Credit: Rasmus Rasmussen
The following commercial may be coming soon to a television near you.
Fade in:
An LA expressway at rush hour. A 40-year-old middle manager driving a 10-year-old Geo gets cut off by a long-haired teen in a cherry-red Mustang. The elder man raises his hand quickly, but instead of shaking it wildly, he smiles and waves.
Cut to exterior of a Planned Parenthood clinic during a pro-life rally:
A woman entering the clinic drops handbag, splaying condoms and lipstick onto the ground. Protester picks up handbag, passes it to the woman and wishes her a "nice day."
Cut to a grassy meadow:
Advertisement
"Daily Show" curmudgeon Lewis Black hugs a Starbucks executive (or Dick Cheney).
Voiceover:
"If you have three or more outbursts or instances of rage per year, you may suffer from IED, a condition that affects nearly 20 million Americans. Ask your doctor about Simmadoun, a new medicine that may help calm urges to overreact to life's unfortunate moments. Side effects may include incontinence, vaginal dryness and a tendency to be stared at in Midtown Manhattan. See our ad in Guns & Ammo magazine for more information."
Closing Scene:
Irish soccer fan takes Brazilian player into a bar, buys him a beer and pats him on the ass.
According to a report released June 5th in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers from the University of Chicago, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School say more than 7% of Americans may require treatment for a condition known as "Intermittent Explosive Disorder," or IED.
It's neither a propensity for spontaneous combustion nor anything a big bottle of Bean-o could solve. Rather, it's a condition described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as an impulse-control disorder that results in violent outbursts or "rages" that cause harm to others or property, and are "grossly out of proportion to the stressor."
"It's kind of embarrassing, but anger isn't something that you think to bring up in a diagnosis," said Harvard's Ron Kessler, the report's lead author. "You tend to focus on sadness or moodiness. The fact is that what psychologists are trained to think of as a mental illness was historically defined over drinks and cigars by aggressive, middle-aged men."
The scientists say they were shocked to find that there is such a large population of angry Americans. So, in line with our over-medicated ways, they are adding a new entry to the list of popular mental illnesses skulking on the underside of America's psyche—right between ADHD and restless leg syndrome. Age, race and socioeconomic status don't seem to be factors in predicting who suffers from IED—but gender does: The study found nearly twice as many men display symptoms than women.
Thus far, IED has mostly appeared on the national radar when used as a defense in court, like in the 2001 case of millionaire transvestite dermatologist Richard Sharp of Lawrence, MA, who claimed that the condition led him to shoot his wife of 26 years.
"This is a biological condition that can be effectively treated," said University of Chicago's Emil Coccaro, one of the paper's coauthors.
Coccaro also pointed to studies—which he admits had very small sample groups—showing that people who have been diagnosed with IED tend to react to annoyances with a lack of activity in the brain's seat of reasoning (the frontal cortex) and over activity in the "fight or flight" center (the amygdala). IED is often treated with a class of drugs called serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most popular of which is Prozac.