The Anger Fallacy: Uncovering the Irrationality of the Angry Mindset

By Steven Laurent and Ross G Menzies

Most people believe anger has its place.

That sometimes it helps us stand our ground, get results, or drive change.

The Anger Fallacy takes a different view — and follows it through carefully.

“Anger is more like fire than steam. If you open a window, you don’t release it — you fuel it.”

It argues that anger is not just unpleasant, but unhelpful in ways we often don’t recognise. When we are angry, we tend to adopt an irrational mindset that distorts how we see others, reinforces self-righteous judgements, and leads us to act in ways that work against our own interests.

This is not a book simply about “managing” anger. It is about questioning the assumptions behind it.

This book challenges familiar ideas such as that:

• “blowing off steam” helps
• anger gets results
• some anger is necessary or justified

“When you express anger, you rehearse it and reinforce the very thoughts that produced it.”

Anyone who has reflected honestly on their own experience will recognise the pattern. Anger rarely feels good, and once it passes, it often leaves behind regret, tension, or damaged relationships rather than anything of lasting value.

Yet we continue to hold on to the belief that it is useful.

Written by clinical psychologists Steven Laurent and Ross Menzies, The Anger Fallacy draws on decades of clinical work as well as clear reasoning and everyday examples. It shows how anger is not simply an unavoidable emotional reflex, but something shaped by the way we interpret events — and therefore something that can be changed at its source.

Importantly, this is not a technical or academic text.

It is written in a clear, engaging style, using dialogue, examples, and a good deal of dry humour to make its case. It has found a readership not only among psychologists, health professionals and their patients, but also among thoughtful general readers interested in how their thinking shapes their reactions.

" This is a book meant to challenge us. The authors have taken such an engaging and witty approach that the reader is likely to get hooked and will stop to think — to reflect. The humorous story is a device, along with creative metaphors, analogies and dialogue scripts, which the authors use to convey the compelling logic of their argument about the counter-productiveness of anger. I strongly recommend this book."

— Adjunct Professor Roger Dooley, Clinical Psychologist

If you have ever found yourself thinking that your anger is justified — but not helping — this book is worth your time.

Extract from The Anger Fallacy

Anger itself is a noxious feeling state — few would deny that. All along the spectrum, from barely noticeable finger-tapping impatience, through eye-rolling annoyance, all the way to door slamming rage, anger is an unpleasant feeling. As a colleague of ours likes to say, no one hopes to wake up angry.

Yet when we discuss the emotion with clients or friends, it becomes clear many of them like their anger, or think it’s useful to get angry. This comes as no surprise. We live in an era where you can log onto Facebook and join the ‘I Dont Need Anger Management, You Just Need To Stop Pissing Me Off !!’ club. Where a popular Internet poster reads: Why is ‘Patience’ a virtue? Why can’t ‘Hurry the fuck up’ be a virtue? An era many are describing as the Age of Entitlement. So an anger management book like this has two tasks essentially: First to convince you that reducing your anger is a good idea, and secondly to actually reduce it.

(Oh, but we can hear you objecting — “Surely a little anger’s normal and appropriate sometimes?”)

‘Normal’ and ‘appropriate’, perhaps, on occasion; but rarely helpful, as we shall see. Our aim is not to help you cultivate normal prejudices, typical hang-ups, or average levels of intolerance. We are going for something, we dare say, a little more ambitious.

This book represents a path to greater peace of mind and functioning, not merely a guidebook to conformity.

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About the Authors
Steven Laurent is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience in treating psychiatric disorders. He is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Sydney, where he has taught on Mood Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, and Drug and Alcohol Disorders. At present he works in private practice in the Inner West of Sydney. Steven completed a Masters in Clinical Psychology at UNSW, where his thesis centred on emotion perception in 'psychopaths'. Laurent's interest in anger arose in the 1990s during the completion of undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Formal Logic at the Sorbonne in Paris. 

Ross G. Menzies has been providing cognitive-behaviour therapy for anxiety, depression, couples conflict and related issues for over two decades and is currently Associate Professor in Health Sciences at the University of Sydney. He is an active researcher and currently holds over $5 million in national competitive research grants. He has produced four books, over 140 international journal manuscripts and book chapters and is regularly invited to speak at conferences and leading universities and institutions around the world. He continues to attract patients from across metropolitan Sydney, rural NSW, interstate and from overseas, with many individuals and families travelling thousands of kilometres to receive treatment at his private practice. The present book is his first major work on anger.

Reader praise for The Anger Fallacy

"An excellent and most importantly contrarian view, challenging conventional views of anger. ”

" The Anger Fallacy is one of the best treatment books that I have ever read. It is accessible and amusing such that patients need not be overwhelmed, yet sophisticated and layered to the point that I found myself continuously harvesting pearls after multiple reads.”

"As a clinical psychologist, I can honestly say this is the finest book on anger I have ever explored.”

"Good, clear writing and a must needed message. I give this book to everyone I care about."

"I find most books written by psychologists to be overly theoretical, technical, and written solely for other academics. The beauty of the Anger Fallacy is it takes the complex concepts of anger and presents them in a way that everyone can understand."

"Excellent, informative and insightful. I unhesitatingly recommend this."

"This is more than just a book of ideas. It is a genuine therapy tool. Practical exercises are scattered throughout the book. If someone reads this book to help them deal with anger better they are likely to finish up dealing with anger better. And isn't that the whole point?"

"This is such a good book — I have started recommending it to anyone who is struggling with being angry. It is easy to read, non-judgmental, and helpful.”