Blogged

In the old days, we just called them “assholes”

Coming soon to a “ripped from the headlines” episode of Law & Order: intermittent explosive disorder, or IED (not to be confused with the better-known and less metaphorical IED currently popular in Iraq). This condition - marked by outbursts of physical violence - was first characterized as an impulse-control disorder by clinicians back in 1994, but only came to wider public view…this week, apparently, as researchers at Harvard and the University of Chicago released the findings of a study.

People with rage disorder often misinterpret another person’s harmless action as a personal threat and respond by slapping, hitting or threatening the other person, breaking things, punching holes in walls or trying to run the person down with a car, Coccaro said.

Two things generally set these people off, he said: perceived threats and frustrating situations. So the road rage person may explode for both reasons—he feels threatened by being cut off in traffic and frustrated because traffic congestion keeps him from getting to where he wants to go quickly.

I note that the researchers seem to characterize IED by the physicality of the outburst - striking someone, throwing an object at someone - rather than by more (and “mere”) verbal manifestations. I wonder how clear the dividing line here actually is; the article doesn’t help us figure that out.

I have to confess that I’m having a little impulse control problem myself just now; I’m strongly tempted to dismiss this as yet another excuse for bad behavior. It would probably serve me well to read up on the subject. But the day I first read of someone using IED as a legal defense for some heinous act, I’ll just explode.

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