A constructive alternative to ranting may be focused expressive writing, which involves exploring one’s deepest thoughts and feelings about an issue in writing (Graham, et al., 2008). Superficially, writing a rant might seem similar to expressive writing but there are subtle and important differences. Ranting seems to mainly involve describing all the things you don’t like about someone, e.g. how they are a worthless, good-for-nothing who has done you wrong, and generally trying to compress as much malevolence as possible into one’s words. Ranting as such seems like an unreflective process without a clear goal. Expressive writing tasks on the other hand, encourage a person to try to understand the causes of their feelings and thereby gain some insight that may lead to a resolution of the problem.