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The Cargo Cult of Business » Intermittent Explosive Disorder– Again

Intermittent Explosive Disorder– Again

Published on 8 Jun 2006 at 10:44 pm | No Comments | Trackback
Filed under The Cargo Cults of Business, Health and Safety, Main Stream Media.

 I suppose it would be appropriate to investigate the actual clinical description etc. before commenting on whether this Intermittent Explosive Disorder should be considered an actual medical disorder, but what the heck, this isn’t a peer reviewed journal article and I’m about as far from being a mental health professional as one can conceiveably be. So, let fools rush in…

Based on the BBC story John linked, it sounds like IED is believed to be an organic condition.

 For example:

 Professor Emil Coccaro added: "In the general population, aggressiveness or ‘blowing up’ is considered bad behaviour.

"But IED goes beyond that, having strong genetic and biomedical underpinnings.

"If people think these explosive outbursts are just bad behaviour, they are not thinking of this problem as a serious biomedical problem that can be treated."

 Toward the end of the article another expert, Dr. Khoosal, is quoted:

"In the UK that would extrapolate to a lot of people, although there are cultural factors which could have an effect - we wouldn’t confront someone who was ranting and raving and we don’t have the same gun culture," he said.

 A few possible inferences:

1. That somehow guns and culture are believed to create medical and genetic problems?

2. That Professor Coccaro and Dr. Khoosal differ about whether this is an organic condition or a cultural one? 

3. That the BBC wants us to believe that 1 is true and have selectively quoted the experts to  give this appearance. 

4. That the cultural differences prevent the disorder in the UK and/or exacerbate it in the US?

5. Or, that on the contrary the incidence is similar but the cultural differences make it more difficult to detect in the UK?

 I’m especially curious to know the context of Dr. Khoosal’s remarks.  The article says, "But he added that the prevalence seemed ‘pretty high’." Does he mean that incidence in the study seems higher than is to be expected? Or, that on the contrary, his experience is that the prevalance is high in general, and therefore he’s not surprised by these numbers? Furthermore, on what is he indicating that the culture has an effect? The incidence of the disease? The seriousness of the episodes? The difficulty of seperating IED episodes from typical cultural practice?

Amid so much ambiguity, I’m left wondering why the things which were left out were left out, why the things included were included. Is it simply to support an implication that while the specific victims of this disorder are not to be held responsible, that American culture is somehow culpable, or should I never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence?

-- Ringo
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