I spoke with a teenage girl who stated that she is always fighting and getting into yelling arguments with others, including her mother, her cousin, and other people in her life. Her justification for being confrontational is that she hates others telling her what to do. This is an issue for her now in her life, yet in the future it could also be an issue if she someday works for a boss. The reality is that most of us need to be able to respond appropriately when being told what to do. I decided to do a process with her in which we considered her strategy for getting angry in communication. I compared the strategy of getting angry with the strategy of baking a cake. I explained her that if she wanted to bake a cake she would gather ingredients, order and sequence those ingredients, place it in the oven and wait for the cake to cook. If those ingredients were incorrect, or the time in the oven was too short or too long then the cake would be a flop. Too much opening of the oven door in anxious expectation, and the cake may…
