Articles in the Guardian and the Manchester Evening News are highlighting an aggressive individual and his (possibly) failing Anger Management classes throw my specialism and those that deliver it in to sharp contrast this week.

In brief Philip Croft had been sent on the course after attacking someone. On his way home from the course he was stopped by a police officer for speeding and delivered a “but was met with a four-lettered rant.”

The judge he ended up in front of was not missing the obvious either as he said “There’s a certain irony that on your way back from an anger-management session you behaved like this with a police officer."

The humour in the situation is further heightened by the admission that he was angry because at the class he was attending the “session had ended early because people in the group were causing a disturbance” and this upset him.

Now we have all stopped for a wry smile and laughed at the irony of this man’s situation it does raise a serious point.

Does Anger Management work?

The answer, in my experience, is “Yes.” Since I opened my clinic I have only had one acknowledged failure and he has admitted that he did not bother to put into practice what he had learned. This is training after all.

To back this up we survey our clients. 95% of them rate our services as exceeding their expectations. To be really thorough we surveyed a group 2 years later. 93% rated the course as good or excellent. That statistic makes me particularly proud. That’s training that sticks.

Moving on, even in an area as specialised as this there are different providers and we are not all the same. Some still think that telling someone to count to 10 works. Others are not confident enough of the quality of their work to stick to their time standards and end up shortening their courses to fit time or cost issues from clients. I hear of some providers who deliver 1 hour (yes “1 hour!” I hear you gasp) courses so that they can retain or win a contract with a local court.

There are others that deliver Anger Management in a day. I still find it difficult to understand how a one day training course can deliver, effectively, all the tools a person needs to effect deep, personal, long term change in behaviour. In my opinion this does not work and only serves to devalue the service.

We started (and still do) offer a one day “Introduction” course. But we are clear that it is not a solution in the long term is only really to help those reluctant to commit to get used to the idea. We are very clear that Anger Management in one day does not work.

So we are still here offering 10 weeks (30 hours) or Intensive Weekends (25 hours) or one to one (14 hours) courses.

We believe in the quality of what we do. I have never (touch wood) had violence on any of my courses and I do not expect any.

The testimonials on my site are all genuine and accountable.

The positive from this story? At least a court took Philip Croft’s issues seriously enough to make him take Anger Management. That is progress.