My supervisor is attempting to teach me about emotion. One interesting theory she sent my way is thinking about emotions as either primary or secondary. For instance, anger is a secondary emotion. Thus, when someone comes in complaining about an anger problem, anger would be the secondary emotion so the counselor would look for the primary emotion. "What other emotions did you have? How did you feel before you got angry?"
Think about your own anger. What comes before it? If you are honest with yourself you might find other feelings; pain, disappointment, fear, jealousy, sadness, betrayal, helplessness, etc. Sometimes it helps to find the primary emotion (pain) and deal with that as a way to control their secondary emotion (anger). Once people learn to deal with the primary emotion they find that the secondary one has either decreased alot or disappears.
Luckily as I have no emotions myself, I don't have to worry about such things! OK, maybe that's not totally true. Hope you have an emotionally honest day today . . .
May Light increase!
Testing
2 weeks ago
4 comments:
Alright counselor, you said in your previous post that Microsoft made you nauseous and angry. What emotions do you think lead to your anger at Microsoft?
Yes, I know I'm a jerk. :)
Jay
Jay, you're not a jerk, I thought it was a good question. Hmmm . . . my primary emotion? Definitely frustration. And if I was counseling myself, I would probably ask about my beliefs that are contributing to my frustration. This would include beliefs about Microsoft, computers in general, and how things are supposed to work. If I was ready to be vulnerable, it would also get into my beliefs on how I relate to others (Do I need to be right and always espousing the "best" thing), am I really OK with being a mac user - or am I threatened with being on the fringe), etc, etc. Good question Jay!
Mark
Recently my spiritual director said to me that guilt doesn't exist, but is misplaced anger or anger in disguise. It sort of relates to your primary/secondary discussion, and sort of doesn't considering that she is saying the secondary emotion doesn't exist...
I'm curious what your THOUGHTS are on this
your fellow non-emot-er
Haylee
Hmmm . . . how can I say this . . . I'm not really gifted when it comes to understanding even basic emotions, never mind primary/secondary ones! The question I would have for Kayln is "What does "misplaced" mean? I kind of think that when you start reframing emotions as ________misplaced, you're on shaky ground. Why couldn't guilt be sorrow misplaced? Or frustration misplaced? Perhaps secondary emotions don't exist (I'm quite open to that as I'm having trouble following the primary ones), but to me guilt seems like its own emotion. Or maybe emotion plus belief. Actually, I think most of what we calll emotions are actually a combo of emotions and belief (frustration = anger + belief that thing ought to/should be different). OK, those are my thoughts, but as you can tell, I'm more confused then ever. Enjoy!
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