Whether you need to take an anger management course because it is court mandated, required for your job, or for your own personal reason, a home study course offers the convenience of completing the program requirements in the privacy of your own home and at your own pace. Home study courses are sometimes court-ordered, but anyone can benefit from home study courses for anger management. Most home study courses provide either a certificate of completion or class credit, or both.
The Anger Management Institute
The Anger Management Institute offers a variety of home study courses for people who either want to help themselves, such as their Anger Management 16 Week/hour Online & Home-study Certificate Course, which costs $310 and includes a DVD, quizzes, and final exam.
There are 16 lessons which run an hour each. Using their core book, What's Good About Anger?, you will learn:
- How to identify your anger
- When anger is constructive
- How to use anger to fuel your compassion, empathy, and assertiveness
- Coping skills to handle anger, stress, and conflict
- Relationship skills
Their Online Anger Management Course: Court-Ordered is a shorter course and costs only $125. You can buy the accompanying DVD separately for $30 and a workbook for $15.
These courses can be taken if your job requires you to take an anger management course, or if a court mandates you to take one. The skills are based on research; they teach you skills that will help not only in anger management, but also stress management, relationship management, and new coping skills.
AJ Novick Group
The AJ Novick Group boasts the most comprehensive online curriculum, offering 8, 10, 12, 16, 26, 36, and 52 hour courses, all given online at prices starting from $195 to $995.
Created by Ari Novick, PhD and Tony Fiore, PhD, these self-paced, guaranteed courses use their "8 Tool Model Approach." These courses teach skills in:
- Being assertive
- Controlling impulsiveness
- Managing stress
- Increasing social skills and compassion
- Identifying emotions and coping skills
- Creating productive thought patterns
- How to forgive
This system is based on the latest research in anger management.
These courses are appropriate for someone who wants to learn new life skills, instill a program at their corporation, as well as fulfill a court order. Teenagers can also take these courses to fulfill school-ordered mandates to help teenagers who act out in anger.
Amarillo College
Amarillo College offers a home-study course for anger management for people who are at least forty-five miles away from the Amarillo campus. Most people who take this course have been court-ordered to do so, but people can take the course if they want to learn:
- Stress management strategies
- Identifying and mastering their feelings
- Decreasing violent acts
- Developing their own behavior management plan
- How to let go and walk away from conflict
While this course is cheaper than courses offered from private companies, there are a number of conditions a student must meet in order to participate other than having to live 45 miles away from the college:
- You must provide written permission from the court to take their home-study course.
- You must fill out their form and send it back to them.
- You must complete the course in 30 days or you have to pay for the course again in order to get your certification of completion.
- You have to wait up to fourteen days for your certificate to come in the mail.
On their website, click on the "Anger Management - Home Study" link. This will open up a PDF file that is the registration form, which also contains an explanation of their terms and how to determine if you're eligible to take their home study course for anger management.
CHOICES®
The CHOICES® Anger Management Home Study Program was created by System Wide Solutions, Inc. It is for students ages 12 to 18. The course materials are based off cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and a study indicates that students who took this anger management course were "30% less likely to get into trouble again" after they took the course when compared to other anger management courses. CBT helps people change their unproductive thinking patterns into productive thinking patterns.
This course costs only $60 and can be completed at home and used to fulfill a court-order requirement. There are six, one hour lessons.
There are conditions to signing up and earning the course certificate:
- To sign up the teenager, you have to print up and fill out the enrollment form. You can fax it in or mail it, and you will receive your course material within ten days. When your teenager is finished with the course, you keep all the materials, but send in the blue answer form in the return envelop provided.
- The teenager needs to complete the course within thirty days.
- The student must not get more than 30% of the questions wrong in order to pass.
- The student is allowed to use the course materials to take the test.
You will receive your certificate in the mail or a notification that the student did not pass.
The American Community Life Skills Corrections Institute (ACCI)
The ACCI: The New Directions Anger Management Lifeskills Course takes a different approach to anger management. Costing only $25, they offer a workbook. There isn't a certification for this program, and it cannot be used to fulfill a court mandate. You simply order the book online and they send it to you.
This course helps offenders as well as non-offenders who want to take control of their anger. The course teaches participants to identify the erroneous thoughts that provoke feelings of anger and other patterns of thinking that contribute to anger, such as rationalization and defensiveness. People learn to reframe their thinking patterns. The course is appropriate to use for:
- Domestic violence situations
- Stress
- Cases of assault
- Divorce
- Impulsivity
Gain Control
Learning anger management techniques and skills helps you gain control of your anger before the feelings become excessive or destructive. If you are unable to attend anger management classes in your area, taking an anger management home study course is an effective method of learning the skills needed to mange your anger in a healthy way.
