Unclenching the Fist of Anger

How hand gestures used in Stoicism may help us cope with our emotions

The clenched fist is a universal symbol of determination as well as of aggressive tension. — Calvert Stein, ‘Clenched fist as a hypno behavioural procedure’, 1963

Many years ago, I used to teach an old conditioning technique introduced by the behaviour therapist Calvert Stein, in the early 1960s. Stein had his clients clench the fist of their dominant hand and associate the gesture with happy memories and feelings. In some cases, clients are also asked to clench their non-dominant fist for a moment then slowly relax it, in order to symbolize the act of releasing negative emotions. I trained hundreds of therapists to use this simple technique. People like doing it. Although it has been used with a range of emotions, the consensus among my students was that it seemed particularly appealing as a way of coping with anger.

A client might be instructed as follows…

Close your eyes and imagine that you’re reliving a recent situation in which you became very angry. Begin before anything happened to make you angry, and go through the memory, as if you’re there right now, experiencing it again. As your anger begins to emerge, gradually clench your non-dominant (usually your left) hand into a fist. When your anger reaches its peak, clench your fist as tightly as you can, pause there for a moment, and nod your head so that I can see. [Pause.] Now, take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, begin to relax your clenched fist very patiently, in slow motion. Breath naturally, and with each exhalation, relax your whole body a little more, especially your left hand. Imagine that as you release the tension from your hand, you’re letting go of any angry thoughts or feelings. You can accept those feelings, without needing to hold onto them any longer. Allow all of your attention to be absorbed in the present moment, and the physical sensations in your body, as you release your hold on the anger, very slowly and patiently.

Over the years, I’ve come to think there could be hidden reasons why this gesture seemed so effective as a way of releasing anger. Obviously, unclenching the fist can be considered a universal gesture of “letting go”, and this symbolism is certainly very important. There’s also the fact that relaxation is being repeatedly paired with the anger-provoking memory, a well-established procedure known as counter-conditioning in behaviour therapy. Focusing attention on such a straightforward and tangible coping strategy can also allow the client to feel more in control of their response, which may counteract the loss of control often reported in anger. There’s also the simple fact that doing almost anything differently than normal when an episode of anger is about to begin can potentially disrupt the automaticity of old habits, and prevent the emotion from escalating. I now believe, however, that there may also be more subtle psychological factors at play in the use of this technique.

Secrets of the Fist

1. Slowing Down Time

The first is that giving sufficient attention to a physical gesture of this kind could potentially slow down our subjective perception of time, in a way that interferes with the normal psychological process of becoming angry. When anger is escalating, people report that things often appear to happen much more quickly than normal. That sense of rapid escalation can contribute to the feeling of “losing control” of your temper. During intense anger, we normally focus on the perceived threat, typically the offending behaviour of another person. This means, however, that our attention tends to be directed away from our own actions, and physical sensations, in the heat of the moment.

There is some evidence that, by contrast, focusing on certain physical sensations, such as the feelings accompanying muscle movements, can slow down our perception of time. A recent study found, for instance, that “overestimations of the duration of interoceptive stimuli [internal physical sensations] appear to be function of subjects’ ability to correctly perceive their own bodily information”, and noted that high levels of “salient stimuli” or internal sensations are capable of “effectively slowing the perception of time, which will appear to 'stand still to the subjective observer'" (Di Lernia, D., Serino, S., Pezzulo, G., Pedroli, E., Cipresso, P., & Riva, G. (2018). Feel the Time. Time Perception as a Function of Interoceptive Processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12). Time can slow down, in other words, when we become deeply absorbed in internal sensations.

This effect can be achieved by paying a lot more attention than normal to your own breathing, and patiently observing even the smallest sensations of movement. Slowing down a behaviour, such as unclenching the fist in tiny increments, may create a psychological buffering effect by flooding our capacity for interoceptive awareness. Doing this repeatedly, while reliving memories, or in real situations, in response to the early-warning signs of anger, may derail the escalation of the emotion by shifting attention away from the other person and back onto our own actions enough to reverse the perceived acceleration of time. It also gives us more time to pause for thought, hesitate, and change the course of our actions.

2. Cognitive Defusion

Another process involved may be what therapists nowadays tend to call “cognitive defusion”. The act of releasing the fist can be thought of as symbolizing “letting go” of angry thoughts and attitudes. For example, perhaps someone bumps into me and I instinctively have the automatic thought: What a total jerk! Releasing the fist, as I imagine letting go of the thought, may allow me to experience it in a more detached way —- having the thought but no longer buying into the thought.

We now know that this kind of psychological detachment is more important than previously assumed. It used to be widely believed that the goal of therapy should be to change negative thoughts and replace them with positive, or more rational ones. However, it’s now realized that changing our relationship with negative thoughts, including angry ones, may be a healthier and more natural way to reduce their impact on our behaviour. We experience an angry thought, and even repeat the words in our mind, without necessarily confusing it with reality, or allowing it to drive our emotions and behaviour.

Close up of a sculpture depicting the hand of Chrysippus.

While Stein’s technique focused on behavioral conditioning, therefore, its effectiveness may stem from more subtle cognitive principles—principles that Stoic philosophers explored many centuries earlier.

The Fist of Zeno

The ancient Stoics actually described a series of hand gestures, which symbolized different psychological states. The founders of Stoicism believed that “knowledge is the leading part of the soul in a certain state, just as the hand in a certain state is a fist” (Inwood & Gerson, 2008, p. 27). According to Cicero, Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism introduced this analogy:

And Zeno used to make this point by using a gesture. When he held out his hand with open fingers, he would say, “This is what an impression is like.” Then when he had closed his fingers a bit, he said, “Assent is like this.” And when he had compressed it completely and made a fist, he said that this was grasping (and on the basis of this comparison he even gave it the name ‘katalepsis’ [grasp], which had not previously existed). But when he put his left hand over it and compressed it tightly and powerfully, he said that knowledge was this sort of thing and that no one except the wise man possessed it. — Academica, 2.145

Marcus Aurelius appears to refer to this symbolism in a famous passage:

In our use of [Stoic] precepts [dogmata] we should imitate the boxer [pancratiast] not the swordsman [gladiator]. For the swordsman’s weapon is picked up and put down again. However, the boxer always has his hands available. All he has to do is clench his fist. — Meditations, 12.9

That would, if Marcus had been reading Zeno, naturally be taken to mean that the Stoic aims to arm himself with the core precepts of his philosophy as if he’s clenching them tightly in his fist, and experiencing them with what Zeno called katalepsis, or having a firm mental grasp of them.

Of course, we could also reverse the sequence described by Zeno, when it comes to false or misleading impressions, by letting them fall from our grasp. We begin by holding onto our angry thoughts and beliefs tightly, as if we are clenching them tightly in our fist. By literally unclenching our fist, we can symbolize the process of letting go of attachment to false impressions, negative automatic thoughts, and irrational beliefs, known as cognitive defusion.

To repeat what we were told above:

When [Zeno] held out his hand with open fingers, he would say, “This is what an impression is like.”

Place that alongside the well-known quote from Epictetus below:

Immediately, therefore, practice saying to every harsh impression: 'You are an impression and not at all what you appear to be.' Then, examine and test it by the rules you have, and first and foremost by this one: Is it about things that are up to us or about things that are not up to us? And if it is about any of the things that are not up to us, let this thought be ready at hand: 'It is nothing to me.' — Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1

Releasing our grip on troubling impressions such as “This guy is a total jerk!” can allow us to experience them with detachment. The gesture of holding the thought loosely in the open fingers of our relaxed hand, can be taken to symbolize that we could let it fall from our grasp, or pick it back up again. We have gained cognitive flexibility, by being able to treat the thought as if it were an object. We don’t have to buy into it, or even agree with it, in order to handle it with curiosity, and even playfulness, instead of rigidly gripping onto our angry thoughts and feelings.

Conclusion

I think there are several reasons why this technique appears to work well as an emotional coping strategy for anger management.

1. Unclenching the fist can be thought of simply as a gesture of “letting go”.

2. The relaxation involved in releasing the fingers can be used to counteract the physical tension involved in most anger.

3. The simplicity of the technique can allow you to feel more in control of your temper, because you have something easy that you can do to cope.

4. Introducing a novel behaviour can derail the old habits associated with getting angry.

5. Paying close attention to the tiny muscular movements can also slow down your subjective perception of time, in a way that directly counteracts the normal psychology of anger.

6. Thinking of releasing your grasp on the angry thoughts and holding them loosely in your open hand can become a way of maintaining cognitive defusion.

Let me know in the comments if you find this technique useful, and what you feel its main benefits might be.