These thinking distortions increase feelings of anger and learning to recognize and change them is a critical part of an effective anger management class. Take a look inside the mind of an angry man and you might see these 5 thinking patterns:

1. "You can't trust people; they will only rip you off!" Thinking like this makes an angry man suspicious of everybody around him. Family, friends, children and work colleagues. Because the angry man is suspicious of other people's motives, they look for evidence that their suspicions are correct.

So they pay attention to anything that might agree with their thoughts, and ignore information that disagrees. This is not a conscious choice. It is simply part of the anger problem. Learning how to recognize and correct this thinking pattern is crucial to recovery.

2. "Admitting you are wrong is a weakness". This way of thinking means that a man must never admit to being wrong about anything. Making mistakes is an everyday occurrence. It is part of being human. Everybody does it. Often people with this belief feel worthless underneath. They worry that if anyone finds out the truth about them they will be rejected. So they can never admit to mistakes.

As a result they need to find someone or something else to blame for things that are not going the way they want. Blaming others also moves the attention onto someone else. Anger management classes can help angry men to be more honest with them, take responsibility for their actions and stop blaming others.

3. "You did that to me on purpose!" This way of thinking is called personalizing. It means that anything that happens is taken personally. This causes a LOT of anger and often leads to aggressive outbursts by angry men. An example would be when someone is late or forgets an appointment. The angry man will not consider that it may have been forgotten or that something may have occurred to cause a delay. They will immediately start to think that this was deliberate, that it was aimed at them personally.

Then they begin to run down the person who has been late and accuse them. The reality is that people do things for there own reasons. Everyone you meet is not actually spending their time thinking about how to annoy the angry man. They are just going about their business. Angry men take everything that happens personally and this causes a lot of rage, violence and abuse. It is critical for long term change success in threatening an anger problem to learn to recognize and confront this thinking distortion.

4. "There's only one way to do things and it's MY way!" Men with anger problems tend to be very inflexible in they way they do things. They are often intolerant of differences in others. This stems from having a rigid way of thinking and feelings of self doubt. it is a very judgmental way of thinking and often ends in arguments with children, partners and colleagues.

The truth is there are many ways to think, live and accomplish things in life. This thinking pattern is common in men that are abusive to their partners and children. It is a very common thinking distortion and often it drives people away. so the angry man ends up feeling lonely and isolated.

Anger management classes can help angry men to change these distorted thinking patterns. This if often the first step to overcoming destructive anger and damaged relationships. The internet has now made online anger management classes easy to access. These classes will help an angry man to start to see the causes of his anger and teach the skills to change it for a more peaceful life.