Holding grudges reveal a problem with self confidence
updated the 14 July 2015 à 18:31Laurie Hawkes, psychologist clinician and author, explains what harbouring bitterness says about our personality.
How do you explain the rancour?
Laurie Hawkes: Rancour is a negative emotion (sadness, anger, jealousy) that may arouse a desire for vengeance. It shows itself if we have an Achilles’ heel, a well-rooted complex. At the slightest sign of clumsiness, conscious or not, the weakness will be revealed and the mechanism will be set in motion: emotion, reaction, resentment. Very often, the other just wanted to joke around. However, the vindictive person takes everything very seriously and feels questioned. There is a problem of self-confidence and lucidity in relation to their fragilities.
Is the vindictive person susceptible or hypersensitive?
L.H.: The vindictive person is hypersensitive, which leads to susceptibility and a kind of psychological rigidity. In transactional analysis, we identify two different profiles of hypersensitive personalities. The first is “I am less/ the other is more”; a feeling of inferiority. This profile has neither a defence system nor a capacity for retort; consequently, he/she has a firm rancour but chooses to run away. The second one, “I am more/ the other is less”, is a more narcissistic profile. He/ she habours very strong feelings of humiliation and will counter-attack as high as the damage was, real or felt. Behind these reactions, we find an important dependence with regard to the others. The more we are vindictive, the less we are self-assured. The vindictiveness feeds on strong expectations in friendships or in love.
Why is it so difficult to forgive?
L.H.: At first, it is necessary to say that the others rarely say “my fault” And then, to hold a grudge, equates to maintaining a link with the one who has hurt us. To be cured, it is necessary to identify our complex. In transactional analysis, we wonder which suffering the other one awoke in us. Example: if I am vindictive thus hypersensitive, it is that I gave them the power to measure my value. But, I am able to say; “Fundamentally, his/ her opinion does not interest me.”
Fabienne Broucaret
