Emotion
Emotion is at the heart of any successful therapy. You simply can’t get better without facing your feelings, even (or especially) if you’d rather do anything other than that. Many years ago, before I went to grad school, and before I entered into my own therapy, I did not understand this. I had a vague, baseless assumption that feelings should be treated with suspicion, and, when possible, should be avoided. I remember telling friends with pride that I had not cried since I was 10. In technical terms, this is called pathology, but at the time I had no idea.
I did not learn much about emotions until I began my core training in ISTDP. Here I will try to distill the basics that I think would be helpful for anyone, and especially for someone beginning a course of therapy.
First of all, emotions are unavoidable. In fact, they are automatic. Many people seem to think that they could or should be able to control whether or not they have a feeling. On some level, they believe they can control the emotional reactions they have, or at least that they should be able to. As convenient as this may be for some, it is not the case. Emotions are too automatic for that. It would be like believing you can control whether a cut hurts you, or whether you feel thirst after not drinking water for a day. In a very similar way, we feel anger when someone hurts us, sadness when we lose someone or something we love, guilt when we hurt a loved one, and fear when an aggressive figure charges at us. We have a reaction on an automatic, instinctual level, whether we like it or not.
Second, emotions are bodily. Each feeling comes with a distinctive pattern of physical sensations, usually rising from the waist and moving upwards. Sadness, for instance, feels like a pain or an ache in the chest and heart, a lump in the throat, a heaviness in the torso, and an urge to cry. Anger is a wave of heat, power, and energy, rising up through the chest and out into the arms and fists. Love is a warm lightness in the chest, while guilt is a sharp, stabbing pain in the upper chest. These four, by the way, are the most important emotions within therapy. It’s not a long list.
Third, emotions all come with some kind of impulse or urge. In fact, emotions exist primarily to move us, to help us navigate life by seeking out what is good for us, and avoiding what is bad. Anger comes automatically with the impulse to defend ourselves and fight. Love makes us want to draw close and connect. Sadness makes us want to seek comfort from someone we trust after a loss. Guilt makes us want to apologize and repair after we have hurt someone we care about.
Fourth, emotions don’t make us do anything. Once we know what we feel, and experience the feeling and impulse in the body, we can then make a decision about what would be best. We are still thinking beings, with the ability to moderate our behavior and channel our emotions in a way that would be most appropriate and helpful. Without access to our emotions, we would be making decisions blind, without knowing what we wanted, or how we had been affected by someone’s behavior. While some people think that an emotion can take over and make them lose control, this is a misunderstanding that will be addressed in a later primer on anxiety. In short: when we can’t tolerate our feelings, we become anxious about them, and feel a need to get rid of them or act them out as quickly as possible. This is why someone might punch a hole in a wall or yell and scream at a spouse. The feeling itself is not the problem.
From here, more information likely won’t help you much. What’s important is to do the work of paying attention to what you feel. To name your emotions, experience the sensations, and notice each urge. For many, this will be very difficult without a therapist who is paying close attention. I and many others can be of help. I know of no better way to get to know yourself, to understand why you do what you do, and to set aside the symptoms you suffer from.
