NEW YORK -- Despite popular myth, expressing anger is not healthy -- it will only make a bad situation worse for most people, in most circumstances, according to a new book, "Getting Control of Your Anger: A Clinically Proven, Three-Step Plan for Getting to the Root of the Problem and Resolving It" (McGraw-Hill, 2006) by Robert Allan, a noted clinical psychologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The book outlines ways to stop alienating loved ones, live a happier, healthier life, and reduce the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke.

"Often anger runs in families, passed down from father to son and mother to daughter. There are several proven strategies and tools that help people break this destructive cycle and get control of their anger," says Allan, clinical assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell and assistant attending psychologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell.

Allan, an expert in the subject for nearly three decades, helps anger-prone people discover the reasons for their outbursts. Reasons for anger are often tied to fundamental needs, some of which we are only dimly aware, such as respect and territory. By dealing with these needs directly, he writes, we will be better able to manage anger.

One of those needs is to identify "the hook," a term Allan uses as a powerful metaphor to defuse situations by recognizing the good reasons we get angry (such as injustice and incompetence) as "tasty-looking bait" for the fishhook of anger. Allan's method helps people to "swim on by," that is, not get "hooked" by their own anger.

The hook was rated the single most important tool by the participants of the Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project, a large clinical trial for treating type-A behavior that reduced second heart attack rates by 44 percent.

Allan is a leading expert in the field of anger management and a specialist in coronary risk reduction. He is the recipient of the 2002 Timothy A. Jeffrey Award for "outstanding contributions to clinical health psychology" from the American Psychological Association, which published his first book, "Heart and Mind: The Practice of Cardiac Psychology." Allan received a Ph.D. from New York University.