Resentment: what is it from a psychological point of view, how to deal with feelings of resentment, why does a person constantly get offended by trifles?

Resentment is a strong destructive feeling with a destructive effect. A person who has suffered an insult stops communication with loved ones, changes the attitude of those around him, and damages his health. Resentment, the psychology of which points to a wide range of causal factors, causes pain and emptiness. These feelings persist for a long time - they can cause discomfort to a person for days, weeks, years.

Even after the pain is relieved when the insults are recalled in the memory, the serious condition returns with the same force. To prevent such situations, it is important to be able to transform negative internal responses and eliminate created attitudes that violate harmony.

Psychology of resentment

Resentment in psychology is characterized as a state that arises when pronouncing words or performing actions that do not fit into the framework of another person’s perception. It is typical of the following manifestations and conditions:

hostility;
irritation;
mental pain;
feeling of betrayal;
the desire to inflict similar pain on the offender;
subjective view of the situation due to muted consciousness;
anger.

What is resentment in psychology? The basis of indignation lies in the emergence of a negative state caused by unfulfilled expectations from a person. These expectations are divided into 2 groups:

real - expectation of fulfillment of a promise;
imaginary - the opinion that a person will act this way and not otherwise.

The answer occurs regardless of the type of expectation. Subsequently, it is directed along 1 of 2 paths: manifested externally or hidden internally. In the first case, conflict mainly arises, in the second - a feeling of emptiness, a cooling of the attitude towards the offender.

The resentment of one participant is accompanied by a feeling of guilt of the other. In the absence of this feeling, resentment loses its “ground.” It is impossible to be offended by an object that is unable to react (an animal, a stranger, an inanimate object). Persons who do not have remorse or a desire to correct the current situation will also not cause offense. Their actions cause anger and irritation.

Learn your communication style

Just like different styles of arguing, you may have different communication styles the rest of the time. There is no need to think that you should automatically match it, like a puzzle - invent and assemble it yourself. It may well be that you need your partner to be straightforward and absolutely honest, but he is used to being soft and tries not to be hurt by criticism. All this can be resolved through conversation and attentiveness. Imagine yourself as a caretaker at a zoo, where the reward is not death, but life, just not yours, but in love.

How to deal with grievances?

Psychology determines ways to deal with resentment based on the fact that the response to a negative situation depends on the type of human character:

Choleric, expressive personalities, extroverts often pour out emotions on the offender. The resulting misunderstanding affects relationships and can lead to quarrels and hostility.
Melancholic individuals prefer to contain the negative response within themselves. They put pressure on the conscience of the offender with hidden techniques. Feelings of injustice can cause depression. The conflict may not have a strong negative connotation, but such people can be offended for years, hiding their opinion about what happened and not trying to correct the situation.

Knowing your own personality type helps you predict your answer and provides the opportunity for psychological preparation. Forecasting your opponent's reaction to specific words and actions will help you promptly change the direction of the conversation and prevent the development of a conflict.

When a difficult situation arises, it is important not to hold negativity inside yourself or spill it on others in search of justice. This destructive feeling is due to a subjective interpretation that can be transformed and controlled.

To combat feelings of resentment, psychology recommends taking the following effective steps:

getting rid of negative feelings, changing the focus of attention;
drawing a lesson from the situation (analysis of the factors that led to an unfavorable reaction: unjustified expectations, incorrect interpretation of the situation, misunderstanding of the interlocutor).

How to stop being offended?

What is resentment, why is it dangerous and how to get rid of it?
Photo: Depositphotos A person himself chooses how to react to specific circumstances, although he is not aware of it. The first rule is to turn on awareness. Consider the situation from all sides and try to understand your offender: what was guiding him at that moment, what reasons prompted him to do this?

When working on yourself, you should take into account your personality type. Expressive choleric people and extroverts, as a rule, throw out anger at the offender. This leads to misunderstandings and quarrels. Melancholic and phlegmatic people keep negative emotions to themselves, but try to put pressure on their conscience in other ways. They can be offended for years and all this time the offense eats away at them from the inside.

Here are some simple, effective techniques that will help you get rid of mental burden. Choose the one that best suits your personality type.

Don't keep negativity to yourself

If you have been offended, the worst thing you can do is to withdraw and accumulate negativity within yourself.

Talk to the offender. Ask why he did or said that way. Explain why you don't like it. Constructive dialogue will help you look at the situation from a different perspective - one from which you may not have considered it.

Try to understand the other person

We evaluate each event “from our own perspective.” Resentment is a case when it is necessary to look at the situation through the eyes of another person. Take into account his circumstances and motivation. It will probably turn out that the person did not want to offend you, moreover, he does not even suspect that you were offended. He just had his own vision of the situation and reasons for doing so.

Take revenge on the offender in a positive way

Resentment is destructive energy that is directed primarily at the one who is offended. To avoid getting hurt, use this impulse for your own growth. This way you will take revenge on the offender in a positive way: you will build a happy and prosperous life. As soon as you concentrate on your tasks, all grievances and the desire for revenge will fade into the background.

"Unsent Letter"

If you cannot cope with the surging resentment, use the “unsent letter” technique. Write to the offender what you think about this situation, why it hurt you so much and what you are experiencing. Try to immerse yourself as deeply as possible in this state, relive this pain, remember all the details. Then re-read the letter again and burn it. At this moment, imagine how your resentment burns along with the paper.

"Letter to Parents"

The technique is effective when the cause of grievances is that you were not loved as a child - your parents did not give you attention, care, or support. Now you have transferred your childhood resentment to a loved one and it seems to you that he pays little attention, does not love and does not care about you. Think about what you didn’t receive from your parents and write them a detailed letter - separately to mom and dad.

This technique will allow you to understand yourself and understand what kind of attitude you expect from your loved one.

Conscious Approach

In every painful situation, turn on awareness: I can be offended, or I can take a step into another state. It is only my right to choose which way to go.

Resentment is a childish manipulative method. Think about why you haven't taken on the responsibility to act like an adult. Once you have tracked this moment, come up with an alternative reaction - assess the situation differently.

Example: this person who offended me now is an offended child himself. He has low self-esteem and is trying to raise it at my expense.

The emergence of resentment and its potential consequences

Your own negative answer is based on misconceptions about your partner, a comparison of his way of seeing the world with his personal worldview.

Over time, each individual creates his own set of ideas about the environment. If acceptable behaviors among participants are roughly similar, there is harmony. Disagreement and lack of objectivity cause negative responses: “I thought you would act differently,” “I think your words are wrong.”

In the question of why a person gets offended by trifles, psychology points to a number of factors, conditionally divided into 3 groups:

Unconscious control due to lack of ability to forgive. According to psychologists, this is the most common cause of grievances.
Conscious manipulation. It causes a feeling of guilt in the opponent, followed by the offender getting what he wants.
Frustrated expectations. Perceiving your worldview as exclusively true leads to the fact that the expectations associated with others will not be met over time. The reasons can be different, significant or more minor. The following situations can be cited as examples. A colleague forgets to give a person a ride home (“I’ve given him rides several times! He should have offered me a similar service!”). A friend from Facebook forgot to congratulate him on his birthday (“And I always congratulate him. Next time I’ll deliberately ignore his birthday!”).

If a person is constantly offended, psychology provides a number of consequences of this destructive feeling:

Losing connection with others. Not all people indulge in guilt over the destructive logic of another person in the hope of rekindling the relationship. In addition, the offender may tell friends about the conflict that has arisen, as a result of which they will begin to avoid contact with the offended person.
Few people are aimed at analyzing the reasons for a person’s inappropriate behavior or identifying the specific reasons for his offense. Most people simply don't have enough time for this. An offended person has to keep destructive feelings within himself.
Resentment, from a psychological point of view, leads to health problems. This is due to its direct connection with the nervous system. Anxiety, mediated by the destruction of balanced communication with loved ones and the violation of one’s own interests, affects a person’s physical condition.

Characteristics of resentment in psychology

According to psychologists, resentment is one of the most common reasons why a person seeks advice from a specialist. Often the individual interprets the problem that has arisen incorrectly, which is why he incorrectly creates cause-and-effect associations. During the consultation, it turns out that the cause of the difficult situation is precisely resentment. Therefore, for serious problems in this regard (in interaction with other people), it is advisable to seek specialized help.

In psychology, resentment is a feeling that has several types:

Imaginary. It is based on a conscious desire to manipulate a person, to capture his attention. There is an exact calculation here: “I will show that I need to be treated differently, and he will make adjustments to behavior, for example, pleasantly surprise.” This tactic is for children who use it to get what they want from their parents.
Random. Resentment occurs when there is inconsistency in opinions or activities between participants. Instead of constructive discussion, there is a negative reaction. The conversation instantly changes direction: attempts are made to atone for guilt, initiate forgiveness, a conflict arises, or communication ends.
With the wrong direction. The following example can be given in this regard. My parents rewarded my sister with sweets for her excellent grades. My brother is a poor student, so he didn’t receive the present. Instead of perceiving the situation as a lesson, improving his performance, he is offended by his sister and treats her accordingly. Despite the lack of guilt, she regrets the current situation.
Hidden. This resentment is not displayed externally; it has a number of causal factors. For example, an individual is not ready to admit to himself that he is experiencing this feeling, during his upbringing he was instilled with the attitude “resentment is bad”, he wants to prevent conflict at a specific moment, etc. Over time, emotions will manifest themselves outwardly. But while they are hidden, a person constantly remembers the conflict, straining the nervous system.

Touchiness is a psychological state that is typical for the majority of representatives of society. But while some people experience it for serious reasons, for others, touchiness becomes a way of life. They look for reasons everywhere, obediently expecting an apology that has a positive impact on their self-esteem.

Why is resentment dangerous?

Resentment, like any negative emotion, destroys physical health and provokes serious illnesses - problems with the thyroid gland, sore throat, bronchial asthma, cardiovascular diseases and even oncology.

The problem is aggravated by the fact that the offense is difficult to forget - the person constantly returns to the painful situation. He constantly scrolls through it in his memory, conducts a mental dialogue - and this takes a lot of energy. Headaches, irritability, and panic attacks appear. If this destructive process is not stopped, it will eventually lead to illness.

In addition to serious illnesses, grievances bring another problem - they destroy relationships. Not everyone is ready to figure out why they were offended and prove that they didn’t want it. It is much easier not to communicate with aggressive people.

Psychosomatics of resentment

Resentment can cause disruption in all body systems. The most vulnerable organ may be affected.

Aggression, as part of any negative response to a situation, rarely finds a way out as a whole. Part of this feeling remains inside until the memories of what happened are eliminated and attention is switched to other topics. When localized internally, aggression has a devastating effect on the following systems:

Nervous. Manifestations include headache, pressure in the back of the head, and spinal disorders.
Endocrine. Hormonal imbalance occurs, which leads to the development of other diseases.

The most often touchy people (according to psychology) suffering from heart disease suffer most from touch. Any negative experience affects the functioning of the heart muscle. Unexpressed resentment aggravates the condition of chronic diseases and leads to the development of new disorders. For example, disagreements between spouses may be associated with gynecological diseases, even impaired fertility in the absence of an explicable cause. Depression often develops. In especially severe cases, the negativity accumulated in the mind turns into cancer and suicide attempts.

Positive and negative manifestations of resentment

In fact, such a response is one of a number of feelings inherent in a person. However, his involvement with the outside world is devastating. Therefore, it is advisable to get rid of the tendency to take offense and minimize its manifestations.

Negative symptoms:

deterioration of relationships with loved ones;
intolerable human behavior;
formation of a negative image among others;
deterioration in physical fitness.

Interestingly, there is nothing negative in this “bad habit” for the most touchy individual. Why does a person tend to be offended? The answer is: it is a simple and effective manipulative technique. If you were offended, you achieved your desired goal.

There are also positive aspects to this response to the situation. They are as follows:

The ability to identify your own weaknesses. Words and actions cause pain only when a traumatic topic is touched upon.
A protective response to painful manifestations caused by separation. This is a period during which you can move from the very fact of separation to a feeling of injustice.
Clearing accumulated negative emotions. In the process of getting rid of a negative attitude, a person eliminates the “blockades” of anger and despair that accumulate over a long time.

Goals of getting rid of resentment

In psychology, the tendency to be touchy (in the absence of conscious bad habits) is a subjective interpretation of other people's life beliefs. Because of different thinking, different points of view, the victim suffers. Mostly the responsibility for negative feelings lies with her.

Removing resentment brings the following benefits:

peace of mind;
physical, psycho-emotional well-being;
inspiration and success associated with it.

Wasting time on annoyance, disappointment, anger because of a person’s actions that contradict your principles is inappropriate. Having noticed the first manifestations of a negative response, begin to control the situation and eliminate destructive emotions.

In this process, it is important to analyze the current situation. This will help prevent it from happening again. For example: a loved one did not give a gift for a significant date. Find out why this happened. If the reason is his forgetfulness, next time remind him in advance, in a gentle manner.

Ways to forgive a grudge

A touchy person in psychology is a person who has certain acquired character qualities. They are adopted from others, and after being perceived as a bad habit, they are eliminated (often this is a long process).

A couple of recommendations for victims:

eliminate negative experiences from your heart;
learn forgiveness.

It is difficult for a person who perceives insults and manipulation as a natural part of life to follow these tips. People who visit psychologists often do not realize the usual meaning of simple phrases.

Clear your heart of grievances

Emotional isolation will help eliminate negative feelings. It is based on the following example. The victim sees the offender as the instigator of the conflict. If daily contact is necessary (eg in a work environment) without the possibility of physical isolation, it is important to neutralize the emotions that arise in relation to it. Stationery placed on the desktop does not evoke emotions. Similar indifference must be created towards the offender. It will be difficult at first. But over time, the dispute, caused by a subjective assessment, will be forgotten, and the conflict will be resolved by itself.

How to achieve neutrality? To resolve a conflict situation, it is important to work through it independently or with a specialist, concluding that the negative response is mediated by unfulfilled expectations regarding the offender who has not reached a given level. Then it is important to let go of the opponent along with his worldview and relationship to the environment.

A psychologist in this situation will help develop resistance to stress. Emotional stability is the guarantee of a balanced successful person.

Learn to forgive

Forgiveness is a state characterized by awareness, sincerity, and emanating from the heart. It supports gaining control over a conflict situation, suppressing insults, and the desire to be offended.

To master the principles of forgiveness, it is important to constantly work on your own attitude towards life and change your worldview. This ability can be developed in any conditions, even in the absence of resentment at the moment.

Five Principles of Forgiveness:

Live in balance with your own emotions.
Learn to let go of the past, live in the present.
Choose your state of mind (forgiveness, not resentment) consciously.
Learn from any situation and apply the acquired skills in the future.
Forgive yourself.

There are training exercises that correspond to each point above. Effective, in particular, written recording of personal opinions and views, accompanied by their analysis.

Bad advice: how to be offended in a relationship?

Today we will learn to be offended. Many people don’t even realize how exciting it can be! And how many pitfalls can be encountered along the way for those who are just learning to “pout.” Let's figure out how to do it efficiently!

The first rule is don’t tell anyone about your grievance!

Despite the direct analogy with the rules of “Fight Club” from the film of the same name, it is one of the most important components of the negative emotional cocktail “Resentment”. If you decide to be offended, then under no circumstances tell your partner about it. He must figure it out for himself. This will give a stronger taste of the apologies and forgiveness that should follow your “pout.” Ideally, you need to make sure that you yourself do not know that you are offended. It will be enough that you cross your arms, turn away to the side, or sniffle loudly. This will be the first sign and hint for your partner. A person must pay attention to you, otherwise what is the point of being offended?

The second rule is to hold the grudge as long and as strong as possible!

It has long been known that “an offended person” is absolutely right! Imagine a situation - all your offenders come and ask for forgiveness, they are literally begging you to give them the opportunity to compensate for their actions. But you must be unapproachable! After all, there is a huge benefit in this - if you are offended, then you can be “higher” and more significant than others. Remember the main thing - you are right! What else could be sweeter than realizing your correct position? Let others rack their brains! Your task is simple - wait. In the Middle Ages, some cities could only be taken by a long siege. So be patient for the next few years. But what a finale it will be when a person admits his guilt!

The third most important rule is - never think about your desires and intentions behind the offense!

All psychologists say this, that grievances are unfulfilled expectations. Don’t listen to them, or God forbid you decide to stop being offended! Your needs should be met in any case, and you don't have to do anything for it. Let others think, they must guess everything. Therefore, forget this thorny path of exploring your goals. Everything comes to an offended person on its own! And besides, if a person sincerely loves you, he will definitely read your thoughts about how you want to be looked at, where to spend time today and what to cook for dinner. After all, for married couples, telepathy is a natural and integral quality.

The fourth rule of resentment is - do not make contact if your partner wants to find out what is happening to you.

An offended person stands, as it were, on a pedestal around which the culprits run. If you start to react to them, then you will need to lower your head or, even worse, get off the top of the grievances. Do you need it? Anyway, sooner or later everything will be decided on its own. And here there is all sorts of talk, attempts to solve something... Boredom and work! You need to be offended to make it easier to live at the expense of others. Down with responsibility, in general!

The last rule is the most emotional. To get the maximum “high” from resentment, you need to keep all your feelings to yourself.

Pout within yourself, don’t explode prematurely... Wait a little. Many will say that it is difficult and unpleasant. Yes, but keep in mind that once or twice a month you have the right to have a blast. Choose a time when everything is going well for you, for example, you have returned home after a wonderful day together. This period of life was resourceful and enjoyable for you. We need to let it end beautifully. This is where grievances come into play - get angry, irritated, scream, manipulate, shift responsibility, blame someone else, pay attention to all your partner’s shortcomings, talk about inattention and lack of care in the family. In the end, remember everything that has accumulated during the time we lived together! This is what real offense professionals do! After such a concert, the winner's cup is definitely guaranteed to you, celebrate your triumph! Bingo!

Above I have listed five key rules for being easily offended as a couple. Remember that advice is harmful, and you use it at your own peril and risk. Usually, several months of lingering grievances and strong bonds of love are destroyed under such onslaught. The choice is yours!