Suicidal and Aggressive Ideation Associated with Feelings of Embitterment

Abstract

Background: Mental disorders can be associated with suicidal or aggressive ideation and behavior, especially in the context of embitterment. The aim of this study is to investigate the types, prevalence, and dangerousness of aggressive and suicidal ideations associated with embitterment. Methods: When therapists from the department of behavioral medicine detected signs of embitterment, aggression, or suicidal thoughts in their patients, they routinely filled out a questionnaire on aggressive ideation, assessed the embitterment, and contacted a senior psychiatrist. Additionally, patients answered an embitterment scale. Results: There were 127 patients (3.84% of all patients) with suicidal and/or aggressive ideation. They had an increased score of 2.93 (SD 0.74) on the embitterment scale, associated with personal vilification (62.7%), breach of trust (30.2%), public humiliation (25.4%), death/loss (5.6%), or attacks by another person (14.3%). We found that 83.5% of the patients harbored aggressive ideations; in 94.1% of this group, these were directed against the person who had caused the problem, 88.3% wanted to inflict severe damage, 38.8% to harm another person, 31.5% showed suicidal ideation, and 3.2% had fantasies of murder-suicide. Only 34.3% of the patients reported spontaneously about their current aggressive ideation. The limitations of the study are that the data come from an inpatient sample and patients were identified according to clinical judgement. Conclusion: Aggressive ideation is regularly associated with embitterment. This deserves the attention of therapists for the prevention of aggressive acts.

Embitterment and Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED): An Old, Frequent, and Still Underrecognized Problem

“…Severe embitterment is typically associated with ideations of revenge, aggression, and even homicide [11]. Not everybody who harbors aggressive ideation also has feelings of embitterment whereas embitterment regularly includes blaming somebody else and having ideas of revenge.…”

Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the post‐traumatic embitterment disorder self‐rating scale (PTED‐21) among inpatients in general hospital

“…Larger samples are required for further validation. As suicide and murder can be the extremes of PTED, and aggressive ideation is regularly associated with embitterment (Linden & Noack, 2018), and as affected persons are prone to dysfunctional behaviour also in coping with their illness, early detection of embitterment is particularly important in psychiatry and also in general hospitalized patients. Based on these results, we expect that this version of the PTED‐21 will be widely used to reveal the characteristics of PTED in Chinese populations.…”

Embitterment – Conception of a Potential Moderator to Dysfunctional and Aggressive Behaviour in Children and Adolescents

“…It is a burning emotion combined of feelings of frustration, self-reproach, down heartedness and wishes for revenge (Znoj et al, 2016). It can occur as normal emotion, as part of some other mental illness, and in greater intensity, it can constitute a mental disorder in the form of "post traumatic embitterment disorder (PTED)" (Kühn et al, 2018;Linden, 2017;Linden & Arnold, 2021;Linden & Noack, 2018;Linden & Rotter, 2018).…”