We Need to Talk About Kvetching

When Harvard psychologist Susan David wrote about what she called The Tyranny of Positivity, she said: “We cannot forget that there is no one state of being that a person is entitled to experience...life’s beauty is inseparable from its fragility.” That inseparability could almost define the right here, right now. Yet all around us, we’ve seen demonstrations of blowhard gaslighting leaders deny this very truth. Telling everyone that it’s all grand, while their pants are very clearly on fire. It’s been a vivid divisor between two very different calibre of human being, while those floundering in their own hubris have been constantly spinning out a message of inane, hollow positivity, those with their spines in place who have been able to get out of their own way, telling hard truths; ugly ones.

The reason this is important is not just because it is honest, and by default then respectful, it also allows the receiver of the information to feel whatever they are going to feel about it. They can choose to spin it in a direction that works for them. It empowers them to make their own choices. This really struck me when I was watching a webinar by esteemed Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel. The subject Perel chose to focus on the Yiddish ritual of ‘kvetching’, which literally means to crush or press, like squeezing a lemon, but it has become a byword in Yiddish for persistent complaining.

The idea of consistent complaining has almost completely negative connotations for us, the images it immediately creates of nagging, or moaning, of a loop of quibbling stuff. But, Perel was arguing, to kvetch in a constructive way is quite the opposite;

“it means you are grounded in reality, that you are having the full human experience. That you are aware of what's going on. To only talk positively would be out of touch.”

And it struck me that some kvetching is precisely what we all need right now. Not only could it be cathartic for us all personally, but it is a process that can lead to real change.

unhelpful positivity

As Susan David also talked about, despite an almost evangelical leaning in recent years to having to look on the bright side, the difficult stuff needs a place. If we don’t give those feelings a release, Perel says, the hurt will get bigger, or come out in a passive-aggressive way, because we can’t deny others the complexity of their experience. “It is critical we access the complexity of our experience,” says Perel, “it doesn’t mean we can’t be thriving,” but the idea we should always rise above it all is just not real. “You wouldn’t know peace if you don’t know a storm,” she adds, “you wouldn’t know recklessness if you didn’t know quiet”.

There is a key component though that makes kvetching a transformative experience as opposed to a repetitiously negative one, and it is its shared aspect. “An expert kvetch is insightful,” she says, “it draws on current events, human foibles and a little history. It is layered like baklava, you bring it to the party and everyone leaves feeling fed, better. It is a thing for catharsis in a time of uncertainty. It keeps you from stewing. When you kvetch together, you grow closer, you form social bonds.” Imagine, she suggests, getting together with a group of friends and instead of asking, ‘how are you?’ You say, ‘what do you have to complain about?’

“It's about the release over what you can’t control. It's the litany around the loss.”

But there’s another level to kvetching too. It is not only about complaining yourself; it is equally important to also complain about what the other person is complaining about. The whole point is to validate the feelings because either way they are still there. If you repress them, you still feel bad, but you berate yourself for having them and then, as Perel points out, “you feel bad for feeling bad that you can’t feel bad about feeling bad”. Kvetching is a subtle way about talking about sadness, loneliness about loss, she adds, it is this “juicy art”.

Tools for effective kvetching

And it’s an art we could all use some help in. Perel mentions Guy Winch’s book The Squeaky Wheel, in which he discusses tools for effective complaining. Things like taking a civil tone, trying not to be contemptuous. You can complain about one thing and one thing only, he suggests, and you make it as specific as possible, then make a request behind it. You can even give it a designated space in your house, where people to write down their complaints, and you agree to air them. It is a perfect counterfoil to the tyranny of star charts. But wouldn’t it be a truly empowering thing to teach your kids how to complain constructively, to share their grievances in a way that gets heard? Now that’s a life skill I would love to send people out into the world with.

And when you dig a little deeper, you can see that kvetching in its own way, has been a powerful force for change. What was the first half of the twentieth century but a process of kvetching, undertaken by women from all walks of life who were downtrodden for centuries? Women kvetched together, they bonded over their shared experience and inequalities, they kvetched so much that by the 1950s they eventually completely lost their shit and female liberation became a fully overground movement. So let's share in the stuff that pushes us to the limit of our reason. Especially now. Lets not just be angry, frustrated, alone, let’s get kvetching.

Jessie Collins, June 2020.