Lyssants – incidence & prevalence – anyone willing to be census-takers?

Lyssants – incidence & prevalence – anyone willing to be census-takers?

Just how prevalent are lyssants?  At some time we have all been lyssants even if only when we were toddlers and having a temper tantrum.  It is a natural part of our behavioral repertoire.  It plays a critical role when it occurs as defensive rage and allows us to overcome or frighten away an assailant.  And the playful frenzy during sexual relations can serve to strengthen interpersonal attraction, and can help overcome external pressures.  But, for teens and adults, becoming a lyssant often produces more trouble than it solves.  Lyssant behavior is not tolerated in most societies and is quickly punished.  An exception occurs to some regulated degrees in various sports.  Even here, there is increasing recognition of progressive neural damage from multiple physical traumas.  This suggests these outlets for our innate lyssantic behaviors need continual monitoring and improvement in safety equipment and health surveillance. There is no chance, certainly no wish by this author, to try to curtail these means of ‘letting off steam’.  I fully believe this would be disastrous to us as a species and would just move such behaviors further into underground fight clubs and the like.

Given the lack of a specific accepted definition or test, calculating the prevalence of uncontrolled lyssant behavior is presently impossible.  However, some insights into its prevalence may be gained from comorbidity studies.  For example, the occurrence of oppositional defiant disorder and/or conduct disorder in people with ADHD is commonly reported to be 30-50%. Certainly not all are lyssant, but some are.  The rage cycle in people with an autism spectrum disorder is well-recognized.  Some of this behavior is surely lyssantic. The prevalence of Intermittent Explosive Behavior has been estimated to be from 3-7% of the population.  What is crystal clear is that rage that “comes out of nowhere” is common, and more so among people with other conditions that make generating accepted social behavior difficult.  It is also clear that ADHD, autism disorders, bipolar disorder, and others are not synonymous with lyssantic behavior.  Lyssants need to be uniquely defined and specific treatments found for when their behavior interferes with the conduct of their lives.  Specific means to draw it out, like sodium lactate for panic disorder, must be found.  And, as much as I admire the accomplishments of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), I simply do not believe that overt reinforcements or ‘mindfulness’ can address the true measure of lyssantic behavior.  I know a number of people that can recognize they are heading toward having a migraine headache, but they still need pharmacological treatments to blunt or block the migraine headache itself.  Lyssantic behavior is much, much more powerful than that.