02. Robert Allan, Psychology in Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College
Robert Allan
Getting Control of Your Anger: A Clinically Proven, Three-Step Plan for Getting to the Root of Your Anger and Resolving It (McGraw-Hill, 2006). Allan, a leading expert in the field of anger management, outlines ways to identify the causes of one’s anger and control it. Anger, he says, often runs in families, and the reasons for anger are tied to basic needs that we may or may not be aware of, such as respect and territory. He offers strategies and tools to help anger-prone people to deflect the anger and break from its destructive cycle. One example is to identify the hook—to diffuse situations by recognizing the good reasons we get angry (such as injustice and incompetence) as bait and learning how not to get hooked. The hook is the single most important tool as rated by participants in the Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project, a large clinical trial treating type-A behavior that reduced heart attack rates by 44 percent. The book covers how to stop alienating family and friends and reduce the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes—a short course in how the anger-prone can live happier and healthier lives.