Chapter 11 Grievance: The Underlying Oedipal Configuration

The oldest and most obsessive of these visions is, perhaps, that of the perfect society on earth, wholly just, wholly happy, entirely rational: a final solution of all human problems within men’s grasp, but for one – some one major obstacle, such as irrational ideas in men’s heads, or class war, or the destructive aspects of materialism or of Western technology; or, again, the evil consequences of institutions – State or Church – or some other false doctrine or wicked practice; one great barrier but for which the ideal is realised here, below.

It follows that, since all that is needed is the removal of this single obstacle in the path of mankind, no sacrifice can be too great, if it is only by this means that the goal be attained. No conviction has caused more violence, oppression, suffering. The cry that the real present must be sacrificed to an attainable ideal future – this demand has been used to justify massive cruelties.

In this chapter I am going to describe the clinical features encountered in the analysis of patients nursing a persistent sense of grievance. I will attempt to explore the underlying dynamics of this interesting and challenging situation. The clinical constellation where the patient uses particular thoughts or a particular object relationship in a tenacious and repetitive fashion is of course encountered in obsessional disorders, addictions and perversions, and is a central aspect of the

type of pathological organization described by Rosenfeld (1971a), Steiner (1993a) and others. Joseph (1982) has described patients caught up in an addictive and gratifying sado-masochistic ‘chuntering’: accusing and blaming in a way that represents a destructive attack on themselves and on the analytic process. Other authors have focused on the sense of narcissistic entitlement, and the complaints and grievances associated with this (Freud 1914; Murray 1964; Rothstein 1977; Weintrobe 2004). The feature of a grievance that I belie