{"id":12114,"date":"2015-05-12T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T10:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harleytherapy.co.uk\/counselling\/?p=12114"},"modified":"2023-03-06T11:52:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:52:17","slug":"bitterness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harleytherapy.co.uk\/counselling\/bitterness.htm","title":{"rendered":"Bitterness – Why It Is a Real Psychological Concern"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bitter<\/a>

By: SpaceShoe Learning to live with the crisis<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

by Andrea M. Darcy<\/span><\/p>\n

The job you spent years waiting to be promoted into is given to a new employee. The partner you loved leaves you for another. Bitterness\u00a0 sets in.<\/p>\n

There are endless reasons why<\/strong> you might be sure you deserve to spend the rest of your life bitter and resentful.<\/p>\n

But is bitterness worth it? What are the effects of bitterness on psychological wellbeing? And why is it that some people become bitter from life experience and others don’t?<\/em><\/p>\n

A bitterness definition from psychology<\/h2>\n

In psychology, the emotional reaction and mood of bitterness is referred to as ’embitterment’. It is an emotional state of feeling let down and unable to do anything about it.<\/p>\n

Embitterment is different than anger because although it involves the same outrage it also involves feeling helpless to change things.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bitterness- a psychological disorder?<\/h2>\n

Is bitterness serious? German professor and psychiatrist<\/strong> Michael Linden certainly thinks so. He was the first to propose that bitterness should be its own psychological disorder<\/span><\/a>, calling it \u201cpost-traumatic embitterment disorder\u201d (PTED).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Linden noticed that some people experience a life trauma such as the death of a loved one or serious illness and don’t develop the fear-based anxiety that leads to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 But they still suffer long-term <\/strong>negative psychological reactions.<\/strong> Linden felt the accepted use of an umbrella term ‘adjustment disorders’ was not taking this group of sufferers seriously and was too vague.<\/p>\n

\"Bitter<\/a>

By: Gavin Stewart<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

He was particularly inspired to fight for a new diagnosis to be made available by what he observed in Germany post the fall of the Berlin wall.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There wasn’t a noticeable change in rates of reported mental disorders<\/span> <\/a>immediately following reunification of the country. But a decade later people were reporting severe psychological reactions to things that happened in their past. But these patients did not quite fit the diagnostic criteria for PTSD or regular depressive disorders.<\/p>\n

What is ‘PTED’?<\/h2>\n

Linden proposes the following criteria for a diagnosis of PTED:<\/p>\n