New York Times - When the Heart Pays the Price of Anger
Not long ago, a patient in a cardiac support group I was leading told of his response to a recent incident: He and a female friend were on the plaza at Lincoln Center after seeing a performance of Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore” when a car nearly hit the woman. She ran after the vehicle, which was slowly moving away, and slammed the trunk with her rolled up program. The driver emerged from the car hurling expletives in her direction. The patient then hit the driver with his cane. The driver shoved the patient into a fender, at which point, the patient insisted, he had no choice … It was no ordinary cane he was carrying, but a beautiful 19th-century model with a sleek, sharp sword concealed within. He then insisted that the driver “apologize at swordpoint” in front of a small crowd that had gathered. The characters in “Il Trovatore,” he added, proudly brandished swords.
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Americans seem angry a lot, but it's all in the management - USA Today
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAYAre we bad for getting mad?Psychologists say it's normal to get angry. We all do it – and we need to feel anger. It's a basic human emotion, they say.
More and more, though, we see people losing their cool in public. And the kind of outbursts seen at town hall meetings on health care reform, on tennis courts, on the Internet and even during speeches by the president are increasingly a part of everyday life.
"There is very little, if any, social consequence to turning on the flames," says Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas-Austin, who has written about the anonymity of the Internet making people feel freer to express anger.
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More and more, though, we see people losing their cool in public. And the kind of outbursts seen at town hall meetings on health care reform, on tennis courts, on the Internet and even during speeches by the president are increasingly a part of everyday life.
"There is very little, if any, social consequence to turning on the flames," says Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas-Austin, who has written about the anonymity of the Internet making people feel freer to express anger.
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Bringing Psychology to Cardiac Care - American Psychological Association
Ask psychologist Robert Allan, PhD, for an example of a Type-A personality, and he points to his late father. The senior Allan was hostile, insecure and impatient--a textbook case of the kind of personality prone to heart disease. He had his first heart attack at age 46.
"My father had no shortage of free-floating hostility," says Allan, clinical assistant professor of psychology in medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. "He was a very Type-A kind of guy."
Fascination with the link between his father's personality and his heart disease inspired Allan to seek a new practice niche. Over the years, Allan's traditional psychotherapy practice has branched out to include cardiac patients. Today Allan, co-editor of "Heart & Mind: The Practice of Cardiac Psychology" (APA, 1996), devotes his practice in large part to helping cardiovascular patients like his father.
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"My father had no shortage of free-floating hostility," says Allan, clinical assistant professor of psychology in medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. "He was a very Type-A kind of guy."
Fascination with the link between his father's personality and his heart disease inspired Allan to seek a new practice niche. Over the years, Allan's traditional psychotherapy practice has branched out to include cardiac patients. Today Allan, co-editor of "Heart & Mind: The Practice of Cardiac Psychology" (APA, 1996), devotes his practice in large part to helping cardiovascular patients like his father.
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