TYPEA PERSONALITY. This is not a disorder at all. It actually started out
as a public relations device. In the early 1970s the notion that stress could
affect serious medical disorders like heart disease was still radical. Hans
Selye and others had talked about the relationship, but there was little
actual research because government agencies weren’t interested enough to
fund it. Type A personality was invented to catch the attention of funding
sources. Driven, competitive, and obsessed with cramming as much activity
as possible into the shortest amount of time, Type A’s were presented as
heart attacks waiting to happen. Type B’s, who were more laid back and
less achievement-oriented, were supposedly the pictures of health. Don’t
forget that this was in the 1970s.
The distinction caught on big-time with the public, but it didn’t
really bear out in the research, which did indeed get funded. Both groups
seemed to have the same number of heart attacks, and Type A’s were actu-
ally more likely to survive them.
By the mid 1980s, Type B slackers had become the unhealthy group.
Some suggested that Type A led to success and Type B caused cancer. This
didn’t turn out to be the case either. Hostility, whether in Type A or B, turned
out to be a better predictor of heart disease, but there were even problems
with that. Nevertheless, the Type A personality has become an archetype.
Everybody knows what it is. We just can’t figure out whether it’s good or bad.
What You Can and Can’t Do
Now that you know the disorders associated with anger, forget them. Well,
that’s not completely true, but if at this point you clutter your mind with
diagnostic niceties, you may miss something more important: Your job
with angry people, whether loved ones or strangers, is to protect yourself,
not try to cure them. Actually, the very best thing you can do for both of
you is to keep from becoming caught up in their anger and responding to
it with words or actions that make it worse. This is difficult, because it
involves ignoring most of what your brain and body are telling you to do.
Luckily, you’ve spent the last chapters learning how to help other people
make intelligent choices about their internal programming. It’s now time
to try these same lessons on yourself. As you’ll see Chapter 12, the steps to
follow in treating anger are identical to the steps for dealing effectively
with angry people.
216 ❧Explosions into Anger