Dispelling resentment

WHAT IS RESENTMENT?

Resentment is a feeling of dislike or hatred of someone’s person or actions.  The word resentment comes from root words meaning ‘feeling again’.  It used to refer to positive feelings too, but these days only refers to bad feelings.  So if we are resenting someone or their actions, then it means we are repeatedly feeling anger or bitterness about them.

It has an evolutionary and biological basis.  We are descended from beings that had persistent negative reactions to harm.  When we are hurt, we have a strong instinct against the source of that hurt: to mistrust it, keep it at arm’s length, and try to exclude it from our life.  This instinct protects us, like an immune system.

HEALTH EFFECTS

Negative reactions use a lot of short-term energy.  If you are in a confrontation, you will notice that you start to tremble, and afterwards may feel very tired.  This is because your body and hormones are using urgent, defensive response mechanisms which are very expensive to your wellbeing.

The biological mechanisms brought into play during resentment generally cause the following effects:

1. Chronic, toxic stress
2. Elevated cortisol and adrenaline
3. Negative cardiovascular and immune responses
4. Insomnia
5. Depression
6. Severe anxiety
7. Tension headaches
8. Reduced self-esteem
9. Isolation
10. Emotional dysregulation (anger, rage, difficulty controlling emotions)
11. Cognitive impairment (obsessive negative thinking, re-feeling past hurts, inhibited self-development)

We have a phrase in English ‘eaten up with resentment’.  This illustrates the idea that resentment can act as an inner toxin, poisoning us if we allow it too much room in our mind and body.

In short, resentment is a bad health call, and should be avoided.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Two people can have the same value system, and the same experience, but one gets resentful and the other does not.  This illustrates that resentment is not just an ethical response, but also has a psychological dimension.

There is an ethical side to resentment.  When we experience a harmful betrayal of our deeply-held values, we can experience ‘moral injury’.  Clear examples include military staff required by their leaders to commit atrocities; medical staff required by their organisations to take resources away from desperately ill patients; victims of abuse by carers who were supposed to protect them.

The difficulty here is in reconciling an intense loyalty to certain values, with the realisation that those values have been broken.  An extreme psychological response can see a sufferer sway uncontrollably between unbearable guilt and uncontrollable anger.  The task is to navigate this, and find a positive outcome which blames neither self nor other.

An example is US soldiers who were Vietnam veterans.  Although many suffered from severe mood swings, some were able to find a way through, a compassionate reframing of their lives which allowed them to find a way forward.

CAUSES OF RESENTMENT

What causes resentment?  To create feelings of resentment, three factors need to come together.

1. We must experience harm
2. We must experience a sense that there is a particular agent of that harm
3. We must feel anger towards a perceived agent of harm

It is important to recognise that our attribution may not be right.  Humans are great rationalizers.  We are very good at finding scapegoats for our behaviour.  We stub our toe on a door, and blame the door.  Or we find a person nearby, and an unrelated perceived slight,  to vent our pain on.

ESCAPE FROM RESENTMENT

How can we reduce our levels of resentment?

We can eliminate one or more of the three above factors which cause resentment.  So, broadly, we can:

1. Stop seeing ourselves as harmed (positive reframing of our situation)
2. Stop seeing the other as causing the harm (positive reframing of others’ agency)
3. Stop blaming the other (removal of negative value-judgements towards other people)

Communication correlates:

1. POSITIVE REFRAMING OF SITUATION: ‘It’s not the end of the world.’
2. POSITIVE REFRAMING OF AGENCY: ‘They weren’t the only factor here.’
3. REMOVAL OF NEGATIVE VALUE-JUDGEMENT: ‘They’re not a bad person.’

Why does this remove resentment?

1. Positive reframing of our situation means that we can see our world as good
2. Positive reframing of agency means that we can stop obsessing about other people’s roles
3. Removal of negative value-judgement means that can we stop demonising others

There may still be issues to resolve, but the above can remove anger and bitterness, helping to clear our minds to think and feel more calmly, and freeing us to focus on best next steps in our lives.