Home · Conditions · Emotional Regulation
Conditions we treatAnger is rarely the only emotion that gets too big too fast. The capacity to feel a difficult thing without immediately needing to act on it — to disrupt it, deflect it, drink it, drive through it — is a skill. We teach the skill.
The wider question is what happens to your nervous system when something difficult arrives. How fast the volume goes up. How long it takes to come down.
Or pick fights with strangers. Some do all of the above on different days. The thread is the same: a regulation system that hasn't been built up to match adult life.
Whether the issue is anger specifically or something larger underneath it — this page is for you.
In a way most people don't expect. The skills you build tend to outlast the specific problem they were built for.
For some adults, the question isn't really about anger specifically. It's about a wider pattern: emotions that arrive at high volume, that don't have an obvious off-switch, that drive behavior before you've had a chance to think about it. Anger is one shape this takes. Others include sudden withdrawal, compulsive busyness, drinking to numb, scrolling for hours, eating to soothe, picking fights to release pressure, leaving relationships that haven't actually failed yet.
If that pattern sounds familiar, we work with it. The frame we use is broader than "anger management" — it's the underlying emotional regulation system itself.
Regulation is built. Not faked. Not suppressed. Built. Our take
You go from zero to one hundred — not just with anger, but with shame, panic, sadness, attraction, irritation.
The intensity of what you feel doesn't always match what's happening externally, and that's been true for a long time.
You've used substances, food, screens, work, or sex to manage emotion when emotion got too big.
You make decisions in moments of high emotion that you regret in calmer ones.
Other people seem to "let things go" in a way you can't.
You've heard the phrase "borderline traits" or "ADHD-related emotional dysregulation" applied to you, and you're not sure what to do with it.
Mindfulness apps haven't solved this.
You've started flinching at small disappointments because the body has learned what comes next.
You've taken a break from people you love because you couldn't trust how you'd respond.
Emotional regulation is built. Not in the sense of being faked or suppressed — in the sense of being slowly trained. Adults arrive with whatever toolkit they grew up with, and for most of us, that toolkit is incomplete. We add tools, drawing on three frameworks.
DBT was developed for emotional intensity that didn't respond to other therapies. Its four pillars — mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness — are practical and direct. Many clients use DBT skills daily for the rest of their lives.
A different lens: the parts of you that get activated under stress (the part that gets angry, the part that withdraws, the part that says "this is fine") often have their own logic, their own history. Working with these parts directly produces a different kind of stability.
The familiar workhorse. Identify the thought, check its accuracy, choose the response. We use CBT alongside the others, not as the whole approach.
If "I'm just an intense person" has stopped feeling like an answer, that's a good sign you're in the right place.
Information only — not a diagnostic tool. The descriptions of symptoms, conditions, and treatment approaches on this page are general and educational. They may not be used to diagnose yourself, a loved one, or anyone else, and should not be relied upon to decide whether to begin, modify, postpone, or discontinue any course of care. Only a qualified, licensed clinician — after a comprehensive evaluation — can responsibly evaluate symptoms and recommend a course of action. Reading this page does not create a clinician-patient relationship with Pasadena Clinical Group or any of its clinicians, employees, contractors, supervisors, supervisees, interns, postdoctoral fellows, volunteers, agents, or business associates. This site is not a crisis service. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or call 911. Use of this site is governed by our Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Notice of Privacy Practices, including the mandatory mediation, binding arbitration, class-action and representative-action waivers, jury-trial waiver, choice of California law, and Los Angeles County venue described in those documents.