Despite what you read above in his bio, Dr. Gruder was still pretty much "Anger Illiterate" until the 1990s (when he was in his 40s). He came by his illiteracy honestly.

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By the time David was in his mid-teens he so disliked the only versions of anger that he had extensive first-hand experience with (a rageoholic father + a mother who turned her anger into depression and door-slamming) that he was saying to people, "I don't do anger."

By the time he became an adult, David's disowned anger had twisted itself into sulking, shame & self-pity. His "anger management" strategy usually manipulated people into not expressing their anger at him... but it also robbed him of much of his joy, aliveness, and authentic connection with others.

This first started to shift through a watershed turning point with his father in the 1980s, which you can hear about in the free introductory video for this course.

You can read more about the dysfunctional relationship that Dr. Gruder used to have with anger at www.DrGruder.com/anger.

In the 1990s Dr. Gruder started developing Anger Literacy for the first time. He enrolled in an extensive certification program in anger that grew out of a 20+ year study on Anger Completion at the University of Arizona's hospital in Tucson. That's right: not Anger Management but Anger Completion. The UofA team of clinicians & researchers called this method Focused Expressive Psychotherapy (FEP for short). It might well be the most researched approach to anger completion that's ever been developed.

Dr. Gruder received his training in FEP from Dr. Roger Daldrop, the then-Chairman of the Psychology Department and lead FEP clinician/researcher. Dr. Daldrup ultimately bestowed on Dr. Gruder the highest level of FEP certification: being authorized not only to use FEP in workshops and with clients, but also to train & certify psychotherapists in FEP. Much to his sadness, Dr. Gruder might today be the only psychologist still alive (or at least not yet retired), who has this level of FEP certification.

Dr. Gruder went on to conduct over 1000 "Anger Workouts" as he came to call them, in individual sessions & group intensives. He also trained therapists in FEP, in the United States & in Europe.

What he learned about anger from all of this extensive experience led to the gradual emergence of what might be the very first integrated approach to Anger Literacy. He initially called this framework Conquering Anger Mountain™.

By the late 1990s, Dr. Gruder's breakthrough Conquering Anger Mountain™ framework had established him as a leading expert in Anger Literacy, including anger prevention, anger completion & anger effectiveness. His system's universal usefulness has been acclaimed across cultures around the world, thanks to the training programs he's given on it in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, England, & Switzerland.

Dr. Gruder has continued since then to refine his Conquering Anger Mountain™ material until it evolved into the Full Spectrum Anger Literacy & Effectiveness™ Learn-It-Yourself™ training program that is now available to you through this course.