Hurting and Blaming: Two Components in the Action Formation of Complaints About Absent Parties

ABSTRACT This article investigates the action formation of complaints about absent parties—asking what makes them recognizable as such. It shows that recipient responses display their understanding that complaints comprise two components: a display of hurt (related to the impact of the complained-of events) and a blaming (attributing responsibility to an absent party). The setting, a bereavement support group in the UK, is perspicuous for this investigation because the group facilitators respond to the clients’ complaints by decoupling their constituent components, validating the hurt while avoiding affiliating with the blaming embodied in them. This makes visible these complaint-recipients’ distinctive orientations to the two components of complaints. The article advances understandings of the action formation of complaints; it documents practices whereby service providers can show compassion toward the hurt embodied in clients’ complaints; and it shows how principles of bereavement support are implemented in face-to-face interactions. The participants speak British English.