What are Emotions and why do we have them?

What are they, why do we have them and what makes them go wrong

Emotions are constantly telling us what we need and what is best for us. Without them it would be very difficult to evaluate situations and understand how to react accordingly. Emotions are what kept our ancestors alive. Without feelings of fear or anger, they may well have become easy prey for bigger animals. Without feelings of joy or sadness, they would not have bonded together to increase their survival prospects.

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We can understand how emotions work by thinking of them in terms of primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions appear in direct response to a situation, tell us the appropriate healthy need and points us towards an appropriate behaviour. This need is usually related to feeling safe, feeling connected, or feeling validated.

Secondary emotions arise in response to another emotion e.g. we initially feel sad but it feels too painful, so instead we step into secondary anger. Essentially "our secondary emotions serve a function, protecting us feeling a distressing primary emotion" (Elliot & Greenberg 2021, p.35). When a primary emotion feels too unsafe to feel, then a secondary emotion comes in to take it's place. It's important to note that any emotion can be primary or secondary.

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Why is it that primary emotions sometimes feel so unsafe or distressing that we have to replace them with a secondary emotion? Often this is due to adverse childhood experiences or childhood emotional neglect. For example, expressing emotions like sadness or anger may have been discouraged in your family as it may have been deemed weak, or caused your caregivers to reject you in some way. You would have quickly got the message that feeling and expressing primary emotions is not a good idea, and so you learned to replace or repress them. This way of replacing and repressing emotions becomes a strategy that you continue to use later in life. However, while it was the best way to navigate being a child, it becomes problematic once you become an adult. It can create a range of mental health issues.

Negative childhood experiences teach us to avoid or repress sertain emotions

Feeling secondary emotions rather than primary can have negative effects. Essentially we don't attend to the primary need - underneath each secondary emotion is a primary one telling us what we actually need. If that need is not met, it can sit with us for many years. It can create a feeling of being stuck, and that we can't make sense of our experiences. We may have a low emotional awareness or trouble regulating our emotions, or difficulty responding with the appropriate emotion. It might fuel self-criticism or feelings of unworthiness and lead to unhelpful coping strategies like addictive behaviours.

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So, what can we do to be more comfortable feeling primary emotions? It's important to note that we can't do it alone. We learned oour emotional behaviour from being in relationships with others and it follows that being in the right type of relationship will help us learn new, more helpful emotional behaviours. The right type of relationship is a place that can provide something called a corrective emotional experience, something that gently challenges your expectations and supports you to try a new way of being, allowing you a safe place to hold previously taboo or uncomfortable emotions. Therapy is of course an ideal place to experience this. A therapist can provide an empathic, non-judgemental space, and an understanding of what your emotions are trying to tell you. In such a realtionship, you can gradually move towards a more authentic, meaningful version of yourself where self-compassion and self-knowledge can grow.

References:

R. Elliot & L. Greenberg (2021). Emotion-focused Counselling in Action. Sage.

L. Greenberg& R. Goldman (2019). Clinical Handbook of Emotion-focused Therapy. American Psychological Association.