The experience of anger in chronic illness: a preliminary investigation.

The experience of anger was investigated in relation to essential hypertension, in particular, and chronic disease states, in general. A hypertensive patient group was compared to a chronic disease control group (diabetics) and a nonpatient normotensive control group on measures of anger expression, assertiveness, and perceptions of health status. The chronic patient groups differed significantly from the nonpatient controls in reporting more anger in general, greater frequency of anger experiences, and a tendency to express anger more outwardly. The chronic patient groups also reported greater severity of health problems. Comparisons between the hypertensives and diabetics revealed a greater level of current anger among diabetics. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for anger and chronic illness. Suggestions for future research regarding anger and hypertension also are made.

A more efficient biofeedback procedure for the treatment of nocturnal bruxism.

The study describes a noval approach in the use of a conditioning procedure for the treatment of nocturnal bruxism. The effectiveness of the procedure is demonstrated through its application with two nocturnal bruxists in controlled study designs. Subject 1 received several variations of this procedure and the result indicated that using a loud tone which she manually reset after awakening was the most effective approach to this treatment. The second study was designed to compare the effectiveness of relaxation training to the conditioning technique. Subject 2 failed to show any decrease in her bruxing behavior when taught relaxation. However, she showed immediate decreases in both frequency and duration of bruxing responses when treated with the biofeedback procedure. The need for future research in this area is discussed with emphasis on the development of low cost, home treatment units.

Social-skills training to modify abusive verbal outbursts in adults.

Social-skills training was used to modify abusive verbal outbursts displayed by two adult psychiatric patients. Five target behaviors--looking, irrelevant comments, hostile comments, inappropriate requests, and appropriate requests were monitored during role-played situations. Social-skills training, consisting of behavior rehearsal with modelling, focused instructions, and feedback, was introduced in a multiple-baseline design across individuals. Training improved all target behaviors. The improved behavior generalized to: (1) novel scenes role-played with the original respondent, (2) training and novel scenes role-played with a different respondent, and (3) interpersonal situations on the hospital ward.