Anger Management & Healing: Reclaiming Power and Emotional Resilience

What if anger wasn’t something to fear or suppress—but a vital signal from your body calling for truth, boundaries, and healing? In this powerful episode of the ANEW Insight Podcast, Dr. Supatra Tovar sits down with psychotherapist, speaker, and anger expert Bronwyn Schweigerdt to explore the surprising connection between suppressed anger, depression, and physical health.

Bronwyn’s groundbreaking work challenges the myth of the “angry person” and reframes anger as an essential, healthy emotion that protects us from self-betrayal. Drawing from her own personal journey through severe depression, disordered eating, and psychosomatic illness, she reveals how unprocessed emotions—especially rage, shame, and betrayal—can manifest in the body, leading to anxiety, autoimmune conditions, and even chronic disease.

Together, Dr. Tovar and Bronwyn dig into:

• The difference between healthy anger and reactive anger—and why knowing the distinction can change your relationships.
• How suppressed emotions show up in the body as depression, panic attacks, or physiological illness.
• Why women are often conditioned to silence their anger, while men may be encouraged to externalize it.
• The science of alexithymia (difficulty naming emotions) and its connection to autoimmune and inflammatory disorders.
• Real-world tools for integrating past trauma, honoring anger, and transforming triggers into self-awareness.
• How unresolved attachment wounds from childhood often resurface in adult relationships—and how to break the cycle.
  
  

Bronwyn shares her own stories of depression linked to unacknowledged anger and offers practical methods for emotional integration. From guided inner child exercises to embodied self-reflection, she shows that healing doesn’t come from avoiding anger, but from listening to it.

Dr. Tovar and Bronwyn also discuss why therapy is essential for uncovering hidden emotional patterns, how unprocessed anger creates physiological stress through elevated cortisol, and why repressed emotions are often at the root of mental health struggles.

This episode will leave you rethinking everything you thought you knew about anger—and empower you to embrace it as a force for growth, authenticity, and connection.

🔑 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why anger is not a character flaw, but a healthy boundary signal.
• The dangers of reactive anger vs. the power of embodied, healthy anger.
• How unprocessed emotions can fuel depression, anxiety, autoimmune disorders, and even cancer risk.
• Practical tools for emotional integration and healing from triggers.
• How attachment wounds from childhood shape adult relationships—and how to break free.
  
  

🕒 Timestamps
 00:00 – Welcome & introduction to Bronwyn Schweigerdt
 02:00 – From nutrition to psychotherapy: Bronwyn’s personal journey
 05:00 – Depression, disordered eating & the cost of suppressed anger
 09:00 – Anger as protecti

Thank you for joining us on this journey to wellness. Remember, the insights and advice shared on the ANEW Body Insight Podcast are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making any changes to your health routine. To learn more about the podcast and stay updated on new episodes, visit ANEW Body Insight Podcast at anew-insight.com. To watch this episode on YouTube, visit @my.anew.insight. Follow us on social media at @my.anew.insight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads for more updates and insights. Thank you for tuning in! Stay connected with us for more empowering stories and expert guidance. Until next time, stay well and keep evolving with ANEW Body Insight!

Transcript

0:00

​Bronwyn Schweigerdt is a licensed psychotherapist, speaker and self-described anger expert whose groundbreaking work redefines how we view emotions like shame, rage, and betrayal. With master's degrees in both counseling and nutrition, she blends a deeply embodied psychodynamic approach to therapy with her passion for truth telling and emotional liberation. And like you, like me and like you, we both have backgrounds in nutrition. I would love to hear what inspired you to start counseling. Um, what inspired you to study nutrition and how did this all lead you to explore the power of anger in emotional healing? I mean, I was vomiting, uh, involuntarily at random times, very humiliating times, sometimes walking down the street, sometimes driving the freeway. Um, and then I couldn't stop eating as well. So it was just this weird thing where I'm vomiting, but I'm, know, gaining 30 pounds in a couple months as well. And I'm eating day and night, waking up feeling like I'm starving. So knew it all started at the same time as the depression, so I knew it was related. I had no idea how, but I went on a search, um, for a good enough therapist who could help me figure it out. And I think a good enough therapist is someone like a good friend or a good parent. Who is a mirror who helps you understand yourself. I did not have any luck. I tried many different therapists and every time I sat there thinking, sitting on their couch and thinking to myself, know, Bronwyn, you are hardly functional right now, but I still think you might make a better therapist than this person. So part of healing from that particular depressive episode was me going back to school to become a therapist.

bronwyn_1_06-25-2025_120254: 0:04

without all the somatic symptoms, just depressed. And, um, all that to say that, you know, took about over a decade, both those times. Um, and looking back when I became a therapist, and then connecting the dots seen in my client's lives. This connection between our depression, our anxiety, armenia, even our somatic symptoms and suppressed anger seemed to be the takeaway. And looking back on my depressive episodes, I know without any doubt that if I had had the awareness at that time to say to myself, you know what, Bronwyn, it's okay to be angry. It's okay. We can channel this anger out of our bodies with assertive speech and say, Hey, you know what? That's not okay. I'm gonna say no. You know, honest to God, if I had said that for that second depressive episode, that time, it would've saved me like a, a vortex of suffering and pain after that. And what happens is when we don't allow ourselves to feel that anger, to honor it, to channel it out of our bodies with assertiveness, with boundaries, with accountability, end up betraying ourselves. And our bodies, I believe, are always communicating to us. They're always speaking and they're saying, Hey, WTF, like you are betraying me. so, you know, I look at that, that that was my body. You know, all that anger was stagnating inside of me making me sick. And I see that with my clients who have anxiety right before their panic attacks. I say, well, it seemed like, you know, that thing that happened could have made you angry if you allowed yourself to feel angry. Oh yeah, maybe that did make me a little angry. But we dissociate from our anger, 'cause we were conditioned from childhood. Don't be angry. No. Good girls aren't angry Yeah. So the second one I kind of hinted at, so that one I was just starting out as before, you're an intern, when you're getting your hours, you're actually a trainee. Like, I don't remember how many hours, but you're, it was, I hadn't even started yet, so I'm a trainee. I don't, I haven't even finished school. I'm, I'm about to see my first client ever of 3000, um, to get all those hours. And the place I was interning, the director was also my supervisor and he told me my first client was going to be a couple. If you know anything about therapy. There are licensed therapists who will not see couples. It is something you really need to be equipped for and trained in. If not, you can do a lot of damage and it will cause you to burn out very quickly. And he's telling me, my very first client ever is a couple. And I look at him and I say, I, I'm not ready for a couple. And he goes, you, it's gonna be the couple. You're gonna see the couple. And that's where I wish I had had that awareness to say, you know what, Dave? This is not a good fit then, I'm gonna find another internship site. I don't wanna work at your center. That would've saved me literally years of depression, because that ended up spiraling, spiraling, spiraling. That's a long story, but that was the first of many self betrayals where I suppressed my anger. anger. There's also reactive anger. We could talk about that. That's different, healthy anger is there so we don't betray ourselves. And so I went from one self betrayal to another, to another to kind of stay at this position in this internship site. Anyway, um, the other depressive episode that I, that I first had. Was actually anger at my husband. So we had just relocated to a different city. This is about 16 years ago when the Great Depression or the Great Recession happened, and we moved. He started working. My daughter was little. Um, I had been pretty much a stay at home mom, although I did have a job that I had to move away from a very part-time job. So we move, it's a, it's a different city, but it might as well have been the other side of the moon because I don't know a single person, I was so lonely. He's going to work every day, so he's not feeling the lonely loneliness like I am my daughter, I just enrolled her in kindergarten, so I'm all alone every day. And we have since discussed this. It was because he felt guilt. For making us move because he's the one who got the job that we had to relocate for. So he withheld empathy because that would've made him feel guilty for causing my pain. In his mind, he felt responsible for me, I know you feel responsible, but you're not. What I need from you right now is I need you just to give me some empathy. Okay. Is gonna be a win-win because I'm gonna feel better when you do that and you're actually gonna feel better 'cause you can comfort me instead of feeling like you have to stay away from your own guilt. That would've saved, you know, our marriage at that time. It would've saved me from going into that depressive episode. It would've saved me from getting sick and gaining the 30 pounds in two months. Our boundaries are crossed, we're we're conditioned to take it and to be silent about that. And so you mentioned how all these emotions, and I agree with you completely, especially just doing the work that I do, um, that they, they emotions get stored. They live in our bodies. So for people who don't really resonate with that, how does that process work psychologically and physiologically? So when we are alexithymic, when we hold it inside, what I found in the research that I've done. It causes autoimmune disorders. Even, they're even showing it in, you know, children with type one diabetes more alexithymic than children who do not have type one in women with MS. And more severe MS.

dr--supatra-tovar_1_06-25-2025_120253: 0:14

I would assume that it is probably because of a buildup of cortisol and a lot of the stress hormones that erupt when you are in distress. And I would think that if you are holding them inside, cortisol just continues to build up. And as we've seen, uh, in plenty of research, that's actually what. Uh, leads to a lot of physiological problems including joint pain, difficulties in cognition, um, digestive issues like you were having as well. um, you know, kind of maladaptive behaviors and difficulties in your bodies, that's what leads to more of those long-term and more difficult diseases. And that's a type of betrayal that I think even more common and more insidious. 'cause we don't allow ourselves to feel that or notice that it's so hidden. It's so, you know, covert. So when someone, our, our partner, our parent especially, those are mainly the two that I see in therapy, that we have these expectations on them to attune to us, to show empathy, to nurture us. You see a lot of those behaviors, uh, from a caregiver to the child that really, um, disrupt the child's sense of safety. And we're looking often to resolve those. And that's what we see when we get into our partnerships. We actually tend to find people to partner with that are similar to the people that we've had difficult attachments within our childhood. So we're kind of recreating these, um, environments in hopes of, of resolving that attachment and becoming safe again, and then becoming secure. And I like to say. That when we do that with a present relationship, what we're really trying to do through this partner is we're trying, like, I'm trying to prove to little Bronwyn that her mom really does love her through my partner. So I find a partner similar to my mom. Invalidating doesn't give a lot of attunement. And if I can make him validate me, if I can help get him to attune to me, then I'm proving to myself that I am really lovable. I'm like closing that deal, right? Mm-hmm. more in their subconscious and also just housed and stored in their bodies, it's really difficult.

bronwyn_1_06-25-2025_120254: 0:21

Yeah, so I mentioned reactive anger before, which is different. So there's healthy anger. Healthy anger is rooted in reality. So it's rooted in truth. So you're betraying me right now. I'm feeling that my body and my relationship to that anger should be one where I'm like, okay, I feel it right here in my chest. And so when people think like you're sane, I can be angry. And then they think of the hothead person. I don't wanna be like that person. No, we don't wanna be like that person. So that person is someone who is just reactive anger. Now, reactive anger is someone who's just triggered in the present, but of course they haven't done the work to where that trigger really belongs, which is, that's anger from usually a primary attachment figure that they don't want to acknowledge that they don't want to do the work on, and so it shows up whenever there's an echo of that person in their life, which could be just someone you know. For me, my big trigger, um, has been historically someone not making eye contact with me while I'm talking. So I don't have this reactive anger that's getting, you know, incited whenever someone doesn't make great eye contact or whenever someone, you know, whatever it is. That reminds me of my mom unconsciously. And that's reactive anger. Those are those hotheads. They have all this anger, their anger is valid, but not in the present at the person they're angry with. So, yes, you're right. It's like. We can make these assumptions, but they usually come from something that's triggering in the past. And if we are not aware of that, uh, that's, I think, where the reactivity comes out. Um, so, you know, it was interesting that you said, you know, I can, for the person, like who's going through the work, I, I can express my anger, but I don't wanna be that person. So I'll give you another example. A few years ago, my daughter, I'm gonna say, triggered me. It was my trigger, but, so another trigger I have had historically is when I'm in the presence of another person, but it's silent. I cannot handle it. It feels like rejection, if I'm honest. And I've just now kind of been able to name what it feels like. Usually that's where we feel shame then I just focus on that sensation. I let my mind just passively float back to the earliest time I ever felt that same sensation. So by the way, this is what I call an integration exercise. So this is what I do with my clients. I do this on my podcast so that people who listen can do it for themselves, because anyone can do this for themselves. I imagine my adult self going to little Bronwyn who's three years old, getting down her level, looking her in the eyes. And seeing little Bronwyn, I know how ashamed you feel that you are with this attachment figure all day long, but she's never talking to you or listening to you or making eye contact with you.

dr--supatra-tovar_1_06-25-2025_120253: 0:28

I have them then, you know, of course go through the situation as it was, and I would ha and then I have them. but I have them embody the feeling. But for right now, we're out of time for this half of the podcast, but we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk in the second half and go even further into the topics of anger and shame and how they're embodied, uh, in our bodies. So thank you everyone for joining us. You've got to tune in next time for the second half of this wonderful interview with psychotherapist, speaker, and self described anger expert for Bronwyn Schweigerdt.