Van Daalen-Smith recently published a handbook to help professionals such as nurses and social workers, who serve these girls, respond to the anger they encounter in girls every day. An associate professor in the School of Nursing in York University’s Faculty of Health, she interviewed 65 Canadian girls over a two-year period to produce the recommendations in the guide, Living as a Chameleon, A Guide to Understanding Girls' Anger for Girl-Serving Professionals.

The message for professionals in the handbook is simple: Don’t silence angry girls, don’t turn them away, don’t dismiss them, don’t medicate them. Listen to them.

“The girls and young women I interviewed had always been told they needed to learn how to manage their anger. They had never been asked to talk about their experiences when they had expressed anger, or the emotional impact of having their anger suppressed,” says van Daalen-Smith.

The Living as a Chameleon study took its name from one girl’s description of how she had learned to get along in life. It was conducted in collaboration with professionals and organizations in communities across Canada. The girls who shared their stories ranged in age from 14 to 21 and included teen moms, young women in rural areas, daughters of recent immigrants, native, lesbian, disabled and homeless girls, as well as white middle-class heterosexual girls.

“When I asked them how nurses and other professionals could help them, they said that it’s important that they be believed, that they not be judged and that they be allowed to be angry,” says van Daalen-Smith. “They need nurses and social workers to show them that they care about their lives. And they want to be assured that they will not be dismissed or seen as weak or mentally unstable.”

Van Daalen-Smith’s interest in the role of anger in girls’ depression began during 15 years as a public health nurse in schools, where she noticed the huge number of girls who had been offered anti-depressants, and continues as a community nurse.

“Many people fail to distinguish between anger, which is an emotion, and aggression, which is a behaviour, so they put girls on anti-depressants. In fact, anger is a necessary human emotion and must not be denied because of narrow beliefs about femininity,” says van Daalen-Smith. “Rather than having to live her life as a chameleon, constantly changing to fit into the world around her, a girl whose anger has been affirmed is able to live her life authentically, to be who she really is.”

Young women are often in a no-win situation when it comes to anger, says van Daalen-Smith. Many girls said when they had spoken about their anger they had been dismissed, abandoned, judged, disbelieved or medicated, so they learned to remain silent. But disconnecting from their anger, remaining silent, and suppressing their true feelings, in order to safely blend in, had far-reaching mental health effects, including depression.

A professional who works with girls and young women is in a powerful position, says van Daalen-Smith, and turning away from a young woman’s anger reinforces the silencing of her anger. Instead, professionals should be transforming how young women’s anger is viewed, and how it is heard, she says.

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Media contact:

Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416 736 2100 x22101 / wallsj@yorku.ca