My father used to day “Denial is a perfectly functional response”. The short version of this is “Denial. It works”. I have learned that the same is true for VENTING. It’s functional. It works.
Venting is a little different than complaining. It’s different because it’s often preceded with the warning/disclaimer of “I just need to vent”, which means “I need to talk and you need to listen”. This is an awesome arrangement, in my opinion and in my experience. It allows the venter to process, to get it off his or her chest, to hear the words out loud that otherwise are going to rattle inside the head for who-knows-how-long.
Like complaining, which I also love in its place, venting lets us get to the heart of the matter. Maybe not immediately, but often eventually. The ventee can sometimes help with that or sometimes not. Good friends usually get this right, but if not it’s usually a self-correcting process, as in “I just need to tell you this! I don’t need a solution!”
Venting and complaining can lead to great changes and great things.
Long Live Venting.
Jane's Lessons Learned 