Opposite Action

When You’re Angry, Do the Opposite: A DBT Skill in Action

Anger can feel impossible to control, but changing behavior can change the emotion. In this Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) demonstration, DBT expert Dr Elizabeth Mazza walks a client through the DBT skill of Opposite Action, a strategy that helps regulate intense emotions by acting against their natural urges.

As Elizabeth Mazza explains, anger often triggers the urge to attack, yell, or storm off but these reactions that make the emotions stronger. By consciously choosing the opposite behavior, such as leaving calmly, taking a break, or showing gentle understanding, clients can bring their anger down and regain perspective.

The session captures a genuine, often humorous moment of resistance — when the client questions how being kind could possibly help when they’re furious. But as the conversation unfolds, the logic of Opposite Action becomes clear: regulating emotion isn’t about suppressing it, but changing the behaviors that keep it alive.

This video offers clinicians a practical example of how DBT turns insight into action, helping clients respond to anger with awareness, choice, and effectiveness.

From the course

DBT Skills

With anger, you know, what's the typical urge that goes with it? When you get angry, you have the urge to do what? Raise my voice. Mhmm. What else? You know, say hurtful things. Uhm. Yeah. Just leave the room. Mhmm. Or storm off. Mhmm. Depends, I guess. Yeah. Which makes perfect sense. Right? We've talked about how as humans, we're biologically hardwired to have our emotions and every emotion is kind of hardwired to certain action urges. Mhmm. With anger, our urges are to attack, to yell. Right? Say hurtful things, throw things, either physically or verbally attack. Mhmm. And everything you just described fits that. So the more angry we are, what happens to your urges? And you get stronger. Right. The more angry you are, the bigger your urge is. Yeah. So one of the ways that we can decrease the emotion is by changing the behavior. Do the opposite behavior to the emotion you're having, to the urges you're having. And that can help to bring down the intensity of the emotion, bring down the intensity of anger. So what would be the opposite of storming off, slamming the door? You know, staying there and and talking about it? Mhmm. Or... Possibly. Yeah. Mhmm. I was like I was you could stay there and talk about it, but if you're really angry and your anger hasn't come down yet, instead of slamming the door and storming off, is there another way you could leave? Like leaving quietly. Right. We call that gently removing ourselves from the situation. Yeah. Right? To rather than like, I can't be here. I'm out of here and slamming the door. Like, yep. I'm gonna go take a five-minute break. I'll be back in a little while and we can talk more. Been doing that. Right? Opposite is gently removing yourself. Another thing that can help as a way of bringing anger down is you're gonna you're gonna snicker at me when I say this. Alright? So stick with me for a minute. Be a little nice to the person who's making you angry. That's crazy. Why do you think that's crazy? Well, it's yeah. I mean, opposite action. I think it's one thing to, like, suppress my feelings and try to, like, lock them all in so, like, I can unleash them somewhere else. Uh-huh. But if I'm gonna, like, stay and talk to this person, the last thing I wanna do is say a nice thing when all I'm feeling is, like... Mhmm. Needing to get, like, this thing that I need to say off my chest in, like, a shouting manner. Right. Yeah. Your anger is definitely not gonna go down. No. And it's even harder for me than, like, like, my friend, she's looking at me with, like, a dirty look. What am I supposed to smile back at her? Well, do you want your anger to go down? Yes. Okay. So this is the key. Right? One of the things that I always want to keep in, like, the back of our minds is asking yourself, this is that skill of effectiveness. Is it effective for me to yell back? Is it effective for me to act on my anger?