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Venting doesn’t work

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Re: Venting doesn’t work

#91

Post by bduerst »

parksy wrote: post #58
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #8

Stop using small sample sized studies done on college campuses (n = 600, 178, 60) to push clickbait headline articles. Sounds like saying, "Don't cry when you're sad it Doesn't Work" How about let people do what they want? People vent because they want to know they aren't crazy or at fault. Not because they're trying to be calm or forget grievances.

"Researchers first criticized essays written by the study participants and then told some of them to hit a punching bag. Afterward, they gave them all an opportunity to blast loud noise at the person who had insulted their writing. People in the bag-hitting groups reported experiencing more anger and were more likely to blast noise than those who did nothing." This does sound like a selection bias and priming. You ha…

That's the point of the study though, right? That violent behavior begets more violence.

It may seem like a "no duh" moment, but sometimes you need to observe it in a structured format to demonstrate it.

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#92

Post by abyssin »

motohagiography wrote: post #54

Can't help but think the term "toxic," discredits the whole thing as a vehicle for something else. Aggression is natural and universal, but the tools for expressing and self-regulating it are not. One description of it that resonated personally for me was Robert Sapolsky's "depression is aggression turned inward," and while the phrase doesn't do the whole idea justice, it's more useful than hollow and seductive clich…

Can you expand on how an intense relationship can enable turning aggression inward? I’m genuinely curious about this idea.

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#93

Post by rectang »

mcguire wrote: post #79
rectang wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems plausible that catharsis makes some people more agitated and perhaps unhappy. It also seems likely that those agitated, unhappy people continue to struggle and don't give up as opposed to those who "stop venting". "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." — Dylan Thomas

Don't give up, or train themselves to be agitated and unhappy?

¿Por qué no los dos?

I'm not persuaded that those who "stop venting" end up happier in the long run. It seems like a road to letting yourself be mashed down and convincing yourself that you lack power to change your circumstances.

I'm glad that Malcolm X didn't pay attention to all the people who wished he'd "stop venting".

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#94

Post by mcguire »

kashyapc wrote: post #56

From Robert Sapolsky's Behave , I learnt about the notion of "displacement aggression". We know what it is intuitively, but in short: depressingly enough, the reason stress encourages aggression is that it reduces stress. And we don't yet know the underlying biology of it. - - - Excuse the wall of text, but it's entirely worth reading Sapolsky's description of this: [quote] Shock a rat and its glucocorticoid levels […

You, in combination with the article, are describing an is/ought situation here.

Displacing aggression---biting another rat---reduces your stress. (This is an is statement.)

Therefore, to reduce your stress, you should bite one of the other rats. (This is an ought statement.)

But biting another rat leads to a stack of bad downstream consequences, which may include things that raise your stress. Therefore, not displacing aggression is the better option; certainly, telling other people to do so is probably not a good idea. Even if you are displacing aggression in a safe manner, by chewing on a piece of wood or yelling at a tree, you train yourself to respond that way to stress and will eventually end up biting an innocent rat.

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#95

Post by randomsilence »

>The idea of venting can be traced as far back as Aristotle, but Freud is the one who really popularized the notion of catharsis. Most of what we assume about the need to “let it out” comes from his assertions about the danger of unexpressed feelings.

When it comes to 'let it out', it should be traced back even further to the Iliad. At least according to this [1] video by Lindybeige, the Iliad is all about forgiving, after having exhausted every other option, aka after letting it all out.

Having said that, the article seems to make a negation error. The opposite of not expressing feelings is not expressing all feelings but expressing some feelings.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aofPdMbXzUQ The Iliad - what is it really about?

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#96

Post by mattgreenrocks »

motohagiography wrote: post #54

Can't help but think the term "toxic," discredits the whole thing as a vehicle for something else. Aggression is natural and universal, but the tools for expressing and self-regulating it are not. One description of it that resonated personally for me was Robert Sapolsky's "depression is aggression turned inward," and while the phrase doesn't do the whole idea justice, it's more useful than hollow and seductive clich…

Lots to think about here, thank you for sharing.

I'm no stranger to depression, but thinking of it as aggression turned inward seems like a useful tool. Long term, I'd like to be able to befriend my aggression, or at least understand it, so it doesn't seem so inscrutable.

First step is probably just to recognize and accept that part of me.

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#98

Post by blamestross »

trynewideas wrote: post #89

There is likely no good medium- or long-term benefit to venting, especially when it's defined as physical violence directed at objects or verbal aggression directed at people. That's pretty clear. But one of the best pieces of advice my therapist gave me was that under extreme stress, sometimes the only path to making it to the next minute intact is to do something where the long-term benefit isn't clear, or even neg…

A more general version of this:

You, being vaguely competent, are where you are because it is a local optima. Always, to progress to a better state, you are going to take at least some steps down a hill to get there. Sometimes a lot of them. We end up in situations bc the paths past/out of them are not obvious or easy.

Don't let an obsession for every step being 'improvement' prevent you from taking the messy up and down path to get somewhere better.

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#99

Post by notfbi »

I've noticed situations on the job where I've had little issues with management on my own, but experienced going out with drinks/coffees with gossipy venting colleagues and me internalizing their anger. This prima-facie seemed like the primary reason they did it.

If venting is instead a coalitions/tribal consensus building exercise, the psychologists might need to wait until after the revolution to retest the subject's well-being.

Re: Venting doesn’t work

#100

Post by henrydark »

motohagiography wrote: post #54

Can't help but think the term "toxic," discredits the whole thing as a vehicle for something else. Aggression is natural and universal, but the tools for expressing and self-regulating it are not. One description of it that resonated personally for me was Robert Sapolsky's "depression is aggression turned inward," and while the phrase doesn't do the whole idea justice, it's more useful than hollow and seductive clich…

+1 for mentioning the ever enlightening Robert Sapolsky
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