ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050049
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JON ANDERSON AND ANDREW GOTTESMAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE
TO THE NATION'S anger therapists, the guy has got it all.
Aggression. A deeply rooted code of what is fair and unfair. A hair-trigger need to lash out at transgressors. A long-standing inner misery. A nagging sense of inferiority, covered over by public gestures of grandiosity.
Call him Dennis R., to protect his anonymity, they say, but get him into group - now!
The question of whether a certain Chicago basketball player known for his feather boas, industrial-strength mascara and robust rebounding needs psychological counseling has been shoved into the news by National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern.
Following a widely publicized incident in which - OK, the guy has forfeited his privacy - Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman kicked a cameraman on the sidelines, Stern has ordered him to get some sort of counseling. Rodman says he doesn't need it.
Others may wonder whether Rodman's behavior represents true psychological disturbance or just garden-variety loutishness.
The Bulls may pay Rodman to be aggressive, but some therapists who have watched him from a distance say he has got a problem.
But would therapy even help a guy who has already replied that if forced to see a shrink he would play cards during the session?
Maybe, but it'd be dicey.
``You can't force anybody to change, but you can train people how to behave differently,'' said psychiatrist Redford Williams, director of behavioral research at Duke University Medical Center and author of the book ``Anger Kills.''
For Rodman, Williams said, controlling aggression by learning to evaluate his feelings before acting on them would be ``no different from practicing his free
throws every day.''
As others in the field agree, helpful therapies exist for people who find themselves in trouble from everyday anger and those actions that the young often refer to as ``going totally postal.''
Even President Clinton has weighed in on Rodman. ``I'm sure, in his heart of hearts, he regrets doing that,'' he said in a TV interview that aired in New York, ``but I would hope that at some point ... he'll find a way to say, `I shouldn't have done it and I really regret it.'''
Mitch Messer, a Chicago therapist who runs the Anger Clinic, suggested therapy could help Rodman in ``getting to his early recollections, as a child, of being a victim of an unfairness and acquiring the attitude that `unfairness makes me angry and I can relieve it by attaining superiority over the wrongdoer.'''
Theorists agree that most anger is inner-directed: blaming oneself for feelings of stupidity, embarrassment, lack of control or powerlessness. Often, anger is only dimly related to the precipitating event.
Anger therapists use techniques ranging from hospital treatment to group sessions that identify anger triggers, compile hostility logs and practice such anger-deflection techniques as self-assertion and meditation.
``Bless his heart, Dennis just needs to evaluate his negative emotions before he acts out,'' said Williams. ``What he should have done when he came down on the camera, twisted his ankle and lost his temper was to ask himself questions.''
Was this situation important to him? Obviously yes, because a seriously injured ankle could end his career. Was anger justified? Again yes, because the huddled photographers were probably too close to the playing area. But were they, as Williams put it, ``out to get him''? Not likely.
In Williams' view, an appropriate channeling of anger in this situation would have been against the stadium and league for an inappropriate positioning of onlookers.
``Sometimes it's tougher with an athlete, because they are being ordered to do something, rather than it coming from within,'' said Dan Kirschenbaum, director of the Center for Behavioral Medicine in Chicago and a member of the Sports Psychology Advisory Group for the U.S. Olympic Committee.
But he said, ``You can do something dramatic in a few weeks. ... You can improve your golf swing with one tip from an instructor. It's the same with behavioral stuff.''
``I have treated individuals who absolutely refused treatment. You have to constantly chip away at the denial,'' said Sheldon Greenberg, a psychiatrist at Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, adding, ``You also have to make them take responsibility for their behavior, instead of saying everybody else is overreacting,''
He also noted that the NBA's rhetoric seems to be angry, calling for changing and suppressing Rodman's behavior. ``As soon as that happens, it automatically activates the thought in him that `I can't let them do this,''' he said.
Greenberg said, ``What he needs to see is that a therapist won't be picking his brains but will collaborate with him.''
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
A Bulls spokesman said the team is staying clear of the matter, keeping it between Rodman and the league. An NBA spokesman declined to go beyond the league's original statement specifying counseling. But even therapists can dream.
``When a Dennis Rodman has a problem with aggression, it could be like Betty Ford,'' said Williams, referring to the former first lady who faced a different challenge, substance abuse.
If Rodman were to take an interest in therapy, Williams suggested, it would not be an impossible leap from much-fined player to national spokesman.
Or, as a TV spot might put it, ``Hi, I'm Dennis Rodman - and I want to talk to you about anger.''
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KRT 1. Rodman was photographed after he kicked aby CNBcourtside cameraman during a game Jan. 17. National Basketball
Association Commissioner David Stern has ordered Rodman to get
counseling. So far, Rodman has refused to comply. 2. Rodman was in
full regalia at a book signing last year for his autobiography,
``Bad as I Wanna Be.'' color. 3. Therapists suggest that Rodman
needs to evaluate his emotions before he acts out.