate the key conceptual components of the treatment, and between-session challenges for group members.  Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) has been found to be an effective, time-limited treatment for anger problems.  Four types of CBT interventions, theoretically unified by principles of social learning theory, are most often used when treating anger management problems:

• Relaxation training targets emotional and physiological components of anger.
• Cognitive interventions target cognitive processes such as building awareness of cues and triggers, hostile appraisals and attributions, maladaptive beliefs, and inflammatory thinking. (The manual uses the term “trigger” because it will be a familiar concept to group members who have gone through substance use disorder treatment. The term “trigger” is not meant to convey that anger is an automatic response that cannot be controlled.)
• Communication skills interventions target strengthening assertiveness and conflict resolution skills.
• Combined interventions integrate two or more CBT interventions and target multiple response domains.

This combined approach presents group members with options that draw on these different interventions and then encourages them to develop an individualized anger control plan using as many techniques as possible.