Intermittent Explosive Disorder: Causes And Symptoms
Our emotional state is an area of our psychological life that, on many occasions, is revealed as something beyond our control. This has positive consequences, others negative, and some that have to do with risks. when certain types of mental disorders occur.
For example, thanks to feelings and emotions we can live all kinds of moments intensely, learn quickly about the positive and negative consequences of our actions and even achieve better communication with others, but, sometimes, some biological alterations can make us that our emotional reactions are excessive or even out of place.
Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is a clear example of this.although in these cases the person diagnosed with this type of disorder sees their quality of life significantly limited by this mental alteration.
Along with pyromania, trichotillomania, gambling addiction and many other disorders, intermittent explosive disorder is part of what is known as impulse control disorders in the DSM-V diagnostic manual. In short, It is characterized by expressing itself through sudden and relatively brief bursts of violence.triggered by minimally frustrating or stressful situations, and which cannot be explained by substance use or injuries.
People with IED have a very low frustration threshold and any setback, no matter how insignificant it may seem, causes them to suddenly become angry, even if seconds before they were in a very good mood and laughing. Throughout these short episodes of anger, which usually last no more than an hour, the person partially or totally loses control over their behavior and on many occasions can physically or verbally attack people who are nearby. .
Once the outburst of anger has passed, people with intermittent explosive disorder usually realize for themselves that what they have done has been harmful to others, and will often feel guilty.
Symptoms
The symptoms of intermittent explosive disorder vary a little depending on the diagnostic manual used as a reference, but fundamentally they are based on the appearance of short bursts of anger, expressed through physical or verbal violencewhich are disproportionate to the magnitude of their causes and entail a loss of control.
Because anger appears without premeditation, it is often expressed by interrupting a positive state of mind, and violence does not have an instrumental purpose. The person who presents the symptoms of intermittent explosive disorder does not aspire to achieve objectives through aggression, but rather these are the result of their altered mood, which cannot be attributed to substance use or the existence of other disorders. or parts of your nervous system deformed or damaged.
So, People with IED can become angry in a matter of seconds when they sense that someone is looking at them too much.or seeing that a product they have ordered in a store is out of stock, or accidentally breaking an object. Outbreaks of anger can appear in very different situations, but they all have something in common: they would not be a cause of intense anger for the vast majority of the population.
As with all disorders, only certain mental health professionals can make a diagnosis of intermittent explosive disorder, almost always using a DSM manual.
Other similar disorders
IED is closely related to bipolar disorder, of which it is hypothesized that it may be an early phase. In bipolar disorder, moments of mania and euphoria can resemble the burst of intense emotions that occur in intermittent explosive disorder.
However, the difference between both types of alterations is, basically, that In intermittent explosive disorder, angry outbursts can appear at any time.while in bipolar disorder these are linked to episodes of mania or depression, moments in which the mood was already altered before.
Regarding antisocial personality disorder, in which outbursts of violence are also common, in these cases it fulfills an instrumental function, so a specific purpose can be identified, while in IED there is no objective. clear beyond behaviorally expressing the state of agitation and frustration in which the person finds themselves.
Treatment of intermittent explosive disorder
As it is a mental alteration that cannot be linked to drugs or injuries but has to do with the way in which networks of neurons interact with each other and with environmental stimuli, TEI cannot be treated by intervening on a single specific factor.as if it were about healing a wound. Therefore, in these cases the intervention is usually a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and the administration of psychotropic drugs (normally, mood stabilizers and/or antidepressants).
Psychotherapy is usually very helpful in knowing how to recognize the first manifestations of anger outbreaks, implementing plans to increase the level of control over behavior and prevent others from being harmed, and developing coping strategies against the feeling of guilt and shame. feeling of sadness. In this way, patients learn to follow certain protocols when they begin to notice the first symptoms of a crisis induced by intermittent explosive disorder, and they learn to regulate their behavior and their ideas about what is happening so that the discomfort is reduced as much as possible. in them as in the others.
