This news item from the LA Times crossed our desks. Apparently some psychiatrists are proposing to identify bitterness as a mental illness. One of them defines bitterness as anger plus hopelessness and explains that those who succumb have a profound sense of injustice. They can't shake the belief that they're being denied their due for hard work and they become, "angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters."
We recognize the phenomenon though the proposed label, "post-traumatic embitterment syndrome," seems like
phony talk, a clinical-sounding neologism for an old-fashioned condition. Bitterness is a damn real and widespread condition
(especially among senior writers, artists, composers et al). What do you think? Is this "embitterment" syndrome especially prevalent among people in the creative arts?
— sdh