The Relationship Between Depression and Anger

Anger can be a common emotion among people experiencing major depression. You may feel angry at the world, angry about events from your past, or even angry at yourself. This anger can be intense and difficult to control, to the point that it worsens your depression and affects your personal and professional relationships.

Depression vs. Anger

Major depressive disorder is more than just passing sadness. It is a diagnosable mental health disorder that involves feelings of low mood combined with other symptoms such as trouble concentrating and/or sleeping, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, diminished emotional expression, irritability, feelings of guilt, hopelessness, self-doubt, and more.

In contrast, anger on its own is not a diagnosable mental health condition. Rather, it is an unpleasant but common emotion that everyone experiences from time to time. Feeling angry when something upsets you is natural. However, feeling uncontrollable, maladaptive, or otherwise inappropriate anger can signal an underlying problem, particularly when you also have symptoms of depression.

Anger can be part of depression's diagnostic picture, but not always.

Research indicates that depression in men sometimes manifests itself in explosive, uncontrollable anger, among other symptoms. In contrast, this kind of rage is less frequently reported by women with depression.

Healthy expression of natural anger is not a problem. It becomes unhealthy when it is repressed, uncontrollable, or explosive, and interferes with daily life and relationships.

Types of Anger in Depression

Anger can take several different forms when it's part of a major depressive disorder. Below are some examples of the types of anger you might experience while depressed.

Irritability

Irritability is a feature of depression itself. If you have depression, anger may show up as snapping at others over trivial things or being unable to handle small disappointments without reacting negatively.

Hostility

Going a step beyond irritability, a person with depression who expresses anger outwardly may become hostile toward others.

Anger Attacks

Rapid, intense onset of anger (also sometimes called an anger attack) can also be a feature of depression. These rapid-onset attacks are often inappropriately triggered by trivial matters and can take others by surprise.

The Link Between Anger and Depression

Some evidence suggests that serotonergic dysfunction may be partly to blame for both maladaptive anger and major depression. In other words, the neurochemicals in your brain may be out of balance.

Anger Turned Inward

Sigmund Freud believed that depression results from anger repressed and directed toward oneself, rather than being expressed externally. Indeed, anger turned inward (known as internalizing) is common in those who are depressed. This act of turning anger inward can worsen the severity of depression, setting up a vicious cycle.

Listening to your inner critic can worsen depression, making it difficult to do things that could help alleviate symptoms (e.g., doing activities you once enjoyed, spending time with other people, exercising, etc.). This leads you to feel more powerless and negative over time.

Inwardly turned anger in depression may reflect an overly critical negative inner voice that makes it hard to move past feelings of shame and low self-worth.

Anger Turned Outward

Those who are depressed sometimes turn their anger outward (known as externalizing) instead and lash out at those around them.

Depression can amplify negative emotions that can be hard to control, and afterwards, you might feel bad about how you express yourself—setting up a situation that feeds on itself and that is difficult to escape.

Eventually, it may lead to problems in your personal and professional life. For example, if you are unable to deal with stress in the workplace, you might lash out at coworkers, managers, or even customers. If you struggle to control your anger around friends and family, this can strain relationships.

Treatment for Angry Depression

Treatment for depression that includes anger is similar to treatments for depression alone. In short, medication and therapy are both empirically validated treatments for depression that can help alleviate feelings of anger, hostility, and irritability.

Therapy

One specific type of therapy that is helpful for anger depression is Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anger works to help understand triggers and replace them with healthy coping strategies. Using a variety of therapeutic techniques  with the integration of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy has proven it a successful way to identify and understand anger management and behavioural traits that might be causing and maintaining the client's rage