Comment on “The Angry Patient”

This article formulates the main problem of the angry patient treated by Dr. Curtis as one of poor ego functioning. This is possibly of neuropsychological origin. Treatment would be training to strengthen ego functions and the patient–therapist relationship would be task oriented. The anger is not dealt with directly except as it interferes with the training. It is predicted that as the ego becomes stronger, the anger will become more controllable. There is some question of whether this patient would be able to cooperate with such a program.