Discerning Helpful Negative Emotions
Helpful negative emotions are less trouble than unhelpful ones and part of the human experience. Feeling sad, disappointed, embarrassed, annoyed, remorseful, jealous, and so on is part of life. These emotions are useful in helping you discover how to deal with experiences and how you fit in with other people.
Example
I'm 30 minutes late meeting my brother, and he's disappointed. He believes, however, that I wasn't intentionally late and is flexible enough to understand that life happens. The fact that I was late doesn't mean that I don't care about him but instead that I was simply stuck in traffic. Here, disappointment is a helpful negative emotion that brings about a discussion and develops an understanding, which helps people to trust each other better. This understanding leads in turn to feeling accepted and supported
Even a negative emotion such as anger can be helpful, too. To understand this, you need to accept that you can experience such a thing as justified anger, which can help you to recognise injustice, abuse, mistreatment, and so on, and motivate you to take action to prevent or stop it happening. So, in these circumstances, anger would be helpful
Identifying Unhelpful Negative Emotions
Unhelpful negative emotions play a big part in depression. They can feel overwhelming and are certainly more problematic than helpful negative emotions. Using the same scenario as in the preceding section, the following example illustrates the unhelpful emotion of hurt.
Example
I'm 30 minutes late to meet my brother, and he's hurt because he thinks I intended to be late. He attributes this belief to past hurts and begins to dwell on them. This unhelpful negative emotion spirals out of your feelings, often in one word such as hurt, angry, happy, sad, and so on. People often misunderstand negative emotions and say they feel irritable when they're really anxious or feel angry when they're actually really hurt, so correctly naming your emotions is a great start in discovering how to respond to them appropriately
As soon as you become aware of a negative feeling, asking yourself what was going through your mind that explains why you're feeling negative (in other words, you're looking for the thought/feeling connection) can help you recognise what you're really thinking
The meaning that you attach to events is what causes your emotional response to that event:
- You can place a positive meaning on the event, which leads to happiness and contentment
- You can attach a negative meaning to an event, which leads to unhelpful negative emotions and self- defeating behaviour
In turn, many emotions carry with them an urge to respond by acting in a certain way (the feeling/ behaviour connection). For example:
- You feel scared, you run away
- You feel hungry, you eat
- You feel upset, you cry
- You feel tired, you sleep
In depression, relevant examples may be:
- You feel hopeless, you give up trying
- You feel stuck, you do nothing
- You feel fatigued, you lie around
- You feel unwanted and/or unappreciated, you withdraw and avoid people
Remember
Unfortunately, following these behavioural urges when you're depressed only makes things worse because the feeling/behaviour connection becomes a trap that keeps you depressed and maintains your negative feelings
Changing Your Attitude
The good news is that when you become aware of the thought/feeling and feeling/behaviour connections, you can use this knowledge to change your attitude and response to negative emotions. In this way you begin to tackle your depression and start to lift your mood. This awareness and ability to take conscious decisions about your response to negative emotions is called emotional intelligence. I describe emotional intelligence in more detail in the later section 'Managing Your Emotions,' but as an illustration, take a look at the following example of Joe's journey of self-control and causes him to sulk - a self-defeating behaviour leading to isolation and withdrawal. No discussion takes place of the event, and the result is a troubling distance in our relationship
To look at another emotion used in the preceding section in another light, anger can be an unhelpful negative emotion, too. Unhelpful anger is usually unjustified, occurring when you find yourself feeling anger that is out of proportion to the circumstances. Unhelpful anger is usually based on unhealthy sensitivities based on previous experiences. For example if, you experienced ridicule or bullying at school you may develop a sensitivity to this and scan for signs that people are about to ridicule you. You may engage in mind reading or misinterpret innocent banter as bullying, and get inappropriately angry
Seeing the Value In Some Negative Emotions
Recognising that some negative emotions can be helpful and contain positive benefits is important, because when you're depressed you tend to see all negative emotions as unhelpful. As you come to see that helpful negative emotions are normal and natural, you can accept and tolerate them better and use them productively. For example, feeling guilty can be really useful if you employ it to motivate yourself to respond differently the next time you find yourself in a similar situation
Appreciating the Thought/Feeling and Feeling/Behaviour Connections
You may not be able to turn frogs into princes or everyday metals into gold, but you do something equally amazing: You can turn mere feelings into actual behaviours at the drop of a hat, usually without even knowing it. Thoughts and feelings are intimately linked, and the same applies to feelings and behaviour. Understanding these connections is vitally important when combating depression. You don't have to be at their mercy, and following the suggestions that I provide in this section (such as altering your attitude) allows you to find a way out of what can seem like (but certainly doesn't have to be) a vicious circle
Remember
You don't feel anything without thinking something to make you feel that way (the thought/feeling connection). This truth helps you to recognise and name discovery, from unhelpful anger, via helpful annoyance, toward some contentment
Example
Joe is queuing up at a bank cash machine, and someone pushes in front of him in the queue. Joe thinks that the other man has deliberately been rude and dismissive toward him. He believes that if he's walked over, he's an idiot. He's not going to allow other people to see him being treated like an idiot or else they'll think that he's weak and useless (not a real man). These thoughts cause Joe to feel angry and threatened (the thought/feeling connection) and he experiences an urge to react. This feeling/behaviour connection leads to an urge to attack
If Joe acts on his feelings, he may get into an argument or even a fight with the man, causing him further problems and perhaps negative emotions such as guilt or regret. If he doesn't act on these urges, however, because he's depressed he's likely to interpret his non-action negatively, feeling he's a failure and telling himself that he's a wimp who lets people walk all over him
Mythbuster
This 'dammed if I do dammed if I don't' scenario is called a double-bind situation and is very common in depression. It can cause a sense of hopelessness and thoughts of 'I can't win.' But you don't need to think that way and you can find a way out of this apparent impasse. Being aware of the problem gives you the choice of changing your attitude about it, as the following revised scenario of Joe's problem illustrates
Example
Joe is queuing up at the cash machine, and again someone pushes in front. Joe reminds the individual that he has jumped the queue, hoping that the man listens and moves to his correct position. But he doesn't. Joe thinks to himself, 'This is a misguided individual, but the fact that he chooses not to listen to me doesn't mean I'm a doormat and the event has no relevance to my self-esteem'
This change of attitude and use of emotional intelligence leads to a change in emotions and an altered behavioural urge
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