New Ideas in Psychology

[ Souring the Mind ] [ Assimilation ] [ Role of Narcissism ]

[ Backlash ] [ Stages of Resolution ]

Abreaction produces unpleasant consequences. Resentment is generated by the abreaction of guilt, and bitterness by the abreaction of pride.

If the resentment and bitterness are not worked through then they lead to the production of long-term effects. Resentment narrows a person’s views of society. And bitterness hardens a person. The result is a sour mind.

Why do resentment and bitterness have the power to sour the person ? . To understand this effect we have to look at the factors of these two emotions.

• I repeat the sequence of the abreaction of guilt.

Narcissism leads to jealousy ; then jealousy leads to guilt ; then guilt leads to resentment.

Looking at the jealousy-guilt stage in more detail,
jealousy (= love + self-pity) leads to guilt (= self-hate + self-pity).

It took me a long time to analyse resentment ; the difficulty is that guilt is inward- looking (the person directs his guilt to himself) and resentment is outward- looking (the person directs his resentment to other people). How does this change of direction occur? . The switch from jealousy to guilt involves love leading to hate. Hence guilt is in the mode of self-hate ; this then leads to resentment. Resentment has an outward-looking factor that is conditioned by guilt. I eventually identified this factor as my idealism. It is idealism that gives power to resentment.

So resentment arises when the person’s idealism is shaped and narrowed by guilt in the mode of self-hate. Therefore the more intense that a person’s idealism is, the more intense will be his / her resentments.

• I repeat the sequence of the abreaction of pride.

Jealousy leads to narcissism ; then narcissism leads to pride ; then pride leads to bitterness.

Looking at the narcissism-pride stage in more detail,
Narcissism (= love + vanity) leads to pride (= hatred of others + vanity).

In the abreaction of pride the switch from narcissism to pride involves love leading to hate. So pride is in the mode of hatred of others. Bitterness is outward-looking and it too involves the person's idealism.

Bitterness arises when the person’s idealism is shaped and made hard by pride. Similarly, the more intense that a person’s idealism is, the more intense will be his / her resentments.

Any emotion is always a feeling (either positive or negative) that energises a mental concept associated with it. The mental concept is normally unconscious, so I call it an unconscious idea. Emotional dynamics are the principal unconscious ideas and their associated emotions that drive any particular state of consciousness.

The factors of resentment and bitterness, or their emotional dynamics, are :

The intense levels of resentment and bitterness evidenced in the 20th century movements of fascism and nazism reflected the underlying confused idealisms of their forms of state socialism. Other forms of state socialism have been free of resentment and bitterness, since the underlying idealisms were not frustrated.

[ E1 [ ] E2 ] [ E3 ] . [ Table of Contents ] . [ A1 ] [ A2 ] [ A3 ] [ A4 ] [ A5 ]

[ Glossary ] [ Links ] [ References 1 & 2. ] [ Appendix 1 & 2. ]

[ Profile ] [ Acknowledgements ] [ Index ] [ Home ]

Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and this book is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

If you want to write to me, go to the Table of Contents page
and use the address at the bottom.

www.emotion.discover-your-mind.co.uk/index.htm.

.