Anger can destroy lives and relationships. DAVID WILES reports on a project to help people handle rage.

A harrowing and traumatic time in the armed forces made Gary a timebomb waiting to go off. Severe pressure and the never-ending threat of violence while serving his country had taken him to the edge - and over it.

While he was not a violent person by nature, he knew that there was within him the potential to do harm to himself or to others.

He describes his anger as a red button waiting to be pushed.

As his problems escalated, he sought help for a range of conditions from depression and anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder.

He became a day patient at York's Bootham Park Hospital - he found it too claustrophobic to live there. He was prescribed drugs and he received treatment at the hands of psychiatrists and psychologists.

Just a year later, Gary, who is in his 30s, is taking A Levels and GCSEs and is looking to make a fresh start and rebuild his life. Although he is still seeing a psychologist and is still on medication, he seems at ease with himself as he puffs on a roll-up in the living room of his home in the north of York.

The reason for this radical transformation from despair and anger to relative calmness and optimism? A little-known project in York inspired by a group of Quakers in an American prison.

The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), which was established in the US in 1975 and has been running in York for six years, aims to help people to break the cycles of anger and violence which lead to the breakdown of personal and working relationships.

Over a weekend session, the project aims to turn negative into positive and help people to come up with new ways to deal with conflicts in their lives.

Six three-hour sessions have given Gary - not his real name - a new lease on a life he had previously tried to end.

"I found I had a lot of anger within me," he says. "It was not towards anyone or anything in particular, I was just angry.

"It got to the stage where I knew that if I didn't deal with it, it would get me in a lot of trouble."

A psychologist recommended AVP York and a reluctant Gary trudged along to the first of the sessions.

His mental state made the first hours on the course a nightmare. Being both paranoid and claustrophobic, walking into a room full of strangers was almost too much for him.

"I felt totally isolated. I was sizing everyone up; who was a threat to me? Who would stop me if I panicked and bolted for the door? On Friday night I just wanted to walk away, I didn't think it was for me."

The "facilitators" who guide the course along didn't force Gary to stay but he stuck with it.

He went back on the Saturday morning and immersed himself in the project, and two days later, Gary emerged a changed man.

"It has completely lifted me and turned me around," he says.

"There was a stage when I would get road rage while I was just out on my bicycle but that's just not possible now.

"I don't feel the anger at the same level. AVP has watered down the anger."

Despite the name - which some AVP organisers would like to change - the courses in non-violent conflict resolution are not just for the violent.

Some sign up because they want to change their aggressive behaviour, but others want to join because they feel put down or are simply not listened to.

Some may have problems communicating with their families or their work colleagues, or have just put off a particular decision for too long.

Attendees have included ex-convicts, youth workers, homeless people, vicars' wives and pub landlords. They may have been referred by health visitors, Victim Support, Relate, the police or a community psychiatric nurse. Or they may have gone of their own volition.

"They are not nut-cases but people who want to do something about a situation that is not going anywhere for them," says AVP York's co-ordinator Pauline Buchanan.

"And they have gone away with fresh insights into themselves and their lives."

It is difficult to explain exactly what goes on at the AVP courses.

Both those who have attended and those who run the sessions seem unable to describe the AVP process to someone who has not taken part.

Each course is different and those taking part have a lot of input, with guidance from the facilitators.

Communication and listening skills are practised, and through the use of exercises and role-playing, participants explore conflict-resolution techniques.

"We don't teach things on the courses but people do learn things on them," says Ms Buchanan.

"Everyone comes to us with their own knowledge, and the exercises are simply vehicles that draw that out.

"We all know when a situation isn't going well and it just keeps happening. It is within us to sort it out, and that's what we help people to do."

Whatever it is that went on during that life-changing weekend, it has helped Gary dig himself out of a hole which had, for a time, swallowed him up.

"I know there is no quick fix," Gary acknowledges, "especially for post-traumatic stress disorder, which is one of the hardest mental conditions to get rid of.

"But I feel a lot more positive about the future; at last I can see prospects for the future where there just weren't any before."

u If you would like to take part in an AVP York course, or are interested in making a donation to fund the project, contact 01904 636318.