Working with Emotions
Adapted from L. Greenberg, 2003
Why Focus on Emotion?
 Affect
is information
 Affect is primary motivator of behavior
 Emotions are often feared and avoided
 Emotional reactions learned through
experience
 Emotional experience and reactions can
be changed
Emotional Processing
Not catharsis or “getting rid of”
 Allow, tolerate, accept
 Make sense of
 Transform
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What is Emotion?
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A relational action tendency
A process of meaning construction
Emotions are relational action tendencies that
act to establish, maintain, or disrupt our
relationship with the environment in the form of
a readiness to act.
Emotions are the basis of social connectedness
and constantly give us signals about our social
bonds.
Emotion results from automatic appraisals of
situations in relation to needs/goals/concerns
Emotion is adaptive, not rational or irrational
Emotion and Reason
Nothing is urgent or important in life unless and
until it is brought to our attention by emotion.
 Each of the emotions may be thought of as a
spotlight that turns on to show us what needs
cognition.
 Each spotlight motivates us to use our cognition
differently.
 Stimulus gets a response only if it triggers
emotion.
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Emotion Schemes
Represent internally our emotional reactions plus
the evoking stimulus situation.
 Later we represent our conceptual learning and
beliefs associated with our emotional
experience.
 Results in a “high level” synthesis which when
evoked provides our sense of things such as
feeling unsure, confident, vulnerable, or “on top
of the world.”
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Emotional Reactions
Emotions tell me if things are going well
for me or not
 Emotional reactions are learned –
emotional systems are highly adaptive –
can become maladaptive
 Emotional reactions can be changed
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Emotional Processing
I always have a feeling of what is
happening rather I like it or not – I can
choose how I attend to it.
 How we make sense of what is going on
inside of us determines who we are and
how we will experience the moment
 How we make sense of emotions can be
influenced by culture
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Meaning Making
How we explain/describe to ourselves and
others how we are feeling will influence
what is going to happen and what we
need
 Out of our explaining process comes our
articulated self beliefs & self
representations – our self narratives
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Meaning Making
Example: “I’m depressed”
– I’m tired, need a break.
– My life sucks, I don’t like my life or self.
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Depending on how you explain this
internal feeling influences how you see
yourself, what will happen next.
Assessment
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Primary
– Adaptive or Maladaptive
Secondary
 Instrumental
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Characteristics
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Primary Adaptive
– Feel good even if not happy
– Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step
– First experienced in the body translated into
action
– Brings relief/change
– Enhances self and relationships
– Cues complete, full, sureness, calm,
integrated, alive, clarity
Characteristics
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Primary Maladaptive
– Feels bad
– Stuck
– Destructive to self and others
– Cues: Self pity, whining, tantrums, hysterical
sobbing, ranting, false calm or overexcited.
Characteristics
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Secondary
– Obscures
– Reactive
– Protective
– Diffuse
– Cues: Upset, hopeless, confused, low engery,
inhibited.
Characteristics
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Instrumental
– An emotional expression used to influence
others.
– Learn to express emotions to get gain.
Emotional Functioning
Emotion
Sadness
Adaptive
Grieving,
Reaching out
Maladaptive
Hopeless, despair,
Desperate clinging
Anger
Empowering
Destructive
Love
Caring, freeing
Addictive, clinging
Anxiety
Signals danger
Traumatic
Shame
Belong to group,
Remorse
Self hate, contempt
Disgust/
Contempt
Healthy outrage
Self/other abuse
Emotionally Focused Intervention
1 – Bond
2 – Evoke
3 – Access Deeper Emotion Scheme
Adaptive
Maladaptive
Guide
Transform
4 – Narrative Reconstruction
Interventions
When we get to a maladaptive primary
emotion we want to restructure it
 When we get to a secondary emotion we
want to validate & explore
 All emotions are not the same – getting in
touch with just any feeling isn’t going to
produce change
 In touch with core fear or core shame is
not productive
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Examples
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Client was depressed, crying & expressing
sadness but also expressing anger
– Secondary sadness (could be instrumental)
– Primary pain/anger
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Once we identify primary emotion we
must access it to get information
– If it is adaptive then we guide
– If it is maladaptive we restructure
Highlights
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Dialogue with self is not about “is it true”
– It is to access feelings/access the experience
Need to help clients access emotion &
learn how to bracket or come out of the
emotion
 Practice going in and coming out to show
they can do it/to help show emotions are
part of life.
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Highlights
We cannot take someone to an emotional
place unless we have been there ourselves
 If not we will take them there and then
take them out too fast or send a message
that emotions is bad or unsafe
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“I feel like a failure, does not mean I am a
failure.”