Anger Management Treatment Programs for Mandated Adults: Are They Successful and What Would Make Them More Effective?
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Authors
Malboeuf, Susan
Issue Date
2006
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Anger has been known to cause significant personal and societal problems. Some people who end up in courtrooms are mandated to anger management treatment as an alternative sentence to incarceration. Still, little research has been done on anger and the effectiveness of mandated anger management treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate anger management treatment programs in Contra Costa County, California and explore what elements, if any, lead to successful outcomes from the perspective of the anger management treatment providers who offer services to mandated individuals. This study used a qualitative method based in grounded theory. Six anger management treatment providers were interviewed. Information was collected from questionnaires, text, and interviews, and was then analyzed and broken down into discrete categories based on similarities, differences, and casual connections. Findings suggest that anger management treatment programs provide services to minority populations who are mandated to treatment for reasons not specifically related to anger; that many providers are not necessarily qualified to offer anger management treatment; that providers fail to implement modifications to accommodate multicultural issues; that most clients complete treatment to avoid consequences; and that there is no adherence to any governmental regulations that allows for unprincipled criteria to be executed and no documentation of their effectiveness. This study uncovered four elements that would possibly benefit future anger management treatment: (1) have a mental health professional evaluate mandated clients prior to treatment in efforts to ensure that anger management is an appropriate focus; (2) call for the courts to create operationalized criteria for treatment, as well as guidelines and protocols for programs to abide by; (3) include the offenses for which the courts currently mandate anger management treatment as a part of the standardized criteria, while paying more attention to multicultural issues related to anger; and (4) make it a requirement that clients provide self-reported data about what was useful and not useful to them, to begin to better understand and improve anger management treatment.