
Grievance and it’s unhelpful capacity to eclipse mourning
I want to talk about grievance and the impact this can have on patients in therapy. It can sometimes be uppermost in the patients mind when coming to therapy and form the presenting problem or be less visible, unspoken and unconscious. The grievance is often with those deemed responsible for the upbringing of the patient, such as their parents, and can feel unacceptable to discuss. This is a particularly painful place to be stuck for the patient and can eclipse further growth.
The word grievance implies a strong feeling of resentment at being treated unfairly and it is different to a complaint. Weintrobe refers to a complaint as the ‘the voice of the lively self’ (Weintrobe, 2003, p.85).
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