Big Think - Classifying Bitterness Embitters Psychologists

The turmoil in the construction of the DSM-V continues, now around the idea of adding bitterness as a psychological disorder. It certainly is not healthy, as the Buddha pointed out more than 2500 years ago, but is it a mental illness?

Classifying Bitterness Embitters Psychologists

Carrie Battan

Recent coverage of a proposal to make “bitterness” an officially diagnosed disorder reads a bit like a piece from The Onion. But psychology experts are serious in their support of the move, leaving the rest of us to question how far is too far when it comes to diagnosing behavioral health.

Under the name “post-traumatic embitterment disorder,” official bitterness is modeled after post-traumatic stress disorder and is classified as an overwhelming need to seek revenge.

Still in early stages of research, experts say one to two percent of the population is embittered. Discussed at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, the classification of embitterment as a mental illness received enthusiastic support from a huge group of psychiatrists.

Despite the overarching enthusiasm among psychiatrists and psychologists over embitterment, Christopher Lane, Professor of Literature at Northwestern University and author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, expressed his doubt in a recent Psychology Today piece.

He fears that if otherwise normal people begin feeling bitter and associate those feelings with a disease, it may make them worse.

Pathologizing what has been previously thought of as “normal” exacerbates the initial symptoms, Lane says. “Wouldn’t that be comparable to rubbing salt in an already large wound?”

Dr. Stephen Diamond, a clinical and forensic psychologist countered Lane, explaining that “pathological embitterment is a dangerous state of mind that can and does motivate evil deeds.”

But Diamond admitted the importance of not overpathologizing symptoms of embitterment. And Dr. Michael Linden, the psychiatrist who named the behavior, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times explaining the destructive potential of embitterment but admitted the disorder needed more research.

So until the American Psychological Association places its official stamp of approval on post-traumatic embitterment disorder, as it appears they eventually will, it looks like we’ll have to continue blaming our bitterness on things like the economic crisis and bad weather.

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