Am J Psychiatry 1990; 147:867-870
Copyright © 1990 by American Psychiatric Association
"Anger attacks": possible variants of panic and major depressive disorders
M Fava, K Anderson and JF Rosenbaum
Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston 02114.
The authors report a series of illustrative cases in which patients
presented with sudden "spells" of anger with physical features that
resembled panic attacks but lacked the affects of fear and anxiety. These
spells or "attacks" of anger were experienced as uncharacteristic and were
inappropriate to the situations in which they occurred. Since treatment of
these attacks with antidepressants produced in each case marked
improvements in behavior, the authors also formulate some hypotheses as to
the nature of these episodes.
