Do you know what you're really feeling?

In psychotherapy, there are many ways to conceptualise psychological processes. Thoughts, behaviour, emotions. And a vast number of subcategories that can be conceptualised (narrative, themes, systems). I would like to talk about one of the ones interesting to me — Emotions. Moreover, types of emotions, within the context of emotion focused therapy.

First, a little about the purpose of emotion

Emotions are a source of information or data about our experience and needs. Need of survival, connection, validation and boundaries. They are signals to ourselves and others about the state of our relationship. They also organise us to take action to get our needs met. For this reason, it is vital to know what we feel. More so, it is important to know what our primary emotion is in a given situation.

What are Primary and Secondary Emotions?

A primary emotions is the first emotion you feel in response to something. Fear to danger, anger at a violation, happiness at receiving a gift. It’s primary simply because it’s chronologically first. A secondary emotion is one that is a reaction to the first emotion. For example ‘’I am ashamed (secondary) that I got afraid (primary) of the sound of thunder’’.

When I heard about these concepts I kind of had a confirmation moment. Where I knew this was the case somehow but hadn't really put it in words. It’s like we can often hear the sound of pain in the villains' anger in a movie. The sadness behind Dracula’s anger.

For a moment, can you think about examples in film or your life where you suspect there is this phenomenon occurring?

Another example we may know is in sexual stereotype terms, men that are feeling vulnerable feelings like sadness or fear, will express anger. Women who may be experiencing healthy anger in a situation would instead express sadness. In these cases the secondary emotions mask or cloud the primary/core emotion being felt underneath.

I often look at this model like the earth's core. In a given situation a person could experience an inner, core emotion and an outer emotion. In emotion focused therapy, the therapist's roadmap is to guide the client to their core emotions. Even though, the outer emotions can be extremely potent and powerful, they are still masking a core feeling.

For example, hopelessness is a secondary emotional experience. I became hopeless that my core feeling of sadness at losing my dream job was not processed and then I became hopeless (secondary). So although the sadness may be at the core of the experience, the feeling of hopelessness takes over the entire horizon. “I have no more hope”.

Finding and experiencing the emotion that lies beneath, often has the power to bring harmony to the overall state; resolving the hopelessness in this case.

Another example: I find out that a friend of mine has passed away. Several days have passed since the funeral where I was able to grieve. But now I find myself feeling anxious when I think of their passing. In slowing the process down, I realise I am afraid of feeling the grief that is still present, waiting to be processed. Secondary fear can be the one that makes me say “not now” when I don’t want to confront a sad truth. By attending to my grief (primary emotion), experiencing it, and expressing it, processing it, I resolve the persistent anxiety (secondary emotion).

Another concept in emotion focused therapy is that a primary emotion can either be adaptive (healthy) or maladaptive (unhealthy).

Primary Adaptive

Think of a woman standing on the sidewalk with her 4 year old. She looks at her phone to see where they are heading. At this moment, suddenly the child wanders off onto the street. The mother gasps in fear, adrenaline rushes through her body, her muscles activate, she runs toward the child and grabs them off the street before nearby cars close in. The fear guides her.

Her emotions may still be aroused and she may need to express the experience to a friend later, but overall the experience will pass like a wave. These type of emotions are organising, responsive to the situation, transforming after the situation has changed (she experiences the feeling of relief and gratitude), shifting away from the fear. The fear was a primary adaptive emotion.

Primary Maladaptive Emotions - Our Wounds

A child grows up with a highly critical father without much encouragement or affirmation. The child experiences many instances of shame and never really learns how to process the shame. Now the child is an adult working in a company. Any time his boss gives constructive feedback about his work, he pretends to take it all at the moment. But as he tries to go on with his day this feeling of shame comes and hits him again and again. It feels stuck, disorganising.

Even though the boss’s words are long gone, this feeling in him stays. He can not let go of what the boss has said, rather, he can not move past this feeling of shame that is activated in him. That is a primary maladaptive emotion. It is the first emotion response to the situation, but it is one that doesn’t fit the current situation. It is a wound from an unprocessed past experience showing up in the present.

Emotion focused therapy is a humanistic therapy. It believes deeply that the client is the judge of whether an emotion is adaptive or maladaptive to a situation.

The journey to balance and flow

Usually, the path an emotion focused therapist takes the client is: bypassing (after validating) the secondary emotion, moving to the primary maladaptive and then transforming the primary maladaptive emotion to adaptive.

An example of the whole process could be: an individual who experienced sexual assault could come in for high levels of anxiety (secondary emotion). An anxiety toward feeling their shame (primary maladaptive) that they are experiencing after the assault. They could then be helped to experience and transform their maladaptive shame to access their anger (primary adaptive) at the violation.

Anxiety (Secondary) - Shame (Primary Maladaptive) - Anger (Primary Adaptive)

Accessing and transforming our unhealthy feelings and to healthy feelings allows us to live not without pain but without needless suffering. With more connectedness and groundedness.

The question is, how can I discover when I have a primary underlying feeling beneath the one that is obvious to me? Once I find it, how do I figure out whether that feeling is adaptive or maladaptive (fits the situation or not)? How do I transform it from unhealthy to healthy. The following paragraph is the first step in this process. In subsequent blogs I will continue each step of the process of building emotional intelligence.

Building Emotional Intelligence

The first step - Sensory Awareness

Every time there is an emotion in our organism, there is some degree of a sensation in the body that goes along with it. A sensation of heaviness in the throat when looking at a picture of a loved one who has passed away (as the saying goes “frog in the throat”). Feeling the heart racing and hands clenching to a fist in anger. A feeling of full relaxed comfort in the whole body in feeling bliss or gratitude. There is always a corresponding sensation to emotion. Generally, we are only passively aware of this.

Sensation is the entry point

In order to know what’s one’s core feeling is or even outer feeling is to first, being able to sense it. To be aware of the sensation.

When I saw men with guns enter our home’s kitchen door, I felt my chest sink and my movement slowed down, I felt my heart beat race up. Those sensations told me I was afraid, that I was in danger and needed to be cautious. The body is always giving signals. Building an awareness around these, is the first step to helping us receive the crucial information about our situation and what action needs to be taken. It is this fear that tells me not to cross the street when a car is coming and it starts in the body.

Exercise:

Take a moment to yourself. In private.

• Take a deep breath before you begin. (The breath helps the ability to access a feeling and also reduces it if it is too intense). Try to imagine a situation where you felt an emotion. Any feeling. A situation where the feeling is of medium intensity. One that was troubling to you or even nice for you.

• Imagine the situation and while you do that, what happens in your body as you do? What do you notice? Close your eyes if it helps. Be gentle and slow with this process. Allow any sensation to show up wherever it may come. Chest, back, throat, face. Maybe it’s subtle or maybe it’s big. Welcome it. Allow your self to experience it. If you feel yourself rushing, slow down and take another breath.

• If the sensation dies down, imagine the situation again, slowly. Now try and describe the physical quality of that sensation that is happening. Express in words about the sensation as if you are telling a friend next to you. Like “I feel a heaviness all around my head, chest and shoulders (as I think about seeing her crying)”. Or “I feel a burning, activated sensation in my upper chest (When I think about that stranger pushing me in the street)”.

In the beginning the awareness around sensation can by mild, vague or cloudy. With a little practice, this will become clearer. This ability will help you with the next phase of emotional intelligence: labelling and differentiating your emotions.

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You are on your way to develop the ability to sense your emotions. In part 2, I will share steps on how to label and differentiate your emotions. This will help you decide which emotions need to be bypassed and which need to be experienced and transformed.

Finally, part 3 of the series will show how to transform those emotions that are stuck, pervasive and destabilising to your life so that you can live with more freedom and peace.

Sources: Emotion Focused Therapy: Coaching clients to work through their feelings - Leslie S. Greenberg