Bitterness: A Mental Illness?

Ever met someone who is so bitter about a perceived wrong done to them that they can barely get through the day? Unfortunately, you probably have - deeply bitter people are not uncommon. You might even be one yourself! But are such people mentally ill?

According to a May 25, 2009, story in the Los Angeles Times, some psychiatrists are urging classification of bitterness as a mental illness under the name "post-traumatic embitterment disorder." The behavior was discussed before an enthusiastic audience at a May meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. in San Francisco.

"They feel the world has treated them unfairly. It's one step more complex than anger. They're angry plus helpless," said Dr. Michael Linden, a German psychiatrist who named the behavior. Linden estimates that one to two percent of the population meets the criterion for the condition.

On one hand, I understand the motivation for making such a classification. Many people who go on shooting sprees - an event that, tragically, seems to be increasingly common - would meet the criteria for this classification, and so might be identified and helped by professional therapists before their festering rage could turn deadly.

But as a general rule, I think we need to be very careful about pathologizing virtually every mental and physical deviation from a perceived norm (a trend drug makers have pushed zealously, as each newly recognized diagnosis means more profits). Bitterness, like most human emotions, comes to everyone at some point. For most of us, the overwhelming sense of injustice eventually fades. So if we are to begin labeling bitter people as mentally ill, we'll need strict criteria regarding the duration and apparent intractability of the state. Otherwise, the label itself could sustain a normally transient emotion to influence behavior longer than it should.