AP: You Aren't 'Sick', You're Just a Jerk!

Study: Millions Have 'rage' disorder

In a further dumbing down of definitions for mental disorders in our mental health system, now it is claimed that millions have something called "intermittent explosive disorder" which manifests itself in the so-called road rage outbursts across this great land of ours.

More proof that our "mental health" practitioners are all too often full of crap. From the AP: (Click here for story)

"CHICAGO - To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it -- intermittent explosive disorder -- and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized, affecting up to 16 million Americans.

"People think it's bad behavior and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know ... is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this," said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school.

Road rage, temper outbursts that involve throwing or breaking objects and even spousal abuse can sometimes be attributed to the disorder, though not everyone who does those things is afflicted.

By definition, intermittent explosive disorder involves multiple outbursts that are way out of proportion to the situation. These angry outbursts often include threats or aggressive actions and property damage. The disorder typically first appears in adolescence; in the study, the average age of onset was 14."

Yeah. Riiiight.

Or it COULD be that these people, imagining they now have a "disorder", are just selfish jerks who have been imbued with an all-about-me attitude by an out of control society and now have an excuse to do anything but blame themselves for being jerks. What would one expect to happen to a society that does not teach its children what their duties to others are?

But, you might say, didn't these "doctors" have some important studies that prove this new diagnosis? Well, the proof is right in the story to deny that claim as legitimate.

"The study was based on a national face-to-face survey of 9,282 U.S. adults who answered diagnostic questionnaires in 2001-03. It was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health."

So, you ask people if they have a disorder -- and that makes it not their fault -- what do you expect them to say? Like any bad survey, you'd get the answers you want so that you can substantiate this new "disorder" that you have already decided exists before you asked the questions ... VIOLA! New disorder!

Worse, we also have a new way for mental health researchers to find piles of money to fund more research into a new "disorder", that can then be turned into a new Prozac-esque drug, that can then be sold to a gullible public. After all, aren't they doctors who know what they are talking about?

Follow the money!

I'd dare suggest that if we renew teaching our children civic responsibilities, what our rights really are and where they begin and end, we'd have fewer people imagining that the world should bend over backwards for them and them alone. Fewer people acting like petulant children in grocery store lines. Fewer people driving on the shoulder because THEY need to get somewhere. Fewer people using cell phones in obnoxiously loud voices in public places ...

Wait a minute?

Maybe I have a disorder? It might be called "Expecting Others to Act Like Grownups" disorder!

Where is my million dollar research grant?

I'm feeling better already!

-By Warner Todd Huston