Anger is one of the basic human emotions.  We all become angry, and we all have occasions when the people that we work with get angry.  We get angry when we feel we are not being listened to, when we are not believed, when we are made to feel stupid or when we are made to feel that we did something wrong.  Our patients get angry for the same reasons.  When we are angry, we do not want a friend or support person to be reasonable.  We want someone to side with us and listen to our anger and how upset we are with the world that has been unfair to us.  Our patients want the same when they are angry.  This lecture will discuss what gets people angry, and how we can effectively work with someone who is angry.  It will discuss how we can safely and practically meet both our needs as clinicians and the needs of our patients.  

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the lecture, participants will have:

• A better understanding of the role anger plays

• A better understanding of what is likely to incite anger

• A better set of strategies for how to safely and effectively work with someone who is angry

Faculty:

Ronald J. Diamond, MD, MS

Dr. Diamond received his M.D. and M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania in1973, served his Residency at Stanford University in 1977 and received a Social Science Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin in 1978.

For more than 30 years, Dr. Diamond has been involved in the community-based treatment of persons with severe and persistent mental illness.  He has taught and written on issues of staff training, ethics, staff roles, decreasing coercion, medication compliance, psychiatric administration and system design. For more than a decade, he has been interested in how to integrate concepts of recovery and cultural competence into day-to-day clinical practice.  The Mental Health Center of Dane County, one of the core training sites for psychiatry residents, is a national model in community psychiatry providing culturally competent services to both children and adults.  He has written two books on psychopharmacology designed for non-medical clinicians, consumers and family members.  The third edition of his general psychopharmacology book, “Instant Psychopharmacology” was published March  2009.  His previous book, “Treatment collaboration, improving the therapist, prescriber, client relationship” was published in 2007.

He is currently Medical Director of the Mental Health Center of Dane County, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin and Consultant to the Wisconsin Bureau of Mental Health and Substance Abuse