Anger is not a flaw in your character. It is a fundamental emotion, an important messenger that deserves to be heard.
Have you ever felt that wave of heat rising through your body, chest tightening, face flushing, jaw clenching, fists tightening, only to explode in an outburst of anger? Perhaps you feel guilty afterwards, exhausted after a burst of rage. Or maybe you constantly suppress your anger, believing you suffer from anxiety and fear losing control—or on the contrary, you find yourself unable to stand up for yourself when it’s necessary.
When anger becomes our primary way of responding to the world, or when we constantly suffocate it, it’s a signal that we need a new relationship with this powerful emotion. It’s not about eliminating or controlling it at all costs, but about understanding, welcoming, and transforming it into a resource.
Welcoming anger may seem counterintuitive. Society teaches us that anger is “bad,” that we must control it, hide it, be ashamed of it.
But when we reject anger, we also reject valuable information about ourselves:
Welcoming anger means creating a safe space where this emotion can express itself constructively, where we can listen to what it has to tell us without letting it dominate us.
I am Dr. Liesbeth Elsink, a Dutch psychotherapist living in Pavia and working between Milan and Pavia for 30 years.
My corporate experience of over 25 years following a degree in international business communication, combined with specialized clinical training in clinical psychology and Adlerian psychotherapy, has allowed me to develop a unique approach to anger management.
Anger is one of my therapeutic specializations. In my work, I accompany people on a journey to transform their relationship with anger: from something to eliminate to a messenger to listen to.
My cross-cultural perspective—between the Netherlands and Italy—has taught me the importance of considering cultural context in therapeutic work. The body has a universal language: that of the autonomic nervous system. This language must be understood together with verbal, non-verbal, and any other form of communication in the language in which the patient expresses themselves. It is this multi-level listening that I help my patients develop.
I work in Italian, English, and Dutch—in the language in which you feel most comfortable exploring deep emotional content.
Anger is not a simple emotion. It presents itself in many forms, some obvious, others hidden:
Explosive Anger
Sudden outbursts, raised voice, abrupt gestures, impulse to break objects, harm yourself. After the explosion often comes guilt, shame, and a feeling of deep exhaustion and collapse.
Repressed Anger
You suffocate it, deny it, “pretend nothing happened.” They tell you that you’re “too sensitive” when you express annoyance. You accumulate tension until exhaustion or sudden explosion. Often this repressed anger disguises itself as anxiety.
Passive-Aggressive Anger
Sarcasm, deliberate procrastination, punishing silences, subtle sabotage. You express anger indirectly because you don’t feel safe doing it openly, for fear of judgment and others’ reactions, so you try to hold back.
Constant Irritability
Everything and everyone annoys you. You’re always on the edge of an exaggerated reaction. Small things become enormous. You live in a constant state of alert.
It’s not about eliminating anger—that would be impossible and counterproductive—but about profoundly changing the way your nervous system responds to life’s challenges, moving from a state of continuous survival to one of greater balance and well-being in various spheres: emotional and relational, social, work, and study.
One of the most important aspects to understand: anger is often a secondary emotion. Beneath the surface, it protects more vulnerable emotions that we struggle to recognize or express:
Fear
Fear of being hurt, abandoned, rejected, humiliated. Anger makes us feel strong when in reality we feel frightened. Often what we call anxiety is repressed anger that has transformed into fear.
Pain
Pain from a loss, grief, betrayal, deep disappointment. It’s easier to get angry than to cry, safer to scream than to show how much we’ve been hurt.
Shame
When we feel inadequate, wrong, not enough. Anger covers deep shame, allows us to attack instead of feeling vulnerable.
Powerlessness
Facing situations we cannot control, anger gives us the illusion of having power. It makes us feel active instead of passive, strong instead of defenseless.
Unrecognized needs
Need to be seen, heard, respected, loved. When these needs are repeatedly ignored, anger emerges as protest, an expression that pushes away rather than brings closer.
Welcome Anger means learning to listen to what this emotion is protecting, what deeper message it is carrying.
Anger doesn’t live only in thoughts, it lives deeply in the body. That nervous, rising heat sensation, tight chest, clenched fists—these are not just symptoms to control, but important messages to understand. For this reason, my approach integrates different methodologies that work on both levels:
We explore the meaning of anger in your life: what purposes is it serving? How does it connect to your relational patterns learned in childhood? Anger often arises from a masked sense of inferiority or unrealistic expectations about how the world should be. Together we understand how your anger is trying to protect you and what deeper needs it is communicating.
Your nervous system can remain stuck in activation states (fight) where anger is the automatic response. Through understanding your autonomic nervous system, you learn to recognize body signals—that rising heat, that growing tension—before anger explodes, and to regulate your responses. Discover how to return to a state of safety instead of oscillating between explosion and repression.
When anger is rooted in past traumas (emotional and/or physical neglect, abuse, mistreatment, injustices suffered, humiliations), EMDR helps reprocess these memories so they stop automatically triggering angry responses in the present. Your body learns that the threat has passed, that you no longer need to react as if you were in danger, but that you now have the resources to respond functionally.
Anger creates intense physical tension that the body holds. Together we learn to:
Much of anger arises from weak or violated boundaries. When you can’t defend yourself assertively, the only alternative seems to be explosion or surrender. You learn to:
I don’t judge your anger, your explosions, or your inability to defend yourself. Together we create a safe space where you can finally express what you’ve held back, without fear of being labeled as “problematic,” “aggressive,” or “too sensitive,” “you’re always the same.”
We explore the history of your anger: how did you see it expressed in your family of origin? What did they teach you about this emotion? Did they tell you to “calm down,” “don’t overreact,” “control yourself”? Or did you witness violent explosions in your family or surroundings that frightened you? Together we understand how these messages have shaped your current relationship with anger.
You learn to identify anger before it becomes uncontrollable:
We develop practical strategies to manage physical and emotional intensity:
If anger is connected to traumas or wounds, we use EMDR to reprocess these memories. This allows the nervous system to “update” its automatic responses. Your body learns that it no longer needs to react with the same intensity to situations that remind you of the past but don’t represent the same danger.
Anger becomes a resource instead of an enemy:
This fear is common, especially if you’ve suppressed anger for a long time or if you’ve witnessed violent explosions in your family or surroundings. In therapy, we create safe ways to express anger gradually, so it doesn’t accumulate until an uncontrollable explosion. You learn that you can feel angry, recognize the anger, give it voice, without necessarily acting destructively. Anger that is recognized and welcomed loses its explosive power, but can be expressed productively.
It’s never too late to change your relationship with anger. Many people manage to repair damaged relationships when they learn new ways to manage this emotion and communicate their boundaries. And even if some relationships have ended permanently, you can build new, healthier ones, where anger becomes communication instead of destruction.
Exactly! “You’re always angry” or “Calm down” are expressions that invalidate your experience and deny that you have legitimate reasons to feel this way. Nobody calms down when told to calm down—in fact, this phrase often makes anger explode even more. Instead, we learn together to recognize and validate your anger (“I have a good reason to feel this way”), then consciously choose how to respond effectively.
Yes, repressed anger is just as problematic as explosive anger. If you can never say “no,” defend yourself, express disappointment, or set boundaries, you’re probably paying a high price. This denied anger often transforms into anxiety, depression, physical symptoms, or suddenly explodes at unexpected moments. Learning to access healthy anger, to recognize it and use it to defend yourself, is an essential part of the journey.
Often repressed anger disguises itself as anxiety. That constant tension, that sense of alarm, that inability to relax—they can be the result of unrecognized anger that finds no expression. When you learn to recognize and express anger in a healthy way, anxiety often decreases significantly. We work together to distinguish what is genuine anxiety and what is disguised anger.
Anger itself doesn’t solve problems, but the information it brings is precious. It tells you that something is wrong, that a boundary has been violated, that you need change, that the situation is unjust for you. When you listen to this message and act constructively—setting limits, communicating clearly, changing unsustainable situations—anger becomes a powerful tool for growth and protection.
It depends on the depth of work needed and the complexity of your life history and relationship with anger. Together we travel a path to address deep experiences, traumas, and patterns rooted from childhood. We work together at your pace, respecting your timing.
My professional experience combines two paths that integrate uniquely: over 25 years in the corporate world, where I developed a deep understanding of stress dynamics, performance, and work pressure management, and specialized clinical training in psychology and Adlerian psychotherapy.
This dual perspective, enriched by a significant life journey—over 55 years in which I independently built career and family in a country different from my origin, raising three children—allows me to particularly effectively understand anger related to the professional context, work responsibilities, complex relational dynamics, the challenges of parenthood and adolescence, and the difficulties of those operating in multicultural environments or those living the condition of being a foreigner or feeling “foreign” in their own context.
An authentic cross-cultural perspective developed over 30 years of life and work between the Netherlands and Italy. This experience allows me to deeply understand the challenges of those living between different cultures, those who have moved for work, those who feel somehow “out of place” in the context in which they live.
Real integration between body and mind in therapeutic work. We don’t limit ourselves to the cognitive level: we work directly with your nervous system, with body sensations, with the implicit memory of the body. Anger is not just an emotion—it’s a nervous system response that must be understood and regulated at that level.
A concrete, results-oriented working method typical of Northern European culture, combined with the empathy and warmth necessary for true therapeutic change. I don’t offer just understanding, but practical tools you can use independently.
The ability to work in multiple languages which is not just a practical matter: working in one’s mother tongue or in the language in which one feels most authentic allows access to deeper emotional levels and facilitates the therapeutic process.
My specializations include: EMDR certification for the treatment of anger disorders. Specific training in personality disorder therapy, eating disorders, mindfulness, and augmented reality therapy. Adlerian psychotherapy, with focus on understanding the meaning of the symptom in the context of the person’s life.
Anger becomes a problem when:
You don’t have to wait until you “hit rock bottom” or feel like you’ve ruined everything. The sooner you start working on anger, the easier it will be to transform it into a resource instead of an enemy.
Recognizing that you need a new relationship with anger is already an act of courage. Many people avoid this work for years, letting anger corrode their relationships and well-being, or letting the repression of anger transform into anxiety and depression.
You are already here. You have already taken the first step.
In our work together:
I will help you:
Anger can become your strength, your healthy boundary, your authentic voice.
If you recognize yourself in these words, if you feel the time has come to make peace with your anger and transform it into a resource, I am here to accompany you on this journey.
The first introductory session is a meeting where I listen to your story and your therapeutic goals. Together we evaluate whether my approach meets your specific needs. I concretely explain how the journey will unfold and what you can expect. You can already experience some initial nervous system regulation techniques.
Click and book
Click and book
“Welcome Anger. Welcome to a part of you!”
Dr. Liesbeth Elsink – One Step at a Time
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