It is important to state here that men's behaviour change is not the same as anger management. There are many feelings that men experience in addition to anger: anxiety, distress, impatience, agitation, frustration, fear, to name just a few.

Proposing anger management programs as a response to male family violence promotes the idea that men's violent and controlling behaviours are a consequence of their inability to manage anger. This fails to recognise that men can be violent and controlling when they are not angry, or non-violent even when angry.

Anger management approaches fail to address broader issues of power and control. One of the facts that best highlights this is that men who use violent and controlling behaviour towards their partner often don't use it towards anyone else. They can control their anger, but in certain settings, with certain people, they choose not too.

We will neither refer to nor recommend anger management programs, although we do recognise that anger management has a place in behaviour change programs, especially in terms of helping men to develop ways to intervene in their own violent and controlling behaviour.