Your article (Write down your thoughts and shred them to ease anger, researchers say, April 9) reminded me that in the 1960s, after visiting a preschool group in a monitoring capacity, I felt resentful of the way I was received. On returning home, I wrote a letter to the person concerned, but then calmed down enough to decide not to send it. I unscrewed the paper and threw it on the open fire. I felt better after that.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, while working with a bereavement organization, my client expressed negative thoughts about a close family member who responded to their loss in a different way. I suggested he write down his angry thoughts and then destroy what he wrote in whatever way he wanted.
At our next session, he said he expressed his anger on paper, then shredded it. His anger was relieved. I’ve had other clients emotionally tear up written words, but this was the first time I’d heard that shredding was cathartic.
Name and address provided
During my previous career as a clinical psychologist, I suggested writing emotionally charged letters and then destroying them several times to patients. I also remember talking to a man who was tending his garden during lockdown. He looked very cross, and when I mirrored it back to him and asked why, he said he felt cheated out of a heritage. He had a photograph of the person concerned, which is now buried in the garden with his letter. This turned his dismay into glee.
The best one was a patient who wanted to burn a letter on the beach. It was too wet, but on the way home she saw dog poop on the sidewalk, so she used the letter to remove it and put it in the trash. She felt better afterwards.
Janie Penn-Barwell
Eastleigh, Hampshire
As a cyclist, much of the anger I see (and hear) is from car and van drivers. Will vehicle accessory manufacturers start selling dashboard-mounted shredders for those with anger management issues?
Sam White
Lewes, East Sussex
My solution when you’re angry? Write it down and send it as an email to the Guardian letter desk.
Mike Pender
Cardiff
