Aggression

Edited by two of the authors of the DSM-5 research diagnostic criteria for intermittent explosive disorder (IED), Aggression: Clinical Features and Treatment Across the Diagnostic Spectrum provides mental health clinicians with a full understanding of both primary aggression and aggression as it manifests in other psychiatric disorders. A basic human drive, aggression was once adaptive, enabling our ancestors to compete for resources and protect themselves, their families, and their affiliative groups. However, advances in civilization have rendered aggression an ineffective, even counter-productive, strategy, and acting on violent impulses--verbal and physical--causes suffering in both the aggressor and the subject of aggression. The contributors, preeminent researchers and clinicians specializing in this important area, explore the forms and types of aggression and its possible causative factors (such as psychobiological abnormalities involving neurochemistry and neural circuits, genetics, epigenetics, and environment), as well as assessment, clinical approaches, and treatments (both psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological). Case vignettes help the reader to understand and contextualize the presented information in a clinically relevant fashion.

Based on the latest research, Aggression: Clinical Features and Treatment Across the Diagnostic Spectrum is designed to aid mental health practitioners in identifying and treating aggression in diverse patient presentations.