Verbitterung und Posttraumatische Verbitterungsstörung

Everyone knows the state of bitterness as a reaction to injustice, belittlement and breach of trust. If the bitterness is strong and lasts for a long time, it can lead to considerable suffering for the person affected and their environment. Affected persons are difficult to treat because of the fatalism, aggressiveness and rejection of help inherent in the disorder. They often come to treatment due to a wide variety of misdiagnoses and are unable to work in the long term.
The new edition of this volume describes post-traumatic embitterment disorder and presents models for the development and maintenance of embitterment states, in particular with reference to the concept of the violation of basic cognitive assumptions. The treatment of bitterness disorder with methods of wisdom therapy is presented in a practice-oriented manner, a form of cognitive behavioural therapy that makes the basic scientific results of wisdom psychology usable for psychotherapy. Patients learn strategies to process the inner grievance in order to create the prerequisite for an inner "reconciliation" with the events that triggered bitterness. The aim is to actively come to terms with the past in order to enable a new orientation towards the future. One way to achieve this is to re-evaluate the critical event and its consequences. Wisdom therapy provides various methods for this, which are described with numerous examples. Finally, the volume deals with socio-medical and forensic aspects, e.g. questions of incapacity to work and earn a living as well as culpability.