This is a very important question, Becca.
We discuss this in our EAET course, quite a bit. The purpose of releasing anger is to get to other emotions, such as guilt, sadness and compassion. Anger is not an end in itself. And, it is clearly true that some people are “good” at anger and therefore, that may not be the emotion that will help to free them.
Many people hold in a relatively low level of anger (in his case, a higher level), but are unable to let that anger go. One object of EAET is to help them to express such a high level of anger that they can then more easily let it go; and also, often feel some guilt for having the urge to physically hurt the other person.
We would like for the patient to see if they can find some amount of pity or caring or compassion for their parent who was abusive. We may ask them to “visit” their parent when they were a child to help them see that their parent was a victim in some ways.
I have a video showing me doing this with a patient, if anyone is interested.
Best, Howard