A Short Study on Relationships between Anger and Defense Style in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorder

Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are familiar diagnostic categories showing chronic and bizarre complaints in patients. Perhaps, they are caused by dysmotility and hypersensitivity of the digestive system, the symptoms remain unexplained and untreated in many instances. So, they are idiopathic in nature. The way we experience or express our angry feelings and monitor our anger through defenses may lead to the development of the disorder. The present study covers three types of FGIDs; functional bowel disorder-unspecified, functional dyspepsia (FD) and irritable bowel syndrome (Rome III classification). In this study, we seek to understand the relationship between anger experiences and the defense styles in the said patients. The sample consists of 11 patients. Tools include general information schedule, state trait anger (T-Anger) expression inventory (Spielberger, 1988) and defense style questionnaire-40 (Andrews et al., 1993). Non-parametric statistics, as well as descriptive statistics, have been applied. The study reveals important findings that guide us for further elaborative study. The present sample scored high on the neurotic defense factor and anger control domains. No significant differences in scores have been noted due to gender. The three illness categories did not produce any significant variance on scores of selected variables. The marital status of patients did not result in any significant variance on scores of selected variables. A significant relationship has been estimated between T-Anger and immature defense factor. Most of the patients were of FD sub-group having family history for their illness, undergoing the complications for minimum 1 to maximum 5 years in a mild form without much significant stressful life events which may have influenced the manifestations.