Kitchen sinking is considered to be the middle stages in an unproductive conflict communication. The definition given in the book is as follows, "everything except the kitchen sink is thrown into the argument" (p.237).
When in conflict, people in relationships whether intimate or just friendships have a tendency to read off a "laundry list" of complaints for the sake of argument when the issue at hand has nothing to do with any of the previous complaints. Kitchen sinking occurs when there is more than a couple of concerns that have been held back for some time. When a conflict does arise, all those concerns are brought up in the conflict. Kitchen sinking is also a way to divert the discussion in order to derail the arguments in one's favor.
My Situation:
There was a time when I was in a friendship and my friend and I got in an argument. The argument was about how his friend was late to pick us up for the movies. I got upset with him because I told him to tell his friend what time the movies started and now we would be late and miss the movie. He tried to calm me down. I interrupted him telling him about all the times he is always late to functions and how he is unreliable. Then I start naming all the times he annoyed me when we were out in public.
The argument went absolutely nowhere and we never went to the movies. I listed all the unnecessary things that he used to do that I never liked. Instead of trying to call his friend and see where he was, my friend and I got in a heated discussion about everything that had NOTHING to do with the situation at hand.
-This clip below is from the movie "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" written and directed by Tyler Perry. The scene shown is when the grandaughter explaining to her grandmother that her and her husband are getting a divorce and how she doesn't think she is getting any assests. The grandmother starts listing off a "laundry list" that hardly pertains to the situation at hand.