Part Two: Chapter 5, Passion's Slaves Summary and Analysis

We cannot control when an emotion strikes or which emotion will strike, but we can control how long a distressing emotion will go on. Extreme emotions undermine one's stability and sense of well-being if left unchecked. Balancing the extremes leads to a state of well-being, of what the early Christian church called temperance or restraining emotional excess. This chapter explores the extreme emotions of anger/rage, worry/anxiety, and melancholy/depression and strategies for shortening their hold on people.

Anger, if not cut off, will fuel itself into rage. It feels energizing filling the mind with justifications. In a study of anger by University of Alabama psychologist Dolf Zillmann, Zillmann found that a universal trigger for anger is a sense of endangerment. Even a symbolic threat such as an insult can trigger adrenaline-driven...