On Complaining, The Outer Face of Resentment

Complaining -- the outer face of resentment -- is a 'hanging on bite' (A Fritz Perls and Gestalt expression).

Solve the problem, resolve the conflict, and you 'chew through' the complaint. The complaint ceases to exist.

Some people would sooner expend more energy dwelling on the same complaint, over and over again, ad nauseam, than solve the problem, and/or address the appropriate person, make good contact with the appropriate person, negotiate things through -- and resolve the conflict.

Of course, you need the other person(s) to want to resolve the conflict with you in a way that works for both of you. But even here, in the face of disagreement and struggle, at least there is a transparency to the conflict that brings you closer to its potential resolution.

Buried, the complaint, the problem, the conflict, detracts from the forward progress of the relationship, poisons it, sabotages it, destroys it...

Confronted -- and addressed properly from both sides -- the 'hanging on gestalt' can be negotiated from a Hegelian dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) perspective, and with 'good will' and 'good creativity' usually 'resolved' in a 'win-win' manner, freeing both of you to move the relationship forward in a more positive direction.

To repeat, the complaint -- the hanging on bite and gestalt -- has been chewed through until it has been 'properly metabolized' -- and no one is left with 'psychic indigestion'.

-- dgb, Oct. 3rd, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain