The History of SMARTS-Training® -By Mike Speakman
"If you don't learn how to use your anger in constructive ways, it can destroy your life."
In 1991, while working as a licensed substance abuse counselor at the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center in Phoenix, I was asked to develop an anger management program for the 95 men in our six-month residential program.
Drawing from expert sources, I developed a six lesson workbook which was completed in six one-hour sessions held once a week. I directed students to pair up with a study partner for the duration of the program and, between sessions, they practiced their new skills with each other.
Over the next nine years, with the help of student feedback, I continued to refine the program. With each revision, My goal was to make the program more simple, useful, practical, and less threatening. Students were learning how to recognize their anger sooner and take responsibility for venting it in healthy new ways they were learning. For most students, as the training progressed, so did their desire to change. That's because their new skills were working and they were realizing: "If I don't learn how to use my anger in constructive ways, it can destroy my life."
By 2001, my anger training program had evolved into an eight-week program I called SMARTS-Training® (Self-Motivated Anger Release Tools & Strategies). To this day, I still continue to to fine-tune it.
