Anger-Management Classes Are All the Rage

March 20, 2007 — -- Psychologists agree: Show business is a high stress job, one that greatly reduces a person's ability to manage small irritations.

Now, as a number of showbiz headliners experience public temper tantrums, some are taking anger management classes to get a handle on their emotions and avoid legal consequences.

For big time stars, fighting with invasive paparazzi is one thing -- in certain situations it could even be considered self-defense. But attacking the general public when things aren't going your way is quite another.

This week, British supermodel Naomi Campbell is doing community service coupled with two days of anger management classes in New York to avoid trial on a second-degree felony assault charge.

Campbell risked deportation after she threw a jewel-encrusted Nokia cell phone at her maid's head; the maid was hospitalized. If her charge had gone to trial, she would have faced a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

Breenzy Fernandez, the director of the one-day anger management program run throughout the New York metropolitan area by Education & Assistance Corporation (EAC), says that it promotes responsible behavior in individuals arrested for crimes precipitated by anger.

"It is used as a sentencing alternative by the courts," she said, "and offers intervention with individuals who have responded with excessive aggression resulting in conflict-related offenses."

Over the last three months, rappers Foxy Brown and Busta Rhymes and TV stars Isaiah Washington ("Grey's Anatomy") and Jason Wahler (MTV's "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County") have all been ordered to attend anger management classes for terms ranging from two days to six months as an alternative to serving time behind bars.

Fernandez would not confirm whether Campbell was taking the EAC's anger management course, but she did say that what happened in her program was probably similar to what the supermodel was experiencing.

The day begins at 9 a.m. with a group of 20 to 25 offenders along with a teacher and a social worker. Class members might be attending for anything from road rage to reckless behavior that involves an assault, Fernandez said.

"The group setting gives people the opportunity to discuss feelings and emotions. And the teacher and social worker ask the group questions that help them to work out how they could have addressed the situation in a different way," she said.