Meta Emotions
Problems with meta emotions
One model of meta emotions from CBT thinking is the panic
model, where anxiety becomes something anxiety provoking and therefore you get a
rapid increase of it.
However this principle of meta emotions seems to be applicable
when there are high levels of emotions.
If you have grown up to have your emotions invalidated, or
to see the emotions of someone else as scary, then when you feel certain
emotions, say anxiety then you will have another emotion about this, say more
anxiety, or anger, and then you may have feelings of sadness that you have all
of these emotions. Likewise you may have had traumatic experiences that relate
emotions back to the trauma.
When there is this build up of meta emotions then this would
seem to get in the way of responding to your emotions.
Emotions as messages
Emotions offer messages to ourselves (and to others) due to
something important happening that we need to act on. When they themselves become
the “something important” then the original message can get lost.
To listen to the message you need to be able notice when you
have emotions, which can most clearly be shown in feelings in your body.
Then you need to understand them by being able to label them
and connect them with the provoking event to be able to get their message.
Then you need to act on the message, even if the action is
to accept things as they are and do nothing. Now the message has been acted on no more
needs to happen in this conversation.
However if you have strong meta emotions then this sequence
of responding to your emotions is going to be difficult as you wont want to
listen to them, you will want to get rid
of them in some way. The ways to do this are many but anesthetising with
substance is popular as is ignoring\avoiding them or denying them.
Indicators of problems with meta emotions
There seems some indicators that there may be problems with
meta emotions. These could be seen in invalidating beliefs about emotions:
“I know its silly to feel x but”, “I feel really weak
because I feel y”, “I hate crying”, “I can’t cope with anxiety”.
Alternatively in behaviours to avoid or suppress the feeling
of the emotion, e.g. substance misuse, avoidance or distraction.
Finally within emotion itself where there is an overwhelmed emotional
confusion there is a good chance within that there has been this emotional
build up or emotions about emotions where the original trigger event is lost
underneath the inverted pyramid of emotions.
Creation of meta-emotion problem
There can be a combination of factors in terms of the build
up of emotions that range through the past\present and future. As an emotion is felt then there can be association
to the bad things that are associated with this emotion, then the emotion becomes
itself plus the emotions from the association.
Likewise as an emotion is felt then there can be a conscious response to
this in the present, “I’m such an idiot for feeling like this”, which again adds
the emotion plus the emotion from the self-criticism. Finally there is the future.
“I’m never going to get better” then this imagining comes with an emotional
impact which adds to the initial emotion.
Strategies to help
In working to unpick this then you have a combination of strategies
Cognitive understanding of the problem
To notice all the signs of difficulty with meta-emotions in
belief, behaviour
Contextual understanding of the problem
Influences from the past on emotions, and desires for the
future via emotion (values work)
Emotional understanding of the problem
To be able to sit with emotions (using focusing\mindfulness)
and to notice the various parts of them, to unpick the pyramid
Critique of emotions as distinct and linear
I realise this is a simplistic understanding in that it treats
emotions as discrete things, that come along like little trains with their
message down the track of experience. My
experience is different in that I experience emotions like paint and that in
any moment there are different hues, different blends and sure there can be
very dominant colours at times but predominantly that isn’t the case. I guess
the trains and message metaphor about I find useful as it can help understand
both dominant colours, and also to experience and investigate the hues.
Resources
CCI Distress intolerance: Website with four modules on
distress tolerance
The Compassionate Mind Workbook: 14 Sept. 2017 by Chris
Irons, Dr Elaine Beaumont
This has a section on being compassionate with your emotions:
Chapter 20 Putting our compassionate mind to work –
Compassionate engagement of emotion
No comments :
Post a Comment