*
You call your team together for the Monday meeting. As usual, Brittany
strolls in late and disrupts everything by loudly sliding a chair so she can
sit next to her friends. You wait until she’s situated and go on.
“There have been some changes in the security regulations,” you say.
“If you look at your handout, you’ll see that the ones I’ve marked have a
direct effect on procedures in this department.”
Amid the shuffle of papers, Brittany snorts.
“Do you have a comment?” you ask.
“No-uh.” Brittany says, stretching the word out to two syllables like
your daughter used to do when she was 12.
You go back to your discourse. When you next look up, Brittany is
rolling her eyes.
WHAT’S WRONG WIT HT HESE PEOPLE? That’s easy. They all have
anger control problems, which are unique among psychiatric disorders in
that they are regularly treated but do not officially exist.
Though irritability and angry outbursts can be symptoms of virtually all
the disorders we’ve discussed, there is no DSM diagnosis for “anger control
disorder.” The only thing close is intermittent explosive disorder, a rare
disease characterized by sudden episodes of unprovoked physical assault in
an otherwise normal personality. IED is probably more neurological than
psychological. The people I’ve described wouldn’t come close to qualifying.
What AreAnger Control Problems?
Anger control problems are like pornography: Nobody can define them,
but everybody knows them when they see them. In public, everyone is
against excessive anger, but a surprising number of people indulge in it in
the privacy of their own minds.
To understand what anger control problems are and how to deal with
them, more instructive than a list of symptoms is a discussion of why there
is no official list of symptoms to discuss.
In many ways, anger control problems are the mirror image of other
psychiatric disorders. Those afflicted usually don’t think there’s anything
Explosions into Anger ❧ 205