Church-run anger management program helps students

UIJEONGBU, South Korea (UCAN) - Kim Bong-jun, a first-year high-school student, found himself losing his temper easily because of the stress of preparing for many exams, so he decided to do something about it.

"I want to be able to control my temper and remain calm and peaceful," the youth told UCA News. He and 26 other high-school students attended the "Anger Management Camp" conducted by the Seoul Archdiocese-run Seocho Youth Center. The center in Seoul's Seocho district held the camp June 8-10 at a retreat center in Uijeongbu, on the capital's northern outskirts. "I come home usually at around 10 p.m. after extra classes," Kim said, adding that "keen competition" among fellow students also adds to his stress. Marino Cho Han-soo, secretary general of the youth center, told UCA News on June 10 that it is especially important for high-school students to learn how to control their anger during this stressful period in their life. Not only do they have to take many exams throughout high school, but final-year students have to sit for the important university-entrance exams. "High-school students are our target," Cho confirmed. "Middle-school students are too young to understand the program, while those above 20, such as university students, have their own preconceived ideas and find it hard to accept what we teach." He added that his center offered the program, which costs about 100,000 won (US$105) a person, for free, but fewer than 30 students signed up for it. "Parents of high-school students think that (preparing to) enter the university is more important than attending this kind of personality-development and character-education program," Cho commented. Of the 27 participants, 16 were male and 11 female, and all but six of them were Catholics. Most were in the first or second year, and only one was in the third, or final, year. High school follows three years of middle school. At the camp the students took part in activities designed to help them identify various feelings, learned to reduce anger through breathing, physical relaxation and the use of imagination, and watched a video presentation on dealing with anger. One of the activities for identifying feelings was similar to the game Bingo, but with the numbers replaced by stages of emotions such as anger, boredom, irritability, shame and happiness. In the anger signal activity, participants were asked to identify their reaction to various hypothetical situations by placing red, yellow or green stickers -- traffic light colors -- on a sheet of paper. Red meant they felt like they would explode, yellow signified suppressed anger and green signaled a calm reaction. Anger, A Time Bomb of Life, the video the students watched, presented scientific data indicating that giving way to one's anger in a violent manner, such as by physically destroying something or shouting, escalates the emotion. Such a response to anger increases the possibility of heart attack, according to the video. However, suppressing one's anger also is unhealthy and could lead to "anger syndrome," in which one suffers from constant resentment. The video showed various ways to control anger. These included meditation, writing one's thoughts and feelings in a journal, and gardening. Kim, who is not Catholic, said on June 13 that after completing the program, he encountered a situation in which he almost lost his temper but succeeded in reining in his emotions thanks to what he learned at the camp. "But I don't think the program's effect is immediate," he added. "What I need is to practice controlling my anger little by little everyday. That's the best way to overcome stress." Kim Mi-ya, a catechumen, joined the camp with a parish friend and found it "really fun and meaningful." For a second-year student like her, "the two-and-a-half days were a big loss in terms of preparing" for exams, she said. "But it was amazing to find out that I have so many different feelings inside me." She noted that afterward, she was less inclined to quarrel with her mother. Father Joseph Kim Young-kook, who directs the youth department of Seoul archdiocese, told UCA News on June 13 that although he advertised the camp through the archdiocesan bulletin and the youth center's website, the program was open to all high-school students and did not focus on "religious matters." "They say that Koreans have more anger than other people," he said. "Anger sometimes produces unimaginably violent or negative results, but anger itself is a sort of energy," he explained. "The program aimed to help students use their anger positively and creatively." According to Cho, the center plans to hold another anger management camp in November and also to offer it with other youth centers in the country.

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Republished by Catholic Online with permission of the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News), the world's largest Asian church news agency (www.ucanews.com).