Sulking as a declaration of dependence

Abstract

Adult sulking is an emotional state and behaviour, characterized by misery and sometimes hostility, that occurs within intimate relationships. A remnant of unmet needs in infancy, it is enacted when omnipotence, grandiosity and feelings of entitlement are threatened. Sulking signals the sulker's feelings of dependency and powerlessness in relation to a significant other while defending against feared consequences of self‐assertion. As protest, appeal or coercion, sulking may be the recourse of any individual when words fail or are refused. This paper examines sulking in couple relationships because sulking is intrinsically interpersonal: a sulker requires someone to sulk at or to. While the sulker overtly cold‐shoulders the other, emotionally he is far from indifferent to the other's response. Sulking sits on a narcissistic continuum, with relatively benign moodiness at one end and coercive control at the other. Section 1 of this paper explores sulking firstly in childhood and then in adult relationships, together with the way spatial metaphors – the cave and tent – may assist the clinician's understanding of the sulker's self‐positioning in relation to his object. Sulking's purposive aspects are also considered. In Section 2, psychic agony is discussed to demonstrate how some people may become prisoners of their own or the other's sulking.